More of the Daniel Wallace Essay (4)

III. Deissmann and the Papyri
In 1895 a German pastor by the name of Adolf Deissmann published a rather innocent-sounding volume: Bible Studies. Yet, this single volume started a revolution in NT scholarship--a revolution in which the common man was the winner.

In the 1800s Deissmann began reading ancient Greek MSS. But not the great classical authors. He was reading private letters, business transactions, receipts, marriage contracts. What were these documents? Merely scraps of papyrus (the ancient forerunner to paper) found in 2,000-year-old Egyptian garbage dumps. In these seemingly insignificant papyri, Deissmann discovered a key to uncover the NT! For these papyri contained the common Greek language of the first century A.D. They were written in the vocabulary of the NT.

What's so revolutionary about that? you ask. It is revolutionary because up until 1895, biblical scholars had no real parallels to the language of the NT. They often viewed its Greek as invented by the Holy Spirit. They called it "Holy Ghost Greek." Now it is true that the ideas--even the words--were inspired by the Holy Spirit. But it's another thing to say that the language of the NT was unusual--that its grammar and vocabulary were, in a word, unique. If this were true, only the spiritual elite could even hope to understand the NT.

Deismann's discovery burst the bubble on this view: the Greek of the NT was written in the language of the common man.

There are two implications of what Deissmann did for the Bible translations:

First, if the apostles wrote in easy-to-understand terms, then translations of the Bible should reflect this. We ought not to translate with big 50 cent religious-sounding words if the original was not written that way.

Except for having learned years ago that the Greek of the Bible is Koine Greek or the language of the common people, I'm not up on this facet of the situation and I guess I'll have to do some research, but my first take is that this seems like a trumped-up accusation of the KJV translators. Who says the KJV was written with "big 50 cent religious-sounding words?" What is the evidence that the KJV translators, or Tyndale or the Bishops Bible, which are about 95% of the KJV, did anything but render the Greek as accurately as possible? That is, since the Greek of the Bible is not identical to the Greek of the classics that educated people were familiar with, they may have erred in thinking it a special form of Greek invented by the Holy Spirit, but that doesn't mean they did anything but render it word for word as accurately as possible.

Well, he's going to give us an example of a "big 50 cent word" now:

The King James word 'propitiation,' for example, basically means 'satisfaction'--that is, God is satisfied with Christ's payment for our sins. Our Lord's final word from the cross, "It is finished," has been found on papyrus business documents--on receipts, if you will. It means "paid in full."

1. Seems pretty obvious to me that "propitiation" is NOT well translated by "satisfaction." The online Merriam-Webster definition of propitiation is "Specifically an atoning sacrifice." "Satisfaction" is a very vague term compared to "propitiation." It waters down the meaning. "Appeasement" would be better than "satisfaction" but "propitiation" is the best because it is most accurate. If readers' vocabulary isn't big enough to take in "propitiation" then the Bible can teach them a word they need to know.

2. Comparisons of the different versions over and over have shown that the KJV does NOT have stilted words, but some of the modern versions do. Just think "pinions" in the Revised Standard and NASB's terrible rendering of Psalm 91 where the KJV has "feathers."

In other words, Bible translations need to be clear. One of the obvious proofs of this is that the gospel offends people. And it cannot be offensive unless it is understood!

Yes, it DOES need to be clear, and "satisfaction" is NOT clear. It takes just as much explaining to get the meaning of "satisfaction" across as "propitiation" does, and it's open to far more misunderstandings.

As for offense, the idea of an atoning blood sacrifice of a human being is really offensive to people, but calling it payment of a debt is vague and wishy-washy and needs a lot of explanation.

Second, the papyri discoveries have helped us to understand words which the King James translators merely guessed at. For example, in the King James version of John 3:16, the Greek word translated 'only begotten' really means 'one and only' or 'unique.' The Bible, then, does not say that Jesus was the begotten Son of God--which might suggest that he had a beginning--but that he is the unique Son of God.

I assume this refers to the Greek word "monogenes" which the KJV and all the Bibles previous to it translated as "only-begotten?" Just looking at it suggests that has to be its most precise meaning. "Mono?" OK, pretty clearly means "one" or "only" (think "monogamy" or "monochrome" or "monologue.") Then "Genes" is obviously related to "genetics" and "generate" so "begotten" is apt for the origin of the Son of God. So in all these ordinary writings of daily life that Deissmann studied perhaps the most apt meaning is"unique or one and only." Well, are such writings normally referring to the generation of a human being, or simply the origin and uniqueness of various non-begotten things? Maybe I'm wrong but it sounds like it's a matter of context here, and in the mundane contexts in which the term monogenes was used it had to mean something like "unique" or "one and only" but that doesn't mean that in the context of the Biblical reference to the Son of God it is confined to that meaning.

As I already found out in doing verse comparisons, it appears that the differences in terms in the new versions usually come down to Westcott and Hort's having chosen the most marginally valid translation of the term, the least precise, or sometimes ANYTHING as long as the KJV didn't use it, and that subsequent versions based on the same Greek texts continued finding secondary and tertiary meanings for the Greek words. Really, that is the way it looks when you take the time to investigate and compare verses in many different translations, the word choices and what Strong's says about them.

But there is another implication of the papyri discoveries, though not related to Bible translations. Rather, it is related to preaching. Preachers of the Word of God need to make themselves understood. As one of my seminary professors was fond of saying, "We are not called to feed giraffes--we are called to feed sheep!" This does not mean that a sermon should be sloppy or inaccurate--just that it should be clear.

Deissmann has done a service for scholar and layman alike. He has shown that the language of the NT was understandable to the common man on the street. The ironic thing is that when the King James Bible was first published in 1611, it was condemned by many for being too easily understood! But after 400 years, the English language has changed. I, for one, invite the new translations because they give the gospel back to the people.

First of all, there is reason to believe that the new versions are not any clearer and have to be explained to people anyway.

Second, didn't Dr. Wallace just imply above that the King James used "big 50 cent words" and now he's pointing out that in its day it was thought to be "too easily understood!" There's something wrong with his reasoning here. Yes, after 400 years the English language has changed enough so that people do stumble over some of the archaic terms in the Bible. Remember though that in their day those archaic terms were not "big 50 cent words" but ordinary English.

Making the King James Bible accessible to people today only required at most some updating of some terms. There is absolutely no justification for substituting a whole different set of Greek texts and 36,000 changes in the English if your objective is to "give the gospel back to the people."

In fact there is no loss to the people of the gospel in the KJV as it now stands. It's mostly a matter of becoming familiar with it, which people were up to the time of Westcott and Hort, and would be now if it weren't for Westcott and Hort. There are very few words that cause people to stumble and they can be corrected in footnotes -- or if the revising committee that was hijacked by Westcott and Hort had done what they were in fact commissioned to do -- the absolute minimum necessary -- it would have been officially and sufficiently updated at that time.

More of the Daniel Wallace essay (3)

Third, the King James NT did not always follow the majority of MSS. Actually, the Greek text behind the King James was based on only about half a dozen MSS. Now it just so happened that these MSS belonged to the Byzantine text. But on a few occasions there were gaps. And the compiler (a man named Erasmus) had to fill in those gaps by translating the Latin NT back into Greek. There are, therefore, some readings in the King James--such as 'book of life' in Rev 22:19 or the wording of I John 5:7-8, which are not found either in the majority of MSS or the most ancient MSS. No serious student of the Bible would call them original (though many popular Bible teachers do).

Wycliffe English translation, 1388, has "book of lijf" at Rev. 22:19

Tyndale English translation, 1525-1535, has "boke of lyfe." (first English translation from the Greek.)

Bishops Bible, 1568, has "booke of lyfe"

Geneva Bible, 1587, has "Booke of life"

Dutch Statenvertaling, 1637, has "boek des levens." (tree of life is "boom des levens")

The above listing is simply to show that the KJV didn't come by its choice of "book of life" without precedent or authorization despite the paucity of Greek texts that have it. Why dismiss the Latin out of hand anyway? The translators obviously consciously chose it for whatever reason as the authentic rendering, and their reasons I would trust. It is known that the translators were familiar with all the texts available, they considered their choices with a high degree of precision, and had many others on the task to consult for each choice. Here's a place where the nonexpert can only trust the experts that show themselves to have the best qualifications, and to my mind that is the KJV translators far and away over Westcott and Hort and the other revisers of the liberally-corrupted 19th century they persuaded to their unjustifiable ways. Especially if the Greek texts the revisers based their choice on were only the Alexandrian type, the Latin of Erasmus is to be preferred. Of course it would be nice to see a comparison of all the extant Greek texts for this verse to know what Dr. Wallace means by "gap" in the Byzantine type. Is the whole phrase about taking the name out of the book of life not there?

And by the way, today's orthodox Jews acknowledge a Book of Life. Perhaps for some reason the early Gnostics didn't like the idea?

Fourth, the charge that the more ancient MSS or the men who embrace them are unorthodox is a faulty charge. It is true that in certain places the ancient MSS do not explicitly affirm the deity of Christ--such as in I Tim 3:16. But neither do they deny it!

No, there's no reason to accuse most of the new versions supporters of heresy just on that account. It seems pretty clear that most have simply been indoctrinated in the position of their schools, including acceptance of the basics of the Westcott and Hort travesty, ridicule of KJV-onlies and lack of encouragement to study the reasonable representatives of the anti-new versions position, especially Dean Burgon but some of the more recent writers too. Especially Dean Burgon. If ONLY Burgon were read, carefully thoroughly read.

As for the "more ancient MSS" the only important point is which are the closest to the originals, and simply being "more ancient" is far from guaranteeing that, and if the "more ancient MSS" aren't, then someone removed the affirmation of the deity of Christ in that verse as well as others.

Besides this, in some passages these ancient MSS make Christ's deity explicit where the King James does not! In John 1:18, the modern versions read "the unique one, God" while the King James has "the only begotten Son."

This is in fact the notorious "only-begotten God" passage. That is, the Greek in the "ancient MSS" (the corrupted MSS according to the authorities I trust) literally reads "only-begotten God" (as opposed to the Textus Receptus and KJV which have "only-begotten Son). Interestingly, the phrase is actually avoided in most of the translations, as well as by Dr. Wallace. Even Westcott and Hort avoided it in their Revised Edition, which Burgon notes and attempts to explain:

Thus we avow that we are offended at reading (against S. John i.18) -- 'Many very ancient authorities read "God only begotten:" whereas the 'authorities' alluded to read monogenes Theos [He gives the actual Greek which I am unable to reproduce here. The Textus Receptus has monogenes huios] . . . which (as the Revisionists are perfectly well aware) means 'the only-begotten God,' and no other thing. Why then did they not say so? Because (we answer) -- they were ashamed of the expression. --Dean John William Burgon, The Revision Revised, 1883, page 182.

Here's a site run by an independent Baptist church that answers this claim:

Interestingly enough, some have maintained that the “only begotten God” reading gives a stronger evidence to the deity of Christ since it uses the word “God”. Yet, the Jehovah Witnesses do not seem to think so. They fit it perfectly into their doctrinal system that denies the deity of Christ and makes Him a created “god”. In fact, as a whole, the Christian community did not like this reading. Despite other weaknesses, they saw it for what it was—an attack on the deity of Christ. To use an old saying, the “only begotten God” became about as rare in modern versions as hen’s teeth.

From the same site we have these facts too (I'm sure they're available from many sources, but they're here so I'm quoting him):

What exactly is the evidence against “the only begotten Son”? Sir Frederic Kenyon’s Handbook to the Textual Criticism of the New Testament gives credit for the departure from the Authorized Version of 1611 to the influence of the Codex Sinaiticus. This Greek manuscript was discovered by Constantin Tischendorf in 1844 in the Eastern Orthodox monastery of St. Katharine at the base of the traditional Mt. Sinai.

In fact, the United Bible Society’s Greek New Testament lists eight Greek texts that read the “only begotten god” though some manuscripts have a “the” and some do not. Yet, thirty-one listed manuscripts and a multitude of quotations from the early Christian authors attest to the King James reading of “only begotten Son”. The Sinaiticus, whose authority is definitive in this decision, is thought to be a product of the fourth century after Christ. Yet, at least two authors of the second century (Irenaeus and Clement) quote the passage as “the only begotten Son.”

[my emphases]

This is often the case with the evidence for the new versions choices over the KJV. Hard to justify rationally. Amazing to think that a huge swath of today's church accepts such stuff.

Wallace didn't quote it as "only-begotten God" but as "the unique one, God" -- perhaps for the same reason Burgon surmises was the case for Westcott and Hort, although the Greek in the corrupted texts quite straightforwardly reads "only-begotten God." Really, there doesn't seem to be any way to write this one that makes sense, let alone maintain the meaning of Christ as the begotten Son. Doesn't "the unique One, God" make that verse read "The unique One, God in the bosom of the Father has declared Him?" That doesn't even identify Christ at all. What exactly it means is impossible to say, though as noted in the quote above the JWs have no problem making it refer to a created god. Doesn't "only-begotten Son" convey the different Persons as well as the Deity of the Son? What am I missing?

But the American Standard, and Young's and Darby maintain the KJV's "only-begotten Son" and I haven't found any version that has "the unique One, God."

Others attempt to grapple with the new version in various awkward, confusing and ultimately meaningless ways:

ESV: No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father's side, he has made him known.

NIV: 18 No one has ever seen God, but God the One and Only, who is at the Father's side, has made him known.

NASB: No one has seen God at any time; the only begotten God who is in the bosom of the Father, He has explained {Him.} [This is the only modern translation that uses the actual phrase given in the corrupted Greek texts.]

RSV: No one has ever seen God; the only Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, he has made him known.

When they don't refer to Christ or the Son at all, there is no way to make sense of the verse.

But here I have to say that as soon as I get into making comparisons like this I'm again appalled at the wildness that is accepted among Bible translations and allowed among Christians in dealing with God's word. I'm horrified. What? Anybody with a smattering of Greek or merely a Strong's Concordance and a Greek dictionary can have a go at it? What?

Futhermore, the majority of evangelical scholars embrace this critical text. Even the men who edited the New Scofield Reference Bible of the King James Version personally favor the critical text!

Lots of fundamentalists have recently gone for the modern translations at least in part. It's a scandal among KJV-onlies. It's actually easy enough to explain as the leaven of the false versions spreading through the whole lump as scripture says leaven has a way of doing [1 Cor 5:6, Gal 5:9].

Fifth, at the same time, there are some scholars today who are strong advocates of the Byzantine text--most notably, Zane Hodges and Arthur Farstad. Together they edited The Greek New Testament According to the Majority Text and Dr. Farstad was also the senior editor of the New King James Bible. Thus, it is possible to be intelligent and still embrace the Byzantine text, just as it is possible to be evangelical and embrace the modern critical text. (I happen to disagree with the resultant text that Firsthad and Hodges have produced,1 but I respect their scholarship.)

(Love that "possible to be intelligent and . . . ") If you really respected their scholarship you would present both sides of the argument as you go and make an attempt to show the superiority of your own against theirs, but so far this essay is nothing but the usual one-sided apologetic for the new versions argument.

Finally, we ought to quit labeling one another as heretics or idiots in the ongoing discussion. There needs to be charity on both sides. One of my college professors frequently said, "The Christian army is the only army in the world that shoots its wounded!" Unfortunately, this is especially true when it comes to translations of the Bible.

Fine general principle, but a major help from the new versions side would be to stop characterizing all the KJV-onlies as extremists, conspiracy mongers and name-callers and actually address the substance of their argument.

More about the new versions defense by Dr. Daniel B. Wallace (2)

After identifying the different set of Greek texts that are the basis for the revised Bibles, Dr. Wallace's essay goes on to list "many archeological and manuscript discoveries" and "philosophical influences" such as changed translational standards, as other differences from the era of the King James:

These three differences--textual, informational, philosophical--have been the parents of a new generation of Bible translations. But are these translations any good? Are they any better than the King James?

For the rest of the essay, we will examine each of these influences and then, finally, try to see which translation is best.

II. The Text of Modern Translations
Where have all the verses gone? The modern translations seem to have cut out many of the most precious lines of Scripture. They end Mark's gospel at the 8th verse of chapter 16; they omit the reference of the angel of the Lord stirring the waters at the pool of Bethesda (verse 4 of John 5); and, most notably, they excise the story of the woman caught in adultery in John 8.

Besides omissions, these modern versions make significant changes in the text. For example, in I Timothy 3:16, the King James reads, "God was manifest in the flesh," but most modern translations read, "He was manifest in the flesh." In Revelation 22:19 the King James speaks of the "book of life" while virtually all modern versions speak of the "tree of life." Altogether, there are hundreds of textual changes between the King James and modern translations.

In this brief essay we cannot determine who is right. But we can make a few observations.

Well, if you'd just focus on what Westcott and Hort actually did, their utterly unjustified changes and the fruit of their work in the proliferation of Bibles as mere commodities created by human invention with ever-multiplying unjustified changes to confuse the sheep, we wouldn't need to discuss who is right or any of the observations that will follow.

First, the textual changes in the modern translations affect no major doctrine. The deity of Christ, virgin birth, salvation by grace alone--and all the rest--are still intact. Though certain passages are omitted or changed, the doctrines are not.

There are evangelicals who prefer the King James and there are some evangelicals who prefer the modern translations.

This is completely irrelevant to the real concern. That we can still eke out all the major doctrines from the modern versions is simply a smoke screen for the glaring fact that those major doctrines are precisely what have taken a hit in the Greek texts preferred by Westcott and Hort and all Bibles based on them.

As I point out in another recent post, besides the effect of mutilating the Bible trusted by English-speaking Christians for centuries -- back through the translations that preceded the KJV as well -- it isn't too hard to conjecture what use might be made of the particular passages where the Deity of Christ and the Trinity and the supernatural are eliminated from the wording, by a Gnostic-styled heretic such as the Antichrist most likely very soon to arrive on the scene. (The Jehovah's Witnesses already benefit from the W&H legacy; their text really helps along their particular heresy. That ought to mean something, people.) Many such passages could be quoted to fit his own credentials that in the KJV and earlier translations clearly refer to the God-Man Jesus Christ. Of course if Christians are going to be raptured by the time he appears perhaps it doesn't matter? We have no obligation to the unbelievers to educate them in the truths of the Bible? I've talked to enough Mormons and Jehovah's witnesses and liberal Christians to know that they can quite glibly quote scripture to prove anything they want. But why should an altered Bible itself be allowed to help them out?

Also, that some people prefer this or that translation is likewise a misleading observation. That individuals prefer anything whatsoever for subjective reasons is absolutely beside the point and should never ever be made the supposedly important point they always make of it. There are differences between the texts. Adding or subtracting from God's word is condemned by God. To leave it to the average Christian to make subjective choices is irresponsible on the part of church leaders.

What we want to know is which is the true, accurate, complete text, the text we can trust to be closest to if not identical to the inspired originals, and NOTHING else matters. The evidence supports the KJV and the text it's based on, which makes the modern versions all corrupt, and that being the case we can then make the far more interesting observation that it is precisely the passages in those versions supportive of the major doctrines that are the very ones omitted. And only if they can give convincing evidence that it's the Revised Bibles and their text that are closest to the originals can they justifiably claim that the KJV is corrupt because material has been added to it. And they don't have convincing evidence of that. The age of the manuscripts is NOT convincing evidence. The very fact that they raise such irrelevant points -- as that you can get the major doctrines out of the corrupted texts anyway, or that people like this or that Bible best -- has the feel of evasion and duplicity to my mind.

Second, the textual changes in these modern translations are based on the most ancient MSS of the Greek NT. These MSS date from early in the second century A.D. But the Greek texts behind the King James belong to a group of MSS--called the Byzantine text--which are much more recent. On the other hand, although these MSS are more recent, they comprise at least 80% of the 5000+ MSS of the NT that we presently have. It is theoretically possible that, at times, these MSS point to an early tradition as well.

Yes, that's why it's called the Majority Text, there are so many of them. But it's far more than merely "theoretcally possible" that an early tradition underlies the Majority Text. Until Westcott and Hort came along and turned everything on its ear it was believed with faith that this plethora of MSS of the type used for the King James in itself represents the true text recognized by the true church from the earliest times. It is not just "theoretically possible" but a demonstrable fact that in fact they do, as there is plenty of evidence from the early centuries of the same readings that are found in the Byzantine MSS, in the form of quotations by the Church Fathers and lectionaries (collections of readings from the Bible) used in the churches that read the way the King James text reads.

The reasoning that the age of an existing manuscript tells us something about its purity or validity is spurious (or, really, it does, but what it tells us is the opposite of what is claimed). The Byzantine MSS are "more recent" only in the sense that so many thousands have survived since the Middle Ages but not many from earlier centuries. There are thousands of the same Byzantine type text, including translations in a wide range of languages. Their very existence in such numbers is strong evidence for a long history of copying leading up to the surviving MSS. Clearly they were THE text of the church across the world at the time. And, more important as evidence is the fact that the other textual tradition WAS known all along, so when the Westcott and Hort preferred manuscripts were found they were recognized as belonging to a tradition already judged as corrupt -- except by those in the 19th century who had come under the spell of the liberal German Tubingen School. This fact then leads to the reasonable conclusion that they represent a type known as corrupt and therefore rejected throughout the centuries, and since the corruptions quite tellingly do eliminate many references to various central doctrines of the faith that were contested by various heresies in the early centuries, there is good reason to attribute them to tampering by various early heretical sects, which was assumed by many textual critics and experts before Westcott and Hort. There is also evidence in the earliest texts themselves of such tampering.

Above and beyond all this is the promise by God to preserve His word for His people. The defenders of the new versions imply that ALL the Bibles except for some in the earliest centuries were corrupted, and therefore imply that God had not preserved His word all that time, choosing to oversee an authentic Bible only from 1881. This is absurd and damaging to the body of Christ but it is implied by their position.

To be continued.

"Progressive" Politics and the Antichrist

Here's a You Tube video about Antichrist candidate, Maitreya, heralded by one Benjamin Creme -- You can find out more about them by listening to Scott Johnson's talks I linked in a post below, the first one at least, or the first two. (Lord Maitreya, the Antichrist? Also Mars, Lord Maitreya, the Ascended Masters & Strong Delusion Also the PDF file that goes with it.)

Maitreya is presented by Creme as "The Teacher," but also The Christ or the Imam Mahdi or The Messiah and so on, the fulfillment of expected messianic figures of all religions. "Maitreya" is the name of the Buddhist expected leader. He's to be a spiritual AND political world leader who has plans for setting the world right. The idea is that we're in such a mess it's going to take such a leader of course. He also predicted a worldwide economic collapse, by the way, but then many of us have been predicting something along those lines.

Creme CHANNELS Maitreya, who speaks to him inwardly, the way a familiar spirit communicates with a medium. Maitreya "chose" Creme for this function back in the 70s, the same way a demon chose Helen Schucman and dictated the New Age teaching A Course in Miracles to her. As I've pointed out before, A Course in Miracles is one of Oprah's favorite pieces of demonic wisdom which she is sponsoring for this entire year.

Well, guess what Maitreya's message is? SHARING with others. Share International is the name of his site, and it has connections to the United Nations.

Soft Marxism. The Progressive line. Leftist economics.

Capitalism, according to him, here represented by his channeler Creme, is inherently evil. Just look around the world, he says. America has great wealth but so much of the rest of the world lives in dire poverty and we're going to have to learn to SHARE. Then everything will be set right, and the whole world will live in peace.

That's pretty much the Leftist idea, right? Obama represents it too. First an American socialist antichrist will get himself elected with help from powers and principalities, and then the Satan-possessed world leader will appear with supernatural powers, and we'll all come under socialism. By force, of course, because that's how it's always done. The change Obama has in mind sure has nothing to do with freedom.

Creme speaking for Maitreya also said that the message of 9/11 is that we have to share with the underprivileged, implying that 9/11 was justified revenge on the wealthy nation. Yup, wealth is not produced by hard work, nor is it a blessing from God, and poverty is not the result of bad practices and bad governments. No, the inequities are all just a terrible natural accident of capitalism. Creme's talk is straight Leftist (just as Obama's is). We're all so "intolerant" and "divisive." This is what has to "change" in our world of course. Evil capitalism.

Aside from the fact that America is already the most generous nation in the world and has been for a long time, this explanation of the causes of wealth and poverty is just insanity, as Marxism always has been.

Just what we need, right? A supernaturally endowed religious figure coming to impose socialism on us. It isn't just a national political platform, it's the program of the United Nations, it's the program of the New World Religion, it's the program of the Antichrist.

The Role of the Bible Versions in the Last Days

Since it's the Bible versions controversy I've spent most time on in this blog I suppose I ought to attempt some sort of explanation where it fits into the last days scenarios that are the overall framework I have in mind here.

The extremist KJV-onlies are always characterizing the modern Bible versions as part of the Great Apostasy of the last days and I think they are right, but I don't like their conspiracy thinking and general tone. Believing as I do that the Revised English Bible Westcott and Hort came up with is a travesty based on corrupted Greek texts and an unconscionable mutilation of the English as well, I can easily attribute it to a work of the devil. Of course. But that doesn't mean I think that Westcott and Hort consciously served the devil. Most service of the devil is done by human beings without the slightest idea that's who they are serving, and there is no reason whatever to suppose them to be conscious of their complicity. Westcott and Hort probably thought they were serving the true church of Christ (of course so do the Mormons and the Jehovah's witnesses and so on, and Liberal "Christians").

That said, the question remains what the devil's purpose was in doing this.

In a way it's obvious of course. Anything that corrupts the Bible would make the devil happy. But in specific, doesn't it lead people into sin who assume the right to judge scripture for themselves? With so many versions out there, pastors feel obliged to investigate the Greek or Hebrew in order to best preach a passage, and even rank-and-file Christians are encouraged to use their Concordances and Greek and Hebrew lexicons to determine for themselves what the best reading is. This is done casually, as if the Bible were just like any other book rather than the word of God. Well, that's the legacy of Westcott and Hort, who treated it as just like any other book. That has become the attitude of the entire church in these last days.

Concerning the differences in the Greek texts, KJV supporters point out that the majority of verses found in the KJV that are not found in the modern versions do have doctrinal import, concerning the Deity of Christ and the supernatural events that validate His identity and mission. The new versions people answer that none of these doctrines have been completely left out of the new Bibles and are taught just as faithfully from these Bibles as from the KJV. They also theorize that it wasn't that they were left out of the new versions, anyway, but instead that they were added into the textual tradition behind the KJV. James White called this the "expansion of piety." This is merely a plausible hypothesis although they treat it as if it were a fact, and also treat the opposing point of view as if it were unquestionably wrong, that those verses were subtracted instead. What seems to go generally unrecognized is that either way, whether by adding or subtracting, this is condemned by God, and it isn't something to be lightly glossed over. Both the new versions and the KJV CANNOT be God's word; either one or the other is based on corrupt texts, texts that were tampered with and changed against God's clear warning.

So the devil is happy to create such a dilemma and get people to deny it as well, to subtly demote the Bible in people's minds, lead them to subtly put their own judgment above God's, subtly dampen their sense of reverence for God's word, introduce doubt as to its trustworthiness that simply has to come along with the multiplicity of versions, and so on, but does he also have an ultimate last days mission for the new versions?

Some think so. Assuming the KJV-only position that the corruption was a subtraction of terms that existed in the original, it is easily explained as serving a Gnostic view of Christ that deprives Him of His identity with God among other heresies. With such an agenda most of the new versions could be used to feed the Antichrist's imposture of Christ (called The Christ in much of New Age teaching). It's not too hard to imagine that some verses which affirm the true identity of Christ in the KJV could be quoted from the new versions, where they are without the cues to Deity, in order to affirm another's identity as "the Christ" in some contexts. People who don't know the Bible wouldn't have any objection, they could be shown it right there in black and white, and those Christians who have the new versions wouldn't be able to say without great effort that a particular verse really meant the true Christ if at face value it doesn't necessarily. And if they don't know the Bible well, they too can be misled.

Well, it's possible.

Some Candidates for Antichrist

OK, I have to confess that I am fascinated with the talks given by Scott Johnson at Sermon Audio and try to keep up with them. I'm also slightly embarrassed by this fascination because his stuff is definitely out there on the fringe (New Age, Antichrist, the Illuminati, witchcraft, satanism, UFOs and the like), and he doesn't always give convincing support for his claims --- he's pretty good with the evidence MOST of the time, however.

Maybe the topic he covers that I have the biggest problem with is the Masonic influence behind the founding of America and especially the Masonic allegiance of many American leaders. Some of the "evidence" for this is really questionable. Also the conspiracies he finds in the pharmaceutical business. So I listen to all those with a huge grain of salt, and get what I can out of them. Staying away from drugs as much as possible is a good idea whether there is conscious intention to kill us or get us possessed by demons or not, and it's interesting to know about the Masonic order even if some of the people involved in it aren't in on the conspiracy as he assumes they are, but don't have much sense of what it's really about themselves. I also have a problem with Johnson's mistakes that show his utter lack of familiarity with many of the personalities and movements he's discussing, mistakes like mispronouncing the name beyond recognition. His English grammar also leaves a lot to be desired.

BUT with those caveats, I do recommend his talks. He does do his homework and most of the time it's pretty solid, and if you believe as I do that we are in the very last of the last days, this is the kind of material it could be very useful to know, as he presents the possibility of some pretty spectacular signs and wonders to accompany the rule of the Antichrist that would certainly deceive many, including Christians, if we aren't forewarned. If only half of what he says bears out in reality, it's worth knowing about. If you don't think it's possible to be deceived in these last days you really don't have much of a sense what the devil is able to pull off when he has God's go-ahead.

I can't remember if I discovered him by searching for "Antichrist" at Sermon Audio (There's an ex-Catholic priest there, who has some great talks on the Antichrist system of the Catholic Church, Richard Bennett, well worth listening to), or by searching Google for comments on Oprah Winfrey's promotion of the New Age Course in Miracles which she started this year. Johnson has talks on both subjects and covers them well.

The reason I'm bringing up Scott Johnson's talks now is that yesterday a political blog I sometimes watch had a You Tube video of Louis Farrakhan calling Barack Obama the "messiah." Then this morning my brother called me to tell me he's decided Obama has to be the Antichrist. He hadn't seen the Farrakhan video, he just figured that with Obama's inexplicable charisma and popularity with so many otherwise intelligent people, despite his known history with Islam, the terrorist Ayers, his Kenyan cousin Odinga (the political leader who was behind the riots there a few months ago), the anti-American pastor Jeremiah Wright and so much more, he fits what we would expect of the Antichrist. Especially his ability to make his evil associations appear to be fabrications by his political opposition. A child shouldn't be deceived by what he gets away with but millions of adults are nevertheless deceived.

I could see his point but can't agree with him because there are too many other candidates for Antichrist to consider. I said I'd send him some other material to ponder, which I'm going to include here too.

Many of us know the Antichrist has to be just around the corner. The one thing that needs to happen before Jesus returns, according to Biblical prophecy, is that the Antichrist be revealed. Whether Christians will be raptured before this event is a theological point I don't yet have a solid position on.

I've got to say that Farrakhan does a good job of playing the role of the Antichrist's prophet when he calls Obama the messiah. Farrakhan has a bit of an identity crisis, however, having identified himself as Jesus and Elijah, both, at different times.

Then there's the fact that Oprah Winfrey has endorsed Obama, Oprah who is a little antichrist prophet herself, pushing her false version of Christianity and various forms of quasi-Eastern religions and New Age witchcraft such as A Course in Miracles.

So Obama has some good credentials for the job.

But so does the Pope, or many of the Popes. Many have noted that the papacy is an antichrist system, including many leaders of the Protestant Reformation. But then there was A.W. Pink, of the Reformed tradition himself, whose writings I usually love, denying that the Antichrist could be a Pope because the papacy is an institution and not an individual. I think he really missed the boat there. An individual Pope could well fit the Biblical requirement when the time comes.

The Pope's qualifications for Antichrist start first of all with his styling himself the Vicar (or Substitute) of Christ, which is as good as an official title for the Antichrist -- kind of like wearing a name tag saying "I am the Antichrist," except of course people are blinded to such obvious truths. And it has a nice little bit of numerological evidence to support it as well: The Latin title for Vicar of Christ is Vicarivs Filii Dei (Literally, Substitute for the Son of God) and when you count up the numerical values of the Roman Numerals embedded in the title they add up to a very neat 666. Try it. (That "u" is written "v" remember). All the numerological proofs for various other contenders don't come close to the elegance of this one.

Then I also found a medieval prophecy that concerns the whole line of the Popes to be quite fascinating, as it prophesies that the very last one is going to be the next one, the one after the current Pope Benedict XVI, who, if the prophecy is correct, will be known as Peter the Roman and will reign in a time of great persecution right before the return of "the formidable Judge." Of course in Catholic lore this Pope is to be a great hero.

So the last Pope is also a very likely candidate for Antichrist, better credentialed in many ways than Obama. However, one better credential Obama may have is that he well fits the Biblical prophecy that the Antichrist will be a "little horn" that arises through intrigue very rapidly to a position of influence.

At the very least, of course, all these contenders would be strong players in the Antichrist regime in one role or another.

But now consider yet another candidate. This is Scott Johnson's candidate. He's quite a contender, having already shown some "signs and wonders" for credentials, along with endorsement by the United Nations yet. Johnson has a multi-part series of talks on this guy:

Lord Maitreya, the Antichrist? (part 1 of 7 parts) (The description of this guy has something in common with Obama politically -- the feed-the-hungry socialist part anyway -- but when you get deeper into his characteristics you'll see how he's very different when it comes to supernatural powers).

Here's an earlier talk on the same subject: Mars, Lord Maitreya, the Ascended Masters & Strong Delusion This talk has a PDF file with it that covers a lot of the same material and includes pictures. You can save this PDF file to your computer.

And since Obama and Oprah have come up in this context, here are a couple of talks by Johnson related to them as well:

Oprah Winfrey boldly leading Humanity to the New Age Antichrist
(Scott Johnson doesn't believe Obama is the Antichrist but there's no doubt he is AN antichrist and Oprah is actively promoting him as well as a slew of New Age demonic doctrines this year, but Obama isn't the subject of this talk).

The Spell and Deception of Barack Obama (Johnson doesn't believe he's The Antichrist and I personally think he overestimates Obama's charisma, but then many do seem to swoon over him so he has some bona fide qualifications for the great deceiver.)

An Essay by New Versions Apologist Daniel B. Wallace: "Why So Many Versions?"

Got caught up in this essay by new versions defender Daniel B. Wallace and thought maybe I could make some useful comments here and there from the opposing point of view. There's not much in it that I haven't already encountered, it's the standard defense of the new versions, covering much the same territory as James White for instance.

Why So Many Versions?
By: Daniel B. Wallace , Th.M., Ph.D.
http://www.bible.org/page.php?page_id=663

"Breaking up is hard to do," as the song goes. Ma Bell did it--creating a glut of long distance companies almost as numerous as brands of deodorant.

The Bible did it, too. Before the year 1881 you could read any version you wanted--as long as it was the King James Version. But since 1881, scores of new translations have been printed.

So, he wants to frame the discussion by comparing the proliferation of Bible versions with the deregulation of a business monopoly which was supposed to increase productivity by competition? So competition is a good thing with God's word too? God's word should be open to human invention and variation? We should all make our own judgment as to what form of God's word we want? God's word is just a commodity? God's people are just consumers presumed to be able (and to have the right) to make their own judgment as to what constitutes God's word for themselves?

It certainly does seem to fit what has actually happened. Perhaps he should be applauded for his honesty.

Well, let me see if I can anticipate where this is going and explain it properly before it gets there. Ma Bell was deregulated by the government for better or for worse, and perhaps a bit of both, but the reason we have so many Bible versions is that a couple of questionably qualified and questionably motivated textual critics persuaded the Anglican Church of their day (the producer and owner of the King James Bible) to accept their judgment about the content of the Bible, which basically involved changing the King James almost beyond recognition without authorization and without any other kind of justification. To put it mildly. They had been commissioned to make minor changes; they produced a completely new and inferior Bible. That this is what happened was patently clear to their contemporary Dean J W Burgon who described what they did in many essays and one massive study, The Revision Revised. But of course this is precisely what is in dispute, since the new versions defenders will claim the revised Bible was superior, and apparently they couldn't care less that its producers violated their trust in producing it or that the manuscripts they used were regarded as corrupt by other experts in Westcott and Hort's day.

How did the King James get dethroned? Which translation is best today? Are any of the modern translations really faithful to the original? These are some of the questions we'll be looking at in this essay. But initially, we'd just like to get a bird's eye view. We simply want an answer to the question, "Why are there so many versions of the Bible?"

It got dethroned as described above. It remains the best translation today, even conceding that it may yet need some improvements. No, none of the modern translations are really faithful to the original. We don't have the originals so we have to decide which tradition of Greek texts is faithful and which isn't -- both traditions can't be faithful because they are different. The Greek texts the KJV was based on are appreciably different from those the new versions are all based on, which means at least one tradition of Greek texts must be corrupted. I am convinced of course that it's the modern versions that are based on corrupt texts. The versions defenders, however, although the implication of their position is that the Greek Text underlying the King James is the corrupt one, try to get away with claiming that the King James is fine too, but both traditions can't be fine because they are too different from each other.

And again, why are there so many versions? Because of the very bad Greek texts and horrifically bad Bible translation made by a couple of arrogant textual critics that got enshrined as authoritative, which led to the ensuing proliferation of versions thanks to their bad example -- well, if they could play fast and loose with God's word, anybody can -- and many have, especially over the last few decades, turning the Bible into a huge business involving as many changes to the text as they can dream up.

But since you are still waiting for Dr. Wallace's explanation, here it is:

There are three basic influences which have given birth to a multitude of translations.

First, in 1881 two British scholars published a Greek New Testament which was based on the most ancient manuscripts then available.

This is true, but to put it in perspective, this appeal to "the most ancient manuscripts" in this context is to imply that they are superior, the idea being that they are superior simply because they are older -- and "superior" of course means that it is assumed that, being older, they are most likely closest in text to the original autographs written by the apostles and inspired authors.

There are thousands of old Greek manuscripts available to scholars today, the vast majority of which have survived from the Middle Ages, and most of those are what the King James Bible was based on. It's called the Majority Text, and the Received Text (or Textus Receptus or Traditional Text) is made up of preferred readings from this tradition. There are a very few Greek manuscripts that have survived from the first few centuries, and the Westcott and Hort preferred texts are dated to the fourth century which make them the earliest, at least in 1881, to have survived the ravages of time. (There have been some earlier manuscripts found since then which will be addressed soon.)

These fourth century texts that were preferred by Westcott and Hort happen to have significant differences from the Majority Text manuscripts, notably the absence of many familiar passages. In 1881 when Westcott and Hort did their translation, these manuscripts that they themselves were so fond of were regarded by other Bible experts such as Burgon and Scrivener as corrupt and unworthy. The King James translators of 250 years earlier were familiar with the same type of manuscript although the particular manuscripts W&H used were found after their time. The King James translators had already rejected that type of manuscript as having been corrupted, and Westcott and Hort's contemporary Dean J W Burgon recognized the type as corrupt and emphatically denounced them as corrupt in his Revision Revised which was a thorough critique of Westcott and Hort's work.

In other words, their being older does not necessarily mean they are more trustworthy, and in this case there is evidence that they are less trustworthy. In fact there is some reason to believe they were altered in the early centuries to support an early Gnostic cult. That would take a lot of mustering of facts and discussion to prove, but suffice it to say the length of time a particular manuscript has survived is no certain evidence for its text being closer to the originals, though the new versions treat this as a foregone conclusion.

This text, by Brook Foss Westcott and Fenton John Anthony Hort, made several notable departures from the Greek text which King James translators used. For the most part, the Westcott-Hort text was a shorter New Testament. That's because the older manuscripts (MSS) which they used did not contain passages such as the longer ending of Mark's gospel or the story of the women caught in adultery. The Greek MSS which the King James translators followed included these and many other passages.

Yes, these are the facts. Many passages familiar to English-speaking people from the King James are not in the Westcott-Hort preferred text.

If you have a parallel Bible with the King James and the Revised English versions side by side for comparison, you will immediately see that there is space left at the bottom of almost every page below the revised version, and any other translations that were spawned from the same texts, while the KJV's longer text fills the page. The only time the revised version takes up more of a page is when it changes the format from paragraph style to verse style. The differences are that visible. [I reduced the font and lightened the color to minimize the impact of this statement because I'm wrong about this. the changes aren't necessarily visible. I was comparing a King James in separate verse format with an English Revised in paragraph format]

If you compare just about any passage word for word you should be amazed, as I was, to see how many purely niggling trivial word substitutions were made in the revised Bible for perfectly good and usually superior words in the King James. Change for change's sake. Really, anyone who makes such a comparison ought to be disgusted. There is NO excuse. But now I've gotten ahead of Dr. Wallace.

At the same time the Westcott-Hort text made its debut, the English Revised Version of the New Testament appeared. A new era was born in which translations of the New Testament now used the few ancient Greek MSS rather than the many later ones.

Completely true. They produced the English Revised Version from their preferred texts, the same ones denounced as corrupt by Burgon and others, and besides that they changed thousands of English words according to some standard of their own, against the instructions they had agreed to follow in revising the text, and produced a disaster for the English Bible. And we are certainly in this full-blown "new era" now in which there are -- how many? dozens at least? -- new English translations of the Bible based on those corrupted texts, the corrupted texts being "the few ancient ones rather than the many later ones." To be clear, again, these are the few that simply happened to survive from ancient times, a fact which, really, ought to show that they weren't in much favor with the churches or they wouldn't have survived, having disintegrated from constant use and surviving only in later copies made from them, just as we can assume the ancient precursors of the "many later ones" must have. The fact that there are "many" of the type that underlay the King James is in fact GOOD evidence for their authenticity.

Westcott and Hort's violation of their trust is also a major fact that needs to be acknowledged, but whether the result of their work is a disaster or not has become a matter of opinion, because the new versions defenders accept Westcott and Hort's viewpoint instead of Burgon's and Scrivener's and call it progress. This is what this dispute comes down to.