MODERN GREEK TEXTS ARE FOUNDED UPON THE WESTCOTT-HORT TEXT
Sadly, the critical approach to the Bible that was evident among many nineteenth century scholars has continued to be the dominant philosophy of the twentieth century. In light of Bible prophecy regarding the apostasy of the last hours, we do not find this phenomenon surprising. It is upon the corrupt foundation of Westcott-Hortism that the entire edifice of modern versions rests.

THE NESTLÉ’S GREEK TEXT. Eberhard Nestle’s Greek text, which first appeared in 1895, was based on Tischendorf’s 8th edition of 1869-72, Westcott and Hort’s edition of 1881, and the 1902 edition of D. Bernhard Weiss (TBS Article No. 56). Tischendorf stayed closely to the Sinaiticus, while Westcott and Hort largely followed the Vaticanus. Thus the Nestle Text is founded largely upon the Vaticanus and Sinaiticus manuscripts. The Nestlé’s Text has gone through 27 editions and has been widely used in Bible College and seminary classrooms and translation work. Aberhard’s son Erwin Nestle succeeded to the editorship of the Nestle Text after Aberhard’s death in 1913. In 1950 Kurt Aland became associated with the Nestle project and later editions of the Nestlé Text are called the Nestlé-Aland Text.

THE UNITED BIBLE SOCIETIES GREEK TEXT. Since its third edition, this popular Greek text, published in Münster, Germany, is identical to the 26th edition of the Nestlé-Aland Text. The 1st edition was published in 1966; the 4th, in 1983. The first four editors were Kurt Aland, Matthew Black, Bruce Metzger, and Allen Wikgren, and Eugene Nida “initiated, organized, and administered” the first UBS project. Carlo M. Martini has been on the editorial committee since 1967. Not one of these men believes the Bible is the infallible Word of God.

CARLO MARIA MARTINI (1927- ) has been an editor of the United Bible Societies Greek New Testament since 1967, beginning with the second edition.

He is a Jesuit priest and the Archbishop Emeritus of Milan. He entered the Jesuit order at age 17 on February 25, 1944, and was ordained on July 13, 1952, at age 25, “an exceptionally young age for a Jesuit.” He graduated summa cum laude from the Gregorian and the Pontifical Biblical Institute, the latter with a doctorate in theology. He was consecrated as Archbishop of Milan by Pope John Paul II in January 1980 and proclaimed a Cardinal on February 2, 1983. His diocese in Europe is the largest in the world, with two thousand priests and five million “laity.” Martini speaks eleven languages, is a prolific author, and is “Italy’s best-selling author.” He was President of the Council of European Bishop’s Conferences from 1986 to April 1993. Time magazine, December 26, 1994, listed him as a possible candidate in line for the papacy. The Sunday Telegraph, London, England, Aug. 11, 1996, described Martini as “the new great hope of the struggling Catholic Church” and “the man many believe will be the next leader of the world’s 800 million Catholics.” But that was before Pope John Paul II outlived everyone’s expectations and Martini himself probably became too old to be pope. Martini retired as Archbishop of Milan in the summer of 2002.

Martini holds both traditional Catholic dogmas as well as “foreword looking” ones. Following is a quote, for example, from Martini showing his commitment to the dogma of the traditional Catholic mass: “The ministry of reconciliation goes on throughout our lives, but especially at two moments. The first in intercession, that is in the Eucharist. We take on this ministry when we offer Christ’s body and blood and show it to the people. This is the chief moment in which we are ministers of reconciliation. ‘This is the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world.’ If only people could understand the extraordinariness of this action and these words” (Martini, In the Thick of His Ministry, p. 58.)

But Martini also holds “progressive” views in regard to the priesthood and women’s role in the church: “Celibacy is not necessarily linked to the priesthood. ... I am aware of the desire of women to have a greater role in the Catholic Church, and I accept that desire” (Sunday Telegraph, Aug. 11, 1996). I believe the views of Martini on these issues represent the future of the Catholic Church, that it will eventually relax its celibacy law and allow women priests; and this move will further its ecumenical designs.

Martini was a professor at the Pontifical Biblical Institute in Rome, which, in addition to Roman Catholic heresies, promotes the theory of evolution and the heretical modernistic documentary views of biblical inspiration, etc.

Martini is a member of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences. At the Academy’s annual meeting in October 1996, the Pope announced that the theory of evolution is “more than a hypothesis” and that the work done in the last half century by evolutionists “constitutes in itself a significant argument in favor of this theory” (Vatican Information Service, Oct. 23, 1996). The Pope and the Pontifical Academy of Sciences hold a form of theistic evolution, claiming that while the world was made by the process of evolution, the soul of man was “directly created by God.”

Carlo Martini is committed to a strange universalistic, New Age doctrine. Note the following quotes from his books:

“The risen Jesus is present to each one, as though the individual loved person were the only object of his love. The risen Christ is the love of God revealed in our hearts by the Spirit, in the heart of each and of all and in each of all. Jesus does not individualize this ‘each’; he gives himself to the church, the world, the angels, and the universe. Jesus exists for all. But he is for all in such a way that he is for each one, thus making each one become a part of the whole. Such is the power of the resurrection of the ‘abbreviated’ Word, which has made itself small. Whoever accepts the scandal of the Word-become-small will share in the glory of the universality of the cosmic Word which embraces and synthesizes everything, in which all things find their order and fullness, in which everything is resumed and established” (Carlo Martini, Through Moses to Jesus, p. 121).

“The deification which is the aim of all religious life takes place. During a recent trip to India I was struck by the yearning for the divine that pervades the whole of Hindu culture. It gives rise to extraordinary religious forms and extremely meaningful prayers. I wondered: What is authentic in this longing to fuse with the divine dominating the spirituality of hundreds of millions of human beings, so that they bear hardship, privation, exhausting pilgrimages, in search of this ecstasy?” (Carlo Martini, In the Thick of His Ministry, p. 42).

EUGENE NIDA (1914- ) is the father of the blasphemous dynamic equivalency theory of Bible translation. Originally with Wycliffe Bible Translators, Nida has been associated with the American Bible Society and the United Bible Societies since 1943. “In addition to administrative responsibilities, his work involved field surveys, research, training programs, checking manuscripts of new translations, and the writing of numerous books and articles on linguistics, anthropology and the science of meaning. This work has taken him to more than 85 countries, where he has conferred with scores of translators on linguistic problems involving more than 200 different languages. Dr. Nida was also Translation Research Coordinator for the United Bible Societies from 1970 to 1980” (Record, American Bible Society, March 1986, p. 17). Though retired, Nida retains his relationship with the ABS and UBS as a Special Consultant for Translations, and is active in research, writing, and lecturing.

As to his view of biblical inspiration, Nida says, “...God’s revelation involved limitations. ... Biblical revelation is not absolute and all divine revelation is essentially incarnational. ... Even if a truth is given only in words, it has no real validity until it has been translated into life. ... The words are in a sense nothing in and of themselves. ... the word is void unless related to experience” (Nida, Message and Mission, New York: Harper & Row, 1960, pp. 222-228).

The Psalmist did not hold to Nida‘s theories about the words of Scripture. He said, “The words of the Lord are pure words...” (Psalm 12:6). Throughout Scripture, it is the very words of the Bible that are said to be important, not just the basic meaning. The words of the Bible ARE something in and of themselves, regardless of whether they are related to anything else. Nida is wrong. The words of the Bible are intrinsically the eternal words of God. Nida’s chief problem is his rejection of the doctrine of verbal, plenary inspiration.

“Nida states emphatically that the biblical revelation is not ‘absolute’ and applies Paul’s statement that ‘now we see through a glass, darkly’ (1 Cor. 13:12) to the biblical revelation itself, which as the really incarnate Word can offer no absolute truth. Because it is a medium of communication within a limited cultural context, human language is unsuited as a vehicle for supernatural, eternal truths that would, in fact, need a language that is unhuman or divine” (Nida, Message and Mission, pp. 224-228, cited by Van Bruggen, p. 76).

“In a time when the Bible was thought to be written in a kind of Holy Ghost language, the only criterion to exegetical accuracy was the pious hope that one’s interpretations were in accord with accepted doctrine. At a later period, when grammar was viewed almost exclusively from an historical perspective, one could only hope to arrive at valid conclusions by ‘historical reconstructs,’ but these often proved highly impressionistic. At present, linguistics has provided much more exact tools of analysis based on the dynamic functioning of language, and it is to these that one ought to look for significant developments in the future” (Eugene Nida, Language Structure and Translation, Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1975, p. 259).

Nida is dead wrong in his views that the Bible is not absolute, is not eternal truth, and that it is written in imperfect language. Though written by imperfect men, the Bible is written in words chosen by God and settled forever in heaven. The Bible IS written in a language that is divine; it IS Holy Ghost language. The Bible’s words are God’s words and they have eternal validity whether or not they are “translated into life,” whether or not they are understood by man!

Nida says the accounts of angels and miracles are not necessarily to be interpreted literally.

“.. wrestling with an angel all have different meanings than in our own culture” (Nida, Message and Mission, p. 41).

The Bible’s accounts of angels do not have different meanings for different cultures. They are infallibly recorded accounts of historical events. Jesus Christ believed in literal angels and interpreted the Old Testament miracles literally, and He is certainly a more faithful guide than Dr. Nida.

As to the atonement of Jesus Christ, Nida says, “Most scholars, both Protestant and Roman Catholic, interpret the references to the redemption of the believer by Jesus Christ, not as evidence of any commercial transaction by any quid pro quo between Christ and God or between the ‘two natures of God’ (his love and his justice), but as a figure of the ‘cost,’ in terms of suffering” (Eugene Nida and Charles Taber, Theory and Practice, 1969, p. 53). In A Translator’s Handbook on Paul’s Letter to the Romans, Nida (with co-author Barclay Newman) says, “...‘blood’ is used in this passage [Romans 3:25] in the same way that it is used in a number of other places in the New Testament, that is, to indicate a violent death. ... Although this noun [propitiation] (and its related forms) is sometimes used by pagan writers in the sense of propitiation (that is, an act to appease or placate a god), it is never used this way in the Old Testament.”

Nida is wrong. The sacrifice of Christ was not just a figure; it WAS a placation of God, of His holiness and of the righteous demands in His law. Christ’s sacrifice WAS a commercial transaction between Christ and God, and was NOT merely a figure of the cost in terms of suffering. The sacrifice of Calvary was a true sacrifice, and that sacrifice required the offering of blood—not just a violent death as Nida says. Blood is blood and death is death, and we believe that God is wise enough to know which of these words should be used. Romans 5:8-10 teaches us that salvation required BOTH the blood and death of Christ. Had Christ died, for example, by strangulation, though it would have been a violent death, it would not have atoned for sin because blood is required. Those, like Nida, who tamper with or reinterpret the blood atonement often claim to believe in the cross of Christ and in justification by grace, but they are rendering the Cross ineffective by reinterpreting its meaning. There is no grace without a true propitiation. This word means “satisfaction” and refers to the fact that the sin debt was satisfied by the blood atonement of Christ. The great difference between the heathen concept of propitiating God and that of the Bible is this—the God of the Bible paid the propitiation Himself through His own Sacrifice, whereas the heathen thinks that he can propitiate God through his own human labors and offerings. The fact remains, though, that God did have to be propitiated through the bloody death of His own sinless Son.

Nida is a clever man. He does not openly assault the blood atonement and the doctrine of inspiration as his translator friend Robert Bratcher does. (Bratcher, translator of the Today’s English Version, has co-authored books with Nida.) Nida uses the same words as the Bible believer, but he reinterprets key words and passages such as those above. This is called Neo-orthodoxy. Beware.

Nida says Bible language was not given of God but was determined by the writers of the Bible.

“Nida and Taber state that Paul, if he had been writing for us rather than for his original audience, would not only have written in a different language-form, but also would have said the same things differently” (Jakob Van Bruggen, citing Nida and Charles Taber, Theory and Practice of Translation, p. 23, n. 3).

Nida does not believe the Bible’s own confession about its nature. In 2 Peter 1:21 we read that “the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.” Since the Bible writers did not choose their words, it is heretical to say they would write in a different language form if they were writing today. Paul’s words did not arise from his own will and context but were Revelations from Heaven and were written in words chosen by God. “But I certify you, brethren, that the gospel which was preached of me is not after man. For I neither received it of man, neither was I taught it, but by the revelation of Jesus Christ” (Gal. 1:11-12). See also 1 Corinthians 2:10-13, where Paul states that the very words of New Testament Revelation are of God.

Nida says there are no absolutes in Christianity except God.

“The only absolute in Christianity is the triune God. Anything which involves man, who is finite and limited, must of necessity be limited, and hence relative. Biblical culture relativism is an obligatory feature of our incarnational religion, for without it we would either absolutize human institutions or relativize God” (Eugene Nida, Customs and Cultures, New York: Harper & Row, 1954, p. 282, footnote 22).

Nida puts everything which man has touched in the category of imperfection, even the Bible and the institutions of described in Scripture, such as the tabernacle, the priesthood, and the church. Nida is wrong. The Bible, though written by fallible man, is infallible Revelation.

Nida says Bible translation is to be tested by the response of non-christians and by youth.

“Nida and Taber describe the difference between an earlier concept of translating and their own concept as a shift of the focus from the ‘form of the message’ to the ‘response of the receptor’; therefore the translator must now determine in particular the response of the receptor to the translated message (p. 1). Here it is not a matter of an abstraction, such as ‘The English-speaking person,’ but it is a matter of real individuals that appears when Nida and Taber desire that translations be attuned to non-Christians and to youth (pp. 31-32), and be tested by the potential users (p. 163)” (Van Bruggen, citing Nida and Taber, Theory and Practice of Translation).

Nida has things backwards. How could unsaved people and young people determine if a Bible is an accurate translation of the preserved Greek and Hebrew text of Scripture? They don’t have the ability, spiritually or educationally, to make such a determination. The Bible plainly says the unsaved cannot understand God’s Word (1 Cor. 2:12-14). It is the translator’s job to make an accurate Bible translation. It is then the job of evangelists and teachers to help people understand the Bible.

Nida’s erroneous view of the Bible is his foundational heresy, and this heresy alone is justification for God’s people to mark and avoid him (Romans 16:17). It is very strange to see people who profess to accept the Bible as the inerrant Word of God following the teachings of men who deny this precious doctrine.

Another of the editors of the United Bible Societies‘ Greek New Testament is BRUCE MANNING METZGER (1914- ). Metzger is George L. Collord Professor of New Testament Language and Literature, Princeton Theological Seminary, and he serves on the board of the American Bible Society. Metzger is the head of the continuing RSV translation committee of the apostate National Council of Churches in the U.S.A. The Revised Standard Version was soundly condemned for its modernism when it first appeared in 1952. Today its chief editor sometimes is invited to speak at Evangelical forums. The RSV hasn’t changed, but Evangelicalism certainly has!

Metzger was the chairman for the Reader’s Digest Condensed Bible and wrote the introductions to each book in this butchered version of the Scriptures. The Preface claims that “Dr. Metzger was actively involved at every stage of the work, from the initial studies on each of the sixty-six books through all the subsequent editorial reviews. The finished condensation has received his full approval.” The Condensed Bible removed 40% of the Bible text, including the warning of Revelation 22:18-19! In the introductions to the books of the Reader’s Digest Bible, Metzger questions the authorship, traditional date, and supernatural inspiration of books penned by Moses, Daniel, and Peter, and in many other ways reveals his liberal, unbelieving heart. Consider some examples:

Genesis: “Nearly all modern scholars agree that, like the other books of the Pentateuch, [Genesis] is a composite of several sources, embodying traditions that go back in some cases to Moses.”

Exodus: “As with Genesis, several strands of literary tradition, some very ancient, some as late as the sixth century B.C., were combined in the makeup of the books” (Introduction to Exodus).

Deuteronomy: “It’s compilation is generally assigned to the seventh century B.C., though it rests upon much older tradition, some of it from Moses‘ time.”

Daniel: “Most scholars hold that the book was compiled during the persecutions (168-165 B.C.) of the Jewish people by Antiochus Epiphanes.”

John: “Whether the book was written directly by John, or indirectly (his teachings may have been edited by another), the church has accepted it as an authoritative supplement to the story of Jesus’ ministry given by the other evangelists.”

1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, Titus: “Judging by differences in style and vocabulary from Paul’s other letters, many modern scholars think that the Pastorals were not written by Paul.”

James: “Tradition ascribes the letter to James, the Lord’s brother, writing about A.D. 45, but modern opinion is uncertain, and differs widely on both origin and date.”

2 Peter: “Because the author refers to the letters of Paul as ‘scripture,’ a term apparently not applied to them until long after Paul’s death, most modern scholars think that this letter was drawn up in Peter’s name sometime between A.D. 100 and 150.”

Metzger‘s modernism was also evident in the notes to the New Oxford Annotated Bible RSV (1973). Metzger co-edited this volume with Herbert May. It first appeared in 1962 as the Oxford Annotated Bible and was the first Protestant annotated edition of the Bible to be approved by a Roman Catholic authority. It was given an imprimatur in 1966 by Cardinal Cushing, Archbishop of Boston, Massachusetts. Metzger wrote many of the rationalistic notes in this volume and put his editorial stamp of approval on the rest. Consider some excerpts from the notes:

INTRODUCTION TO THE OLD TESTAMENT: “The Old Testament may be described as the literary expression of the religious life of ancient Israel. ... The Israelites were more history-conscious than any other people in the ancient world. Probably as early as the time of David and Solomon, out of a matrix of myth, legend, and history, there had appeared the earliest written form of the story of the saving acts of God from Creation to the conquest of the Promised Land, an account which later in modified form became a part of Scripture. But it was to be a long time before the idea of Scripture arose and the Old Testament took its present form. ... The process by which the Jews became ‘the people of the Book’ was gradual, and the development is shrouded in the mists of history and tradition. ... The date of the final compilation of the Pentateuch or Law, which was the first corpus or larger body of literature that came to be regarded by the Jews as authoritative Scripture, is uncertain, although some have conservatively dated it at the time of the Exile in the sixth century. ... Before the adoption of the Pentateuch as the Law of Moses, there had been compiled and edited in the spirit and diction of the Deuteronomic ‘school’ the group of books consisting of Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and Kings, in much their present form. ... Thus the Pentateuch took shape over a long period of time.”

NOTES ON GENESIS: “[Genesis] 2.4b-3.24 ... is a different tradition from that in 1.1-2,4a, as evidenced by the flowing style and the different order of events, e.g. man is created before vegetation, animals, and woman. ... 7:16b: The Lord shut him in, a note from the early tradition, which delights in anthropomorphic touches. 7:18-20: The waters covered all the high mountains, thus threatening a confluence of the upper and lower waters (1.6). Archaeological evidence suggests that traditions of a prehistoric flood covering the whole earth are heightened versions of local inundations, e.g. in the Tigris-Euphrates basin.”

NOTES ON JOB: “The ancient folktale of a patient Job (1.1-2.13; 42.7-17; Jas. 5.11) circulated orally among oriental sages in the second millennium B.C. and was probably written down in Hebrew at the time of David and Solomon or a century later (about 1000-800 B.C.).”

NOTES ON PSALM 22: “22:12-13: ... the meaning of the third line [they have pierced my hands and feet] is obscure.” [Editor: No, it is not obscure; it is a prophecy of Christ’s crucifixion!]

NOTES ON ISAIAH: “Only chs. 1-39 can be assigned to Isaiah’s time; it is generally accepted that chs. 40-66 come from the time of Cyrus of Persia (539 B.C.) and later, as shown by the differences in historical background, literary style, and theological emphases. ... The contents of this section [chs. 56-66] (sometimes called Third Isaiah) suggest a date between 530 and 510 B.C., perhaps contemporary with Haggai and Zechariah (520-518); chapters 60-62 may be later.”

NOTES ON JONAH: “The book is didactic narrative which has taken older material from the realm of popular legend and put it to a new, more consequential use.”

INTRODUCTION TO THE NEW TESTAMENT: “Jesus himself left no literary remains; information regarding his words and works comes from his immediate followers (the apostles) and their disciples. At first this information was circulated orally. As far as we know today, the first attempt to produce a written Gospel was made by John Mark, who according to tradition was a disciple of the Apostle Peter. This Gospel, along with a collection of sayings of Jesus and several other special sources, formed the basis of the Gospels attributed to Matthew and Luke.” [Editor: The Gospels, like every part of the New Testament, were written by direct inspiration of the Holy Spirit. This nonsense of trying to find ‘the original source’ for the Gospels is unbelieving heresy.]

NOTES ON 2 PETER: “The tradition that this letter is the work of the apostle Peter was questioned in early times, and internal indications are almost decisive against it. ... Most scholars therefore regard the letter as the work of one who was deeply indebted to Peter and who published it under his master’s name early in the second century.” [Editor: Those who believe this nonsense must think the early Christians were fools and the Holy Spirit was on a vacation.]

NOTES FROM “HOW TO READ THE BIBLE WITH UNDERSTANDING”: “The opening chapters of the Old Testament deal with human origins. They are not to be read as history ... These chapters are followed by the stories of the patriarchs, which preserve ancient traditions now known to reflect the conditions of the times of which they tell, though they cannot be treated as strictly historical. ... it is not for history but for religion that they are preserved ... When we come to the books of Samuel and Kings ... Not all in these books is of the same historical value, and especially in the stories of Elijah and Elisha there are legendary elements. ... We should always remember the variety of literary forms found in the Bible, and should read a passage in the light of its own particular literary character. Legend should be read as legend, and poetry as poetry, and not with a dull prosaic and literalistic mind.”

This modernistic babble is a lie. The Pentateuch was written by the hand of Moses and completed during the 40 years of wilderness wandering hundreds of years before Samuel and the kings. The Old Testament did not arise gradually from a matrix of myth and history, but is inspired revelation delivered to holy men of old by Almighty God. The Jews were a “people of the book” from the beginning. The Jewish nation did not form the Bible; the Bible formed the Jewish nation! In Metzger’s “Introduction to the New Testament” in the New Oxford Annotated Bible, he completely ignores the inspiration of the Holy Spirit and claims that the Gospels are composed of material gathered from oral tradition. The Bible says nothing about this, but Jesus Christ plainly tells us that the Holy Spirit would guide the Apostles into all truth (John 16:7-15). The Gospels are divine revelation, not some happenstance editing of oral tradition.

Bruce Metzger is a heretic. He piously claims on one hand that the Bible is the inspired Word of God; but out of the other side of the mouth he claims the Bible is filled with myth and error. He denies the Bible’s history, its miracles, and its authorship, while, in true liberal style, declaring that this denial does not do injustice to the Word of God, because, he says, the Bible is not “written for history but for religion” and is not to be read “with a dull prosaic and literalistic mind”!

Metzger has been called an Evangelical by some who should know better, but upon the authority of the man’s own writings, I declare that Bruce Metzger is an unbeliever. He is a false teacher. He is an apostate. He is a heretic. Those are all Bible terms. Having studied many of the man’s works, I am convinced those are the terms that must be applied to him. One Baptist writer cautiously defended Metzger to me with these words—“he did write a superb pamphlet in 1953 refuting the Jehovah’s Witnesses and defending the full and absolute deity of Christ.” Even the Pope of Rome defends the full and absolute deity of Christ. A man can defend the deity of Christ and still be a false teacher. A man who denies the written Word also denies the Living Word. They stand or fall together. If the Bible contains error, Christ was a liar. If Christ is perfect Truth, so is the Bible.

In The New Testament, Its Background, Growth, and Content, which appeared in 1965, Metzger claims that “the discipline of form criticism has enlarged our understanding of the conditions which prevailed during the years when the gospel materials circulated by word of mouth” (p. 86). This is not true. Form criticism is that unbelieving discipline which claims that the Gospels were gradually developed out a matrix of tradition and myth. Form critics hold a variety of views (reflecting the unsettled and relativistic nature of the rationalism upon which they stand), but all of them deny that the Gospels are the verbally inspired, divinely-given, absolutely infallible Word of God. Metzger says, “What each evangelist has preserved, therefore, is not a photographic reproduction of the words and deeds of Jesus, but an interpretative portrait delineated in accord with the special needs of the early church” (Ibid.). Metzger is wrong. The Gospel writers have indeed given us, by divine revelation, a photographic reproduction of the words and deeds of Jesus Christ in precisely the form designed by the Holy Spirit to present Christ to the world. Praise God for it!

MATTHEW BLACK (1908-1995) was Professor of Divinity and Biblical Criticism, and Principal of St Mary’s College in St. Andrews University. He is the author of Scrolls & Christianity (London: SPCK, 1969) and An Aramaic Approach to the Gospels and Acts (Hendrickson Publishers, 1998).

Black’s modernistic theology was exposed in his co-editorship with H.H. Rowley of a revised edition of Peake’s Commentary in 1982. Peake’s was originally published in 1919 and boldly opposed fundamentalist doctrine. Contributors to the revised edition include Bruce Metzger, Allen Wikgren, and Kurt Aland. The editors openly and boldly reject the doctrine of the infallible inspiration and preservation of Holy Scripture.

Note the following excerpt: “It is well known that the primitive Christian Gospel was initially transmitted by word of mouth and that this oral tradition resulted in variant reporting of word and deed. It is equally true that when the Christian record was committed to writing it continued to be the subject of verbal variation, involuntary and intentional, at the hands of scribes and editors” (Peake’s Commentary on the Bible, p. 633). This is typical modernistic gobblegook that completely denies divine inspiration.

Commenting on the Great Commission in Matthew 28, Peake’s Commentary casts doubt upon Trinitarian baptism: “This mission is described in the language of the church and most commentators doubt that the Trinitarian formula was original at this point in Matthew’s Gospel, since the NT elsewhere does not know of such a formula and describes baptism as being performed in the name of the Lord Jesus (e.g. Acts 2:38, 8:16, etc.).”

ALLEN WIKGREN (1906-1998) was an ordained minister of the liberal American Baptist Convention. He was the pastor at First Baptist Church in Belleville, Kan., and a professor at Central Baptist Theological Seminary and Ottawa University in Ottawa, Kan., before joining the Chicago University Divinity School faculty as the J.M. Powis Smith Instructor in 1940. He was the co-editor of New Testament Manuscript Studies (1950) and editor of Early Christian Origins: Studies in Honor of Harold R. Willoughby (1961).

Wikgren was on the translation committee with Bruce Metzger, Robert Pfeiffer, and Floyd Filson that produced the Revised Standard Version apocrypha in 1957. We have already seen the extreme liberalism of the translators who produced the RSV.

At the University of Chicago Wikgren was closely associated with many well-known theological modernists including Donald W. Riddle, Ernest Colwell, Merrill M. Parvis, Edgar Goodspeed, and Harold Willoughby. Note this quote by Riddle boldly denying the inspiration of the New Testament scriptures: “Of course the New Testament writers wrote something. But what is the use of picturing this original copy? It had no status as a sacred document; no reverence for it as Scripture was accorded it until a century after its writing; it was valued only for its practical value; it was early and frequently copied” (Donald W. Riddle, “Textual Criticism as a Historical Discipline,” Ang. Theological Review 18, 1936, p. 227, cited from E. Jay Epps, “The Multivalence of the Term ‘Original Text’ in New Testament Textual Criticism,” Harvard Theological Review, 1999, Vol. 92, No. 3, pp. 245-281).

Wikgren contributed to the extremely liberal 1982 revised edition of Peake’s Commentary. The editors were Matthew Black and H.H. Rowley and contributors included Bruce Metzger, Kurt Aland, and Allen Wikgren. This work openly and boldly rejects the doctrine of the infallible inspiration and preservation of Holy Scripture. Note the following excerpt which treats the Gospels in an entirely naturalistic manner: “It is well known that the primitive Christian Gospel was initially transmitted by word of mouth and that this oral tradition resulted in variant reporting of word and deed. It is equally true that when the Christian record was committed to writing it continued to be the subject of verbal variation, involuntary and intentional, at the hands of scribes and editors” (Peake’s Commentary on the Bible, p. 633).

KURT ALAND (1915-1994) was co-editor of the Nestle-Aland Greek N.T. as well as one of the editors of the United Bible Societies Greek New Testament. His wife, Barbara, is director of the Institute for New Testament Textual Research, Munster, Westphalia, Germany.

Aland rejected verbal inspiration. “This idea of verbal inspiration (i.e., of the literal and inerrant inspiration of the text), which the orthodoxy of both Protestant traditions maintained so vigorously, was applied to the Textus Receptus with all of its errors, including textual modifications of an obviously secondary character (as we recognize them today)” (Aland, The Problem of the New Testament Canon, 1962, pp. 6, 7). As a contributor (with Allen Wikgren, Bruce Metzger, and Matthew Black) to the 1982 revised edition of Peake’s Commentary, Aland put his stamp of approval upon its modernistic theology, which claimed, for example, that the Gospels were the product of uncertain naturalistic processes.

Aland even claimed that the canon of Scripture is yet unsettled. “The present state of affairs, of Christianity splintered into different churches and theological schools, is THE wound in the body. The variety in the actual Canon in its different forms is not only the standard symptom, but simultaneously also the real cause of its illness. This illness--which is in blatant conflict with the unity which is fundamental to its nature--cannot be tolerated. ... Along this road [of solving this supposed problem], at any rate, the question of the Canon will make its way to the centre of the theological and ecclesiastical debate. ... Only he who is ready to question himself and to take the other person seriously can find a way out of the circuus vitiosus in which the question of the Canon is moving today ... The first thing to be done, then, would be to examine critically one’s own selection from the formal Canon and its principles of interpretation, but all the time remaining completely alive to the selection and principles of others. ... This road will be long and laborious and painful. ... if we succeed in arriving at a Canon which is common and actual, this means the achievement of the unity of the faith, the unity of the Church” (Aland, The Problem of the New Testament Canon, 1962, pp. 30-33). Thus we see that Aland does not believe in a settled, authoritative canon of Scripture. Everything is to be questioned; everything is open to change. He believes it is crucial that a new canon be created through ecumenical dialogue. He proposes tossing 2 Peter and Revelation out of the Bible for unity sake (McDonald and Sanders, The Canon Debate, 2000, p. 3).

It is evident that the editors of the UBS Text are not Bible believers. In this, they follow the footsteps of their noted textual forefathers, as we have seen. The UBS Greek Text is a revision of the Westcott-Hort Text and contains most of that Text’s corruptions that are listed in the following study.

One fearful product of the exaltation of the critical Greek text has been the weakening of the authority of Scripture throughout the nations. Dr. Charles Turner summarizes this:

The critical point of departure had been made [with the ascendancy of the Westcott-Hort Text]. No longer was the majority of the Greek manuscripts, preserved by the churches, the basis for recognizing the original reading. From now on, the learned professors would deliver the Christian world from their ‘blindness and ignorance.’ By their scholarly expertise they would deliver to the churches a purer text of the N.T. Dr. Machen called this kind of scholarship ‘the tyranny of the experts.’ Now the ‘experts’ would rule over the churches and decide for them which variant reading was the acceptable one. After Westcott and Hort, the Pandora’s box had been opened. As a result, all the evils of German rationalism began to tear at the foundation of the Faith, the Holy Scriptures. This ‘wrestling’ of the Scriptures has continued on until this day in both the higher and lower forms of textual criticism. The situation today involves almost as many different texts of the Greek N.T. as there are scholars. Each ‘scholar’ decides for himself what he will or will not accept as the Word of God.

It comes down to two choices. We can accept the text handed down by the churches for nearly two thousand years or accept the findings of modern scholars, no two of which agree. If we go with the scholars, there is no one text that is accepted by all of them. Confusion reigns among the scholars. There is no standard (Turner, Why the King James Version?, p. 9).

VAST OMISSIONS IN THE MODERN VERSIONS

The difference between the text underlying the KJV and that underlying the modern versions is vast. In the New Testament alone there are over 8,000 word differences between the Textus Receptus and the Westcott-Hort Text (and its revisions such as the Nestlé’s text and the UBS text). It is true that many of these changes are not as significant as others--but ALL ARE real differences. More than 2,800 of the words in the Received Text are omitted in the W-H Text underlying the modern versions. That is a vast number of words. It is roughly the number of words in 1 and 2 Peter combined. Do not forget that the Bible is not merely another book; it is God’s Book. The Lord Jesus Christ said, “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by EVERY WORD that proceedeth out of the mouth of God” (Mt. 4:4). The words of the Bible are crucial words!

Entire verses and phrases omitted from new versions. There are 17 verses omitted outright in the New International Version--Mt. 17:21; 18:11; 23:14; Mk. 7:16; 9:44; 9:46; 11:26; 15:28; 17:36; 23:17; Jn. 5:4; Acts 8:37; 15:34; 24:7; 28:29; Rom. 16:24; and 1 Jn. 5:7. Further, the NIV separates Mark 16:9-20 from the rest of the chapter with a note that says, “The two most reliable early manuscripts do not have Mk. 16:9-20,” thus discounting the authority of this vital passage in the minds of the readers and effectively removing another 12 verses. John 7:53--8:11 is also separated from the rest of the text with this footnote: “The earliest and most reliable manuscripts do not have Jn. 7:53--8:11.” Hence another 12 verses are effectively removed from the Bible. The NIV questions four other verses with footnotes--Matthew 12:47; 21:44; Luke 22:43; 22:44. THIS IS A TOTAL OF 45 ENTIRE VERSES THAT ARE REMOVED ENTIRELY OR SERIOUSLY QUESTIONED. IN ADDITION, THERE ARE 147 OTHER VERSES WITH SIGNIFICANT PORTIONS MISSING. My Greek teacher taught that the difference between the Received Text and the critical Greek text is insignificant, that this is a non-issue. That is a strange way to look at the removal or questioning of such a large portion of Scripture. I don’t accept it. Both of these Greek texts cannot be the preserved Word of God.

DOCTRINAL CORRUPTIONS IN THE MODERN VERSIONS

Promoters of the modern versions commonly claim that the differences between their versions and the KJV are relatively slight and have no bearing on doctrine. This simply is not true. The differences are great, and many of the changes in the modern versions do affect doctrine. Even many of the promoters of the modern versions admit the differences are vast and serious. The Preface to the Revised Standard Version claims:

“The King James Version has GRAVE DEFECTS. By the middle of the nineteenth century, the development of Biblical studies and the discovery of many manuscripts more ancient than those upon which the King James Version was based, made it manifest that these defects are so many and so serious as to call for revision of the English translation.”

A more recent work, The English Bible from the KJV to NIV, contains an entire chapter dealing with “the Doctrinal Problems in the King James Version.” Author Jack Lewis concludes with these words:

“‘Doctrine’ means ‘teaching,’ and any failure to present the Word of God accurately, completely, and clearly in a translation is a doctrinal problem. The matters that we have surveyed in this chapter all affect the teaching the reader is to receive from his Bible. It is naive to declare that they have no doctrinal significance. KJV.”

We agree that there are serious doctrinal differences between the versions, but we also acknowledge the happy fact that there is a basic doctrinal agreement between the textual families. This shows us two things. First, we can rejoice that God has overruled the wicked plan of men and devils and has maintained what we might call “essential” doctrine even in the most corrupted texts. Second, this does not mean that the differences between the texts are insignificant and harmless. It does not mean that doctrine is unaffected. It also does not mean it is not important to find and use the purest text.

You can show someone the Gospel of the grace of Christ even with a Roman Catholic version. You can prove the deity of Christ even with the perverted Jehovah’s Witness New World Translation. You can teach the doctrine of the Atonement even from a perversion such as the Today’s English Bible, which deletes the word “blood” in most major passages. This shows the marvelous hand of God to confound the efforts of the Devil; but it does not mean that the changes made in these and other new translations are insignificant.

Following are some crucial doctrines that are affected by modern texts and translations:

THE MODERN VERSIONS WEAKEN THE DOCTRINE OF CHRIST’S DEITY.

MATTHEW 8:2; 9:18; 15:25; 20:20; MARK 5:6 -- Eleven times in the Received Text and the King James Bible the Gospels tell us that Christ was worshipped (Mt. 2:11; 8:2; 9:18; 14:33; 15:25; 20:20; 28:9,17; Mk. 5:6; Lk. 24:52; Jn. 9:38). This is indisputable evidence that Jesus Christ is God, because only God can be worshipped (Ex. 34:14; Is. 42:8; Mt. 4:10; Acts 14:11-15; Rev. 19:10). The popular New International Version removes one-half of this unique witness to Christ’s deity, changing “worship” to “kneel before” in Mt. 8:2; 9:18; 15:25; 20:20; Mk. 5:6. In the Received Text the Greek word (proskuneo) is the same in all eleven verses. It is the main New Testament word for “worship.” It appears 58 times in the Greek New Testament and is always translated “worship” in the King James Bible. The modern version defender will argue that there is no serious problem here, because Christ is still worshipped in six of the verses. I don’t agree with this evaluation. In fact, I consider such an argument very strange indeed, because the man who truly loves the words of God cares about the details of the Bible and is concerned deeply about the omission of things. I have noticed that defenders of the modern versions have a strange lackadaisical attitude toward the details of the Bible. The repetition is in the Bible for a purpose. It is not inconsequential fluff.

MARK 9:24 -- The man’s testimony that Christ is Lord is removed in the NIV.

LUKE 23:42 – The modern versions have the penitent thief addressing Christ merely as “Jesus,” rather than as “Lord” in the KJV.

JOHN 1:14; 1:18; 3:16; 3:18 -- The NIV and most other modern versions omit “begotten,” thereby removing an important witness to the uniqueness of Christ as the only begotten Son of God. Christ is not the only son of God. Adam is called the son of God (Lk. 3:38); angels are called sons of God (Job 1:6); Christians are called sons of God (Phil. 2:15). Christ IS the “only begotten son of God,” though, just as the KJV correctly affirms.

JOHN 1:27 -- By removing the phrase “is preferred before me,” the NIV weakens this wonderful testimony to the uniqueness of Jesus Christ. Evangelist Chuck Salliby notes: “Each little expression such as ‘is preferred before me,’ like so many pieces in a puzzle, was designed to make its own contribution to the completed picture of Christ on the Bible page--His Person, works, character, incomparableness, etc. Yet, they are systematically left out wherever possible in the NIV. This is indeed a strange practice. While a secular book generally exaggerates the depiction of its main character, the NIV depreciates that of its own” (Salliby, If the Foundations Be Destroyed, p. 21).

JOHN 3:13 -- The King James Version witnesses to the Godhead and omnipresence of the Lord Jesus Christ in this verse, but the NIV, in deleting the crucial phrase “which is in heaven,” destroys this witness. At least 99.5% of all Greek manuscript evidence contains the phrase in question. Only two papyri, four uncials (particularly the Vaticanus and Sinaiticus), and one cursive manuscript omit it.

JOHN 6:69 – The critical Greek text changes “that Christ, the Son of the living God” to “the holy one of God,” thus corrupting this powerful witness to the fact that Jesus is the very Christ. One of the ways that the false teachers corrupted the doctrine of Jesus deity was to distinguish between “the Christ” and “Jesus,” all alleging that though the Christ was God, Jesus was not the same as the Christ. The change in John 6:69 removes one of the clear witnesses that defeats this false doctrine.

JOHN 8:59 -- The critical Greek text and the modern versions such as the ASV, RSV, and NIV omit “going through the midst of them, and so passed by...” This changes the doctrine of the verse. Whereas the Received Text and the King James Bible teaches here that Jesus supernaturally went out right through the midst of the angry crowd that was trying to kill Him, the modern versions have Jesus merely hiding Himself from the crowd.

ACTS 3:13 -- The KJV exalts Christ as the Son of God in this verse, whereas the NIV, following a different text, makes him a servant. Christ is called the Son of God or God’s Son 126 times in the New Testament, whereas he is called “servant” (in the KJV) only once, and that is in Matt. 12:18, which is a quotation of Isaiah 42:1.

ACTS 8:37—“ And Philip said, If thou believest with all thine heart, thou mayest. And he answered and said, I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.” The modern versions omit this verse and thereby remove the glorious and important testimony of the Ethiopian eunuch as to the incarnation and deity of Jesus Christ.

ROMANS 9:5 -- The NIV is sound in its witness to Christ in the text, but it undermines the text with a footnote that reads: “or, ‘Christ who is over all, God be forever praised.’” Bible scholar/translator Jay Green, Sr., notes: “The NIV footnote is a gloss preferred by those who do not believe that Christ is co-equal with God in essence and attributes. When the Revised Version (1881) inserted it, Burgon quoted 60 patristic fathers as using this verse to prove the Godhood of Christ. And the Unitarians have stated that the only two verses that needed to be changed to destroy the doctrine of the Trinity are Romans 9:5 and 1 Tim. 3:16” (Green, The Gnostics, p. 51). James White claims that the King James Version is ambiguous in this verse, but the KJV follows the Greek almost word for word and gives an accurate and clear translation in English. The verse does not say that Christ is blessed of God forever; it says He is GOD blessed for ever. It is one of the most powerful statements to the Godhood of Christ in the Bible, and it is plain for anyone who has ears to hear. As noted previously, 19th-century Unitarians who were on the Bible translation committees for the Revised Version (1881) and the American Standard Version (1901) understood this and they therefore did not like the KJV translation of Romans 9:5. Godly English commentators of generations past had no problem with this verse as it stands in the King James Version. Matthew Henry (1662-1714) is an example. He saw this verse in the KJV as “a very full proof of the Godhead of Christ; he is not only over all, as Mediator, but he is God blessed for ever.” We do not accept White’s charge that the KJV is weak in Romans 9:5 about Christ’s deity. Every passage must be interpreted in the context of the wider testimony of Scripture, and when we do so with the KJV in Romans 9:5 we see that Christ is both God and that He is blessed of God. That is exactly what the rest of the Bible says! It speaks of the mystery of the Trinity.

1 CORINTHIANS 15:47 -- The KJV, following the Received Text, reads, “The first man is of the earth, earthly: the second man is THE LORD from heaven.” The modern versions omit the words “the Lord,” thus removing the blessed and powerful testimony that Jesus Christ is the Lord from heaven.

EPHESIANS 3:9 -- The KJV in this verse exalts Jesus Christ as the Creator of all things, whereas the NIV, by removing the crucial phrase “by Jesus Christ,” obliterates this witness entirely.

1 TIMOTHY 3:16 -- The modern versions, following the critical Greek text, omit the key word in this verse, the word “God.” The KJV reads: “And without controversy great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into glory.” The NIV reads, “Beyond all question, the mystery of godliness is great: He appeared in a body, was vindicated by the Spirit, was seen by angels, was preached among the nations, was believed on in the world, was taken up in glory.” By replacing the word “God” with the general pronoun “he” we are robbed of one of the plainest witnesses to Christ’s deity in the entire Bible and are left with a meaningless reference to an unidentified, ambiguous “he” who was manifested in the flesh. Terance Brown, respected former Secretary of the Trinitarian Bible Society, makes this comment: “Countless millions of the Lord’s people, from the dawn of the Christian era to the present day, have read these words in their Bibles precisely as they appear in our Authorised Version, but now this powerful testimony to the Godhead of our Saviour is to be swept out of the Scriptures and to disappear without trace.”

1 JOHN 4:3 -- The genuine test to determine the false spirit of antichrist is removed from the modern versions by the corruption of 1 John 4:3. The KJV reads, “And every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God...” The NIV reads, “But every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God...” There is a great difference between these two tests. Every false spirit will “acknowledge Jesus” in a general sense, but the spirit of antichrist will not “confess that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh,” referring to Jesus Christ as the very Messiah, the very God manifest in the flesh, promised in Old Testament prophecy. This is a serious textual and translational error.

1 JOHN 5:7 -- This verse in the KJV, following the common Latin text, is a powerful witness to the Deity of Jesus Christ as an equal member of the Godhead. The NIV, though, omits the verse and has no witness whatsoever.

REVELATION 1:8, 11 -- In the critical Greek text verse 8 omits “the beginning and the ending” and verse 11 omits “I am Alpha and Omega, the first and the last.” As it stands in the Received Text and in the KJV and in any other faithful TR translation, the “Almighty” of verse 8 is clearly the Lord Jesus Christ of verse 11, but this connection is destroyed by the omissions in the critical text. Modern version proponents like to point out that the critical text adds the word “God” in Rev. 1:8. But consider the whole picture: Verse 8 in the critical text omits “the beginning and the ending.” Verse 9 omits “Christ” two times. Verse 11 omits “I am Alpha and Omega, the first and the last.” The overall effect of the modern version rendering of Revelation chapter one is to weaken its testimony to Christ‘s deity as compared with the King James Bible.

We have looked briefly at 25 important passages in which the testimony of Christ’s deity has been removed or weakened in newer versions of the Bible. There are many other passages we did not include. The doctrine that Jesus Christ is God is not removed entirely from these Bibles, but the overall testimony to the doctrine of Christ’s deity has been weakened. This is why the Unitarians such as George Vance Smith, Ezra Abbot, and Joseph Thayer and theological modernists such as Johann Semler and J. Griesbach have loved the critical Greek text from its inception in the 19th century. Is this really a matter of little consequence, as so many would have us believe?

This is not all. In addition to these major omissions are the following omissions of names and titles belonging to the Lord Jesus Christ. For the list we are indebted to D.K. Madden’s A Critical Examination of the New American Standard Bible.

LORD--Omitted in Mt. 13:51; Mk. 9:24; Acts 9:6; 2 Cor. 4:10; Gal. 6:17; 2 Tim. 4:1; Tit. 1:4. JESUS--Omitted in Mt. 8:29; Mt. 16:20; 2 Cor. 4:6; 2 Cor. 5:18; Col. 1:28; Phile. verse 6; 1 Pet. 5:14.

CHRIST--Omitted in Lk. 4:41; Jn. 4:42; Acts 16:31; Rom. 1:16; 1 Cor. 16:23; 2 Cor. 11:31; Gal. 3:17; Gal. 4:7; 1 Thess. 2:19; 1 Thess. 3:11; 1 Thess. 3:13; 2 Th. 1:8; Heb. 3:1; 1 Jn. 1:7; Rev. 12:17.

JESUS CHRIST--Omitted in 1 Cor. 16:22; Gal. 6:15; Eph. 3:9; 2 Tim. 4:22.

LORD JESUS CHRIST--Omitted in Rom. 16:24; Eph. 3:14; Col. 1:2.

SON OF GOD--Omitted in Jn. 9:35; Jn. 6:69.

From the above study, which is not exhaustive, we see that the Westcott-Hort-critical Greek text and the modern translations make a definite attack upon the testimony of the deity of Jesus Christ. This one fact alone is sufficient cause to retain the Received Text and faithful translations of it.

James White, in The King James Only Controversy, claims that the modern versions give a stronger witness to Christ’s deity than the King James Bible. We have exposed the error of his position in our book Examining “The King James Only Controversy” (1999, Way of Life Literature).

THE MODERN VERSIONS WEAKEN THE DOCTRINE OF CHRIST’S VIRGIN BIRTH.

MATTHEW 1:25 -- Here “firstborn son” is changed to “a son.” This plays into the hands of the Roman Catholic Church which claims that Mary did not have any children other than Jesus.

LUKE 2:33, 43 -- By changing “Joseph” to “the child’s father” and “his parents,” the NIV weakens the testimony of Christ’s virgin birth, compared with the KJV and the Received Text. While it is true that the NIV elsewhere says that Christ was virgin born (Mt. 1:18-20), the KJV backs up that testimony with the added witness of Lk. 2:33 and 43, whereas the NIV does not. Those who understand the duplicity of false teachers understand the importance of each of these biblical testimonies.

GALATIANS 4:4 and HEBREWS 2:16 -- Some who deny the virgin birth claim that the Apostles did not refer to this doctrine in their epistles to the churches (as if the clear statements in the Prophets and the Gospels are not sufficient). This claim is wrong, though. The virgin birth is referred to in Galatians 4:4 and Hebrews 2:16. Galatians says Christ was “made of a woman.” This unusual manner of speech is a reference to the virgin birth, as Christ was made of a woman without the assistance of a man. Hebrews says “he took on him the seed of Abraham.” This unusual manner of speech describes the preexistent Son of God taking upon Himself the seed of Abraham through the womb of the virgin Mary. This is who He could be both the Son of God and the son of Man and yet not inherit sin from Adam. But the “small” changes made in these passages in the modern versions remove the possibility of the verses being references to the virgin birth. In Galatians 4:4 “made of a woman” is changed to “born of a woman” in the ASV, RSV, NIV, and other modern versions. To be born of a woman is natural; to be made of a woman without the assistance of a man is supernatural and points to the virgin birth. In Hebrews 2:16 “For verily he took not on him the nature of angels; but he took on him the seed of Abraham” is changed to “For surely it is not angels he helps, but Abraham’s descendants” in the NIV. The ASV, RSV, and other modern versions have something similar. Thus, according to the modern versions, Jesus merely helped the Jews, whereas according to the KJV, the preexistent Christ incarnated Himself through the womb of the virgin.

THE MODERN VERSIONS WEAKEN THE DOCTRINE OF CHRIST’S ATONEMENT.

Consider the following examples:

COLOSSIANS 1:14 -- The modern versions omit the all-important phrase “through his blood.”

HEBREWS 1:3 -- Modern versions omit the words “by himself” from this verse. The KJV says, “...when he had by himself purged our sins...” The NIV reads, “... after he had provided purification for sins...” The two little words omitted in the modern versions seriously weaken the testimony of this passage as to what Christ accomplished on the Cross.

1 PETER 4:1 -- The modern versions omit “for us.” The KJV reads, “Forasmuch then as Christ hath suffered FOR US in the flesh...”

1 CORINTHIANS 5:7 -- The modern versions omit “for us” in this verse, as well. The KJV reads, “...For even Christ our passover is sacrificed FOR US.”

THE MODERN VERSIONS WEAKEN THE DOCTRINE OF CHRIST’S ASCENSION.

There are only two passages in the Gospels that describe Christ’s ascension to Heaven after His resurrection: Mark 16:19 and Luke 24:51. Both of these passages are affected by the Westcott-Hort Greek text and the modern versions. The New American Standard Version, for example, omits the last part of Luke 24:51 and has a footnote saying, “Some mss. add: and was carried up into heaven.” The last 12 verses of Mark 16 are placed in brackets, and a footnote says these verses are probably late additions.

THE MODERN VERSIONS WEAKEN THE DOCTRINE OF FASTING.

The critical Greek text and the modern versions make a strange attack against the New Testament teaching of fasting. Though some references to fasting remain, several very significant references are removed, particularly those verses that teach the meaning of fasting in regard to spiritual warfare.

MATTHEW 17:21 -- KJV “Howbeit this kind goeth not out but by prayer and fasting.” This entire verse is omitted in the NASV, RSV, NIV, New English Bible, Jerusalem Bible, and Phillips. The TEV puts the verse in brackets.

MARK 9:29 -- KJV reads “And he said unto them, This kind can come forth by nothing, but by prayer and fasting.” The Westcott-Hort Greek Text and the new versions based on this text omit the phrase “and fasting.” This is true in the NIV, NASV, RSV, LB, Phillips, NEB, and Jerusalem Bible.

These two verses about fasting are not the only references to this doctrine in Scripture, but they are the only two references that specifically, directly teach the importance of fasting as an aspect of spiritual warfare. Those who have fought spiritual battles against the powers of darkness know from experience the precious truth that Jesus is stating in these passages. Prayer is a powerful spiritual resource, but there ARE demonic strongholds that cannot be broken by prayer alone, without fasting. It is a spiritual fact, and it is a part of the Bible! To remove these references from the Bible is like removing part of the armament from a soldier’s equipment before sending him into battle.

ACTS 10:30 -- Here we read in the KJV and most of the other old Protestant translations that Cornelius was fasting and praying. The new versions, following the lead of the Westcott-Hort Greek Text, remove the word “fasting.”

1 CORINTHIANS 7:5 -- The KJV reads, “Defraud ye not one the other, except it be with consent for a time, that ye may give yourselves to fasting and prayer; and come together again, that Satan tempt you not for your incontinency.” Again, rejecting the majority of textual witnesses, the new versions remove “fasting” from this important passage.

2 CORINTHIANS 6:5 -- The KJV reading, “fasting,” has been changed in the new versions to “hunger.” Hunger and fasting are two different things. In 2 Cor. 11:27, where the Apostle Paul gives a similar listing of some aspects of his ministry, he mentions both hunger AND fasting. The Holy Spirit is therefore not using these terms synonymously; this is another attack upon the biblical doctrine of fasting.

2 CORINTHIANS 11:27 -- The KJV reading, “fastings often,” is replaced in the new versions with “often without food.” To be hungry and to go without food without is not necessary the same as biblical fasting. The KJV says, “in hunger and thirst, in fastings often.” A clear distinction is made between the hunger Paul often endured and his frequent times of spiritual fasting. If in these two passages the Holy Spirit is referring to the Apostle’s spiritual battles, to spiritual fasting, which is most probable since such a distinction is made, the modern translators have done a great evil in removing this teaching.

When the teaching of these six verses is taken together, a definite pattern of attack appears in the new Greek texts and versions upon the doctrine of fasting as a spiritual weapon. This is even more serious when we consider the Bible’s warnings that spiritual warfare will intensify as the return of Christ’s draws near. “This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come. ... But evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived” (2 Tim. 3:1,13). Do not be deceived, dear Christian friend, into accepting a Bible version that removes these important spiritual weapons from your life. It is far more important to have a Bible that is pure and accurate than to have one that reads like the morning newspaper.

These are not all of the doctrines that are affected in the modern versions, but from these examples the overall result can be seen. Doctrines are not removed entirely, but there is a definite weakening of doctrine.




ERRORS IN THE MODERN VERSIONS

Not only do the modern versions weaken important doctrines, they also contain gross error. Psalm 12:6 says, “The words of the Lord are PURE words,” but the new versions are not pure. I will give ten examples of the errors in modern versions:

MATTHEW 5:22 -- The modern versions omit the words “without a cause.” The NIV says, “But I tell you that anyone who is angry with his brother will be subject to judgment.” This slight omission creates a serious error, because Christ Himself was angry at times. Mark 3:5 says, “And when he had looked round about on them WITH ANGER...” To be angry is not necessarily a sin, but to be angry “without a cause” is. The modern version omission in this verse makes Jesus Christ subject to judgment.

MATTHEW 27:34 -- The modern versions replace the word “vinegar” with the word “wine.” This creates a contradiction with the prophecy in Ps. 69:21, which says Christ was given vinegar to drink.

MARK 1:2-3 -- The KJV says Mark is quoting the “prophets,” but the modern versions say he is quoting “Isaiah the prophet.” This creates an error, because it is plain that Mark was not quoting Isaiah only; he was quoting Malachi 1:3 as well as Isaiah 40:3. Christ was quoting “the prophets” (plural) just as the KJV, following the Received Text, says.

JOHN 7:8 -- Most modern versions have Jesus telling a lie in this verse. The NASV, for example, reads, “... I go not up to this feast...” The NIV has a footnote that says, “Some early manuscripts omit ‘yet.’” The fact is that only some blatantly corrupted manuscripts omit this crucial word. The KJV says, “...I go not up YET unto this feast...” In verse 10 we see plainly that Jesus did go to the feast later. The modern versions create a serious error with their faulty reading.

LUKE 2:33,43 -- The modern versions replace “Joseph” with “the child’s father” and “Joseph and his mother” with “his parents, thus creating a blasphemous error and giving support to the lies of the Modernists who deny Christ’s virgin birth.

JOHN 3:16,18; 1:14,18 -- By removing the all-important word “begotten” from these verses, many modern versions create a fantastic error. These verses in the NIV say “one and only son.” The problem, as we have seen, is that Christ is not the only son of God. Adam is called the son of God (Lk. 3:38); angels are called sons of God (Job 1:6); Christians are called sons of God (Ph. 2:15). Christ is not the only son of God, but He IS the “only begotten son” of God just as the KJV and the TR correctly affirm.

Conclusion

The modern versions are based upon a faulty Greek text that was introduced to the world by men who, for the most part, were apostate from the New Testament faith. This text, and the versions founded upon them, weaken important doctrines of the Christian faith and introduce error into the Word of God. Thousands of inspired words are omitted. The multiplication of translations has also weakened the authority of the Bible in the hearts of millions. A clear and dogmatic “thus saith the Lord” has been replaced with an anemic “some manuscripts read.”

The proponents of the new versions contend that the Reformation Bibles were based on an inferior text. They contend that the purest reading of Scripture lay in disuse until the latter part of the nineteenth century when recovered by Tischendorf and others. They contend that the Bible that was carried to the ends of the earth during the Reformation and great missionary era of the 17th to the 20th centuries needed to be purified by modern textual critics.

We reject this theory. We know that God would not allow His Holy Scriptures to be corrupted. Psalm 12:6-7 promises: “The words of the Lord are pure words: as silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times. Thou shalt keep them, O Lord, thou shalt preserve them from this generation for ever.” (See also Ps. 33:11; 100:5; 111:7-8; 117:2; 119:89,152,160; Is. 40:8; 59:21; Mt. 5:18; 24:35; 1 Pet. 1:23,25; Rev. 22:18-19.) God has jealously preserved the Bible through the centuries. The preserved Word of God was not forgotten in the Pope’s library and in a heretical monastery! We do not believe the Lord would “preserve” His Word through the apostate Roman Catholic Church that persecuted the saints and burned countless Bibles through the centuries. Rather, the Word of God was preserved by the faithful New Testament Christians who refused to bow the knee to error, and we have that preserved Bible in the Received Text, in the King James Bible, and in other faithful TR translations.

In this overview of the modern Bible issue, we have not answered every question that can be raised concerning Bible versions. Indeed, we cannot answer every question, but we have given the broad outline and the foundational facts. We would warn that the detractors of the KJV delight in dealing with side issues: with Erasmus, with antiquated words in the KJV, with the alleged ignorance of KJV defenders, with the idiosyncrasies of certain KJV defenders, with the non-existent “originals,” with the supposed lack of sufficient manuscript authority available to the Reformation editors--while ignoring the great foundational issues of our subject.

We commend to our readers the Received Text and faithful translations thereof. You will never be disappointed if you build your life and church upon this Eternal Rock. The Bible warns, “...remove not the ancient landmark, which thy fathers have set” (Prov. 22:29).

IS THE FIGHT FOR THE KJV NECESSARY?

We conclude this overview of the modern Bible version issue with the following quote by Pastor Gary Freeman:

A writer who was despairing over the debate concerning Bible versions recently wrote, ‘Precious energies and talents must be wasted on petty quarrels between soldiers who ought to be giving their best efforts to fight the real enemies of biblical Christianity.’ Is this correct thinking? We believe fellow soldiers ought to debate an issue when it involves the integrity and reliability of the most important piece of weaponry with which we intend to fight the enemy. How can we say nothing to our fellow soldiers when someone has tampered with our artillery. How do we intend to win the battle when we go into the fight with our main weapon taken away and replaced with a faulty, unreliable substitute?

The fight for the KJV is necessary. We who are holding the line for the KJV only are being called the culprits. One pastor said, ‘Certainly the KJV controversy rages on by those who would make it a test of fellowship.’ Another writes, ‘One of the heartbreaks faced by any fellowship comes when some movement comes along and polarizes and then splits the group. It may be over Bible versions, personal squabbles or wrongs suffered. The issue is not doctrinal since there is always essential agreement among fundamental brethren in that regard.’

We are amazed how the group who brought the modern versions into our churches and fellowships now want to blame us who desire to stay with the KJV as being the dividers, polarizers, splitters and controversial ones. If these ‘fellow soldiers’ want to bring in ‘Bibles’ that leave out [or question] Mk. 16:9-20; Jn. 7:53-8:11; Acts 8:37; Rom. 8:1b; and that delete ‘through His blood’ in Col. 1:14; ‘God’ in 1 Tim. 3:16; Trinity passage in 1 Jn. 5:7,8; ‘by Himself purged our sins’ in Heb. 1:3; ‘washed us from our sins’ in Rev. 1:5; the word ‘yet’ in Jn. 7:8 (this word being dropped from new versions makes our Saviour a liar); then they should not cry foul, unfair, unloving, or divisive when we squabble over which Bible will be the Word of God in the Battlefield.

The offenders, dividers, squabblers and polarizers are those who want to bring new versions into fundamentalism. We believe, contrary to the previous quote, that this is a doctrinal issue. We believe that God has preserved the word He inspired. We believe it to be found in the Greek Textus Receptus and in English in our KJV. We will continue the fight for the KJV, not to be divisive but so that we as fellow soldiers can go into battle against our enemies saying, ‘Thus saith the Lord,’ rather than, ‘Yea, hath God said?’

Modern Bible Versions Part 1

See also "Modern Versions: The Dark Secret" by Jack Moorman