Chapter Five
Change Agents
The "Change Agents" of Scripture
With the opening of the 20th Century in
1901, the saga of these “change agents” continues:
“For such are false apostles, deceitful
workers, transforming themselves into apostles of Christ. And no marvel; for
Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light. Therefore it is no great
thing if his ministers also be transformed as the ministers of righteousness;
whose end shall be according to their works” (II Corinthians 11: 13-15).
Their
works of the continued deception of the Westcott-Hort Greek text (based on the 2
corrupt manuscripts of Sinaiticus and Vaticanus) was carried on with the
Committee of the American Standard Version (ASV) (On this Committee strangely
was James Strong, of Strong’s Concordance).
This translation, too, fell into disfavor so
that the copyright was not renewed in 1928 (notice that all “modern versions
since 1881, are copyrighted. Only the KJB is not, and cannot be copyrighted; as
a recent scholar Derek Wilson declared it the “People’s Bible,” the title
of his new book, which is to be celebrating the 400th Anniversary of the KJB,
1611).
The ASV’s copyright was claimed by the International Council of Religious
Education. Their quest for another attempt at revival was somewhat successful,
although it took until 1952 for the complete Revised Standard Version (RSV) to
be published. This was an interdenominationally supported effort. As a result,
many Protestant groups were encouraged to use this in private and public Bible
Studies. However, no major group or pastor dared use it alone from the pulpit.
Yes, with the main use of the KJB, other translations were
sometimes interjected for comparison: such as The Weymouth (1903); Moffatt
(1913); Goodspeed (1923); Phillips (1947); and a few others. Likewise the RSV
was quoted with the KJB in comparison. In subsequent years other popular English
Versions appeared: The New English Bible (1961); The Living Bible (1962);
Amplified Bible (1965); and a few others.
Finally the “change agents” of scripture achieved their
quest of a new version that would replace the KJB. In 1978 The New International
Version (NIV) was published. Protestant (and soon independent) churches embraced
it and started using it as the primary Bible edition from the pulpit! In 1986
(and up through this current year of 2011) the NIV became the number one best
selling book in the world, with the KJB still holding onto number two.
Should this be?
Should this have happened?
The following two quotations may give an insight: The first from a member of the
1870 Revised English Bible Committee and the second from a noted observer:
“From the middle of the 17th century, the King’s Bible (KJB) has been the
acknowledged Bible of the English-speaking nations throughout the world simply
because it is the best. A revision which embodied the ripe fruits of nearly a
century of labor, and appealed to the religious instinct of a great Christian
people, gained by its own internal character a vital authority which could never
have been secured by any edict of sovereign rulers.”
(Special note: According to The Cambridge
History of the Bible, Vol.3: “No evidence has been found that the King James
Version received final authorization by Convocation or by Parliament or by the
King in council," p.361).
The second quotation is by
Lord Shaftesbury and printed in The Times newspaper in March, 1870: “I will
maintain that a rude and sudden decent from the majestic and squeaking sentences
in modern use, would be an irreparable shock to every English-speaking man who
has drunk in the old and generous language with his mother’s milk.”
A quick reminder from the previous chapter (ch.4) of the
continuing “watering down” the Word of the Lord, the “scholars” of the
past 150 years or so have relied on the manuscripts from Alexandria, Egypt, of
which there are only 45, two to be most complete: The Vaticanus (Codex B) and
The Sinaiticus (Codex Alph). On the other hand 5,255 known manuscripts uphold
the Greek “Textus Receptus” (The Revised Text), which is the foundation of
the KJB New Testament. In fact the 1598 Beza Greek New Testament (5th edition),
based entirely upon the “Received Text” was used as the foundation of the
KJB by its 54 translators. In a later chapter I will introduce you to these
amazing men of God.…"... a foolish man (men?), which built his house upon the
sand: And the rain descended, and the floods (Living Waters) came, and the winds
(God’s Holy Spirit) blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell: and great was
the fall of it” Matthew 7:26-27.
“…a wise man, which built his house upon a rock: and the rain descended and
the floods (the world’s lies, deceptions, and corruptions) came, and the winds
(Satan’s hallow promises) blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell not: It
was founded upon a rock" (i.e. The Rock, Jesus Christ) Matthew 7:24-25.
If this is the case that the “Received Text” is far
superior to the Alexandria Text (99+% to less than 1%), how could (and still do)
men of religious orders, schools, and churches seemingly all miss this simple
fact?!
A case in point as an example: That of D.A. Waite, Th.D, Ph.D;
Director of “Bible For Today, Inc.” He and his staff produce a daily radio
program; offer Bible courses; publish 100’s of books, papers, pamphlets, and
recorded live presentations upon Biblical truths, chiefly about the deception of
the modern English Bible Versions compared to the KJB. Here is his testimony:
“There are very few biblical schools that will come out strongly and use the 'Received
Text.' I think there is need for seminaries and colleges and
others that will stand strongly on this issue because pastors, I’m sure, are
confused. They think they aren’t confused; but when you only know part of the
equation, you aren’t aware of any confusion. There’s nothing to confuse you.
Your mind is made up because that is all you know. I wasn’t confused at Dallas
Theological Seminary.
"(in the late 1940’s) when I was using the Westcott and
Hort Text (based entirely upon the Alexandria Texts). I didn’t know there was
any other. I was starting to learn Greek. I was trying to learn the language. I
didn’t have time then to weigh the evidence. I was going to school, working my
way through, supporting my family, studying hard, and later, going to two
graduate schools at once. The professors didn’t even give us the other side of
the evidence. They didn’t say there was another side. (Note: Isn’t that
being done today in our Universities and colleges in their teaching of the
‘Theory of Evolution’?!) “In fact, Sandra Devos, one of my students when I
was a Professor of Speech and Greek at Shelton College, in Cape May, New Jersey,
asked me a question one day. She said, ‘Did you ever hear of Dean John William
Burgon?’ I said, ‘No I’m sorry, I never heard of him.’ She said,
‘I’ve been reading a book in the library by Burgon.’ It was ‘Revision
Revived!' It is a 591 page book which the ‘Bible for Today’ has reprinted.
It is a careful and accurate criticism of the ‘English Revised Version’ of
1881, and the Westcott and Hort Greek Text that underlies it. It is an excellent
piece of research. She said, ‘He believes that the ‘Received Text’ that
underlies the ‘King James Bible’ is the best text to use’. I said, ‘That
is interesting’. I began from that point to think about it. I hadn’t known
such a person or case existed until a student told me about it… We must get
good materials into the hands of people and urge them to read them!”
(Defending the King James Bible by Dr. D.A. Waite, pp.218-219). And to this day,
for well over 50 years, Dr. D.A.Waite is doing just that! He also, founded and
runs the Dean Burgon Society.
Who was this Dean John William Burgon, whose impact has been
so great? "Dr. John William Burgon was the vicar of St. Mary’s in Oxford,
England and later became Dean of Chichester. He delivered the classic
formulation of the infallibility of the Bible from the pulpit of the University
Church at Oxford: The Bible is none other than the voice of Him that sitteth
upon the throne. Every book of it, every chapter of it, every verse of it, every
word of it, every syllable of it, every letter of it, is direct utterance of the
Most High. The Bible is none other than the Word of God, not some part of it
more, and some part of it less, but all alike the utterance of Him who sitteth
upon the throne, faultless, unerring supreme” (The Cambridge History of the
Bible, Vol.3, p. 283).
Dean Burgon summarized his views of the English Revised
Version of 1881 from his definitive book of over 500 pages, ‘Revision
Revived,’ “(I was) shocked and offended at the unfaithfulness which could so
deal with the sacred (Word), (I) made it (my) business to expose, somewhat in
detail, what had been the method of (the) Revisionists…(I) found it impossible
to avoid extending (the) enumeration of Textual errors and multiplying (the)
proofs, while making it (my) business to show that, even had their Text been
faultless, their Translation must needs be rejected as tolerable, on grounds of
defective scholarship and egregious bad taste."
"It is already admitted on all hands that the Revision
has been a prodigious blunder. How it came about that…the Revisers of 1881
should have deliberately gone back to these vile fabrications from which the
good Providence of God preserved Erasmus (1516) Stephens (1550) and Beza (1598)
(authors of the Greek Text from the ‘Received Text’)......."and the
Elzevirs (reknowned printers), three centuries ago: How it happened that, with
so many splendid scholars sitting around their table, they should have produced
a translation which, for the most part, reads like a first-rate school-boys
crib, tasteless, unlovely, harsh, unidiomatic, servile without being really
faithful; pedantic without being really learned; an unreadable translation, in
short: the result of a vast amount of labor indeed, but of wondrous little
still; how all this has come about, it (was) utterly useless at this time of day
to enquire” (pp. 237-238).
Even “Charles Hadden Spurgeon (leading 19th Century English
Evangelist) was antagonistic to the new approach (of revision) (and) was more
sure of the truth of the Bible than of the truth of contemporary science…he
constantly reiterated his belief that the verbal inspiration and inerrancy of
Scripture was an essential bulwark, against the inroads of secularisum and
‘the inventions of men’, including ‘the supposed discoveries of the
so-called higher criticism’,” (Cambridge History of the Bible, Vol.3,
p.286).
The verdict came toward the latter part of the 19th Century:
“The chief and uncontrovertible reason for the British public not accepting
the Revised Version (of 1881- 1885) was that it was not very good…David Norton
(a noted Biblical scholar of today who is currently Professor of English at
Victoria University of Wellington) writes that in spite of what even became of
the RV, KJB’s general reputation continued to grow. RV "has not become a
significant work of English literature..." (The Bible In English by David
Daniell, p.700).
