Study 12:
Why the King James Bible?
Why the King James Bible?
Some 310 miles
north of Jerusalem, in Syria, there was a city named Antioch. It became to the Gentile Christians what Jerusalem had been to the Jews, and superseded Jerusalem as the base for the spread of the Gospel. The Book of Acts leaves us with no doubt that Antioch was the center of early church activity. Paul’s great ministries had their base in Antioch. Mark, Barnabas, and Silas were there; as was Peter and probably Luke. The very center of first century Christianity was at Antioch in Syria. Syrian Christianity had a close connection with many of the branches of the church that had received inspired letters that we find in the New Testament.
In this city all the scrolls of the Christian writers were gathered. In fact, it was in this city that the followers of Christ were first called Christians: “... And the disciples were called Christians first in Antioch.” (Acts 11:26.) The Syrian church had direct contact with the Apostles and writers of scripture. These writings, which were in “Koine” Greek (the common language of the day), were carefully collected and taken to Antioch where they were translated into Syriac about the year 150 A.D. This translation came to be known as the “Peshitta,” or common language Bible. It was a forerunner of what came to be known as the Italia Bible. The Syrian version of biblical text, known as the Syriac Peshitta, appears, then, to have been written with direct access to the original letters of the Apostles. These Christian believers collected and made many exact copies of those sacred writings, eventually culminating into one single book known as the New Testament.
In Biblical times there were two major Greek languages: Classical, or “Attic” (the dialect of Athens on the Attica Peninsula), and Hellenistic, or “Koine” (meaning common). Though brief and compact, Attic was considered the more elegant of the two. Attic was the language of the golden age of Greece, and was in fashion from about 480 to 323 B.C. After Alexander the Great, the more simple and precise Koine began to be spoken, and became the more common language of the eastern Mediterranean region until the fourth century A.D. when it was superseded by Byzantine Greek. Koine was the dialect of the New Testament. It was a simple, clear, plain, precise and full dialect, whereas the Attic left much to the imagination and pretended to much elegance.
ALEXANDRIA, EGYPT
About 317 miles southwest of Jerusalem was Alexandria, Egypt. In this city were gathered the “intellectual” scriptorians. These so called religious philosophers revered books more than they understood them. They specialized in certain areas, and became vicious over that which was petty and jealous of the learning of others. As David W. Daniels, an authority on biblical history, puts it, “... the Alexandrian ‘scholars’ were stuck up, selfish, jealous hypocrites who could never agree on anything.”
Certainly Antioch has by far the more glorious Biblical heritage. Egypt shares no such glory. It has always been looked upon as a symbol of a world-system which is opposed to the things of God. God would not allow His Son (Matt. 2), His nation (Ex. 12), His patriarchs (Gen. 50), or even the bones of the patriarchs (Ex. 13:19) to remain there. The Jews were warned repeatedly not to return to Egypt, not to rely upon it for help, not to even purchase horses there, etc. Thus, in contrast to what is being claimed today, it is hard to believe that Egypt and Alexandria would have been the central place where God would preserve His Holy Word. Frankly, it was the last place on earth that one could trust in doctrinal and biblical matters. It certainly wasn’t safe to get a Bible there! So guess what happened to the pure Bible of Antioch after the so called intellectual scholars of Alexandria got hold of it? – Much changed.
History simply gives the name of one of these scriptural philosophers as, Origen (about 185-254 AD). Origen was an early Christian theologian and a native of Alexandria who sought to reconcile the old Greek philosophy of Platonism with Christianity. He didn’t have much respect for true Bible teachings, and his way of interpreting it was called “Allegorical Exegesis,” the main points of which are that God didn’t always mean what He said.
Not believing in much of what Jesus taught, Origen removed what he felt were needless words from scripture declaring the Godhood of Jesus Christ. He also didn’t believe in Old or New Testament miracles nor that the Holy Ghost is eternal. Origen created his own perverted Bible by inserting New Testament verses into the Old Testament, causing confusion or misunderstanding; added the Apocrypha, which some consider “counterfeit” holy books; added, removed and changed many words; and generally corrupted the New Testament. The result was Origen’s Alexandrian Septuagint Bible, also translated into Greek. Origen is now treated as a “saint” and his writings are honored by both Roman Catholics and Protestants alike, but he was not even a real Christian.
So after the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, Satan, using Gnostics in Alexandria, Egypt, corrupted the Biblical scriptures, playing down the deity of Jesus and added the Apocrypha. Now we have two Bibles on the scene, the authentic being the original Antioch Greek Bible and the Alexandrian Greek Bible of which Origen was the origin.
LUCIAN' TRANSLATION
Now back to Syria.
In the middle of the third century, there was born in Antioch one who was to have a lasting influence on Christianity. His name was Lucian. Antioch by this time was a thriving Roman metropolis, but it was also a center of Greek life and culture.
By this time Lucian was in his early twenties, he had become a very well-educated man. Lucian noticed that the scriptures which the Roman church used were substantially different from those being used by Syrian Christians. Being a committed Christian in the apostolic tradition, he determined to resist the philosophy that characterized these spurious biblical texts. He rejected the growing notion of the supremacy of the Bishop of Rome, who exalted his position by using deceptive writings of an Apocryphal nature which supported Peter as being the foundation of their faith.
As a counter to bogus scriptures, Lucian determined to certify the Apostolic New Testament by editing the Peshitta, and also translated the Hebrew Old Testament into Greek, which held its own in Constantinople and in most of the East. Thus we can attribute to this Christian scholar the honor of producing the first complete Bible, which established what has become known as the Traditional or “Byzantine Text” from which eventually came the “Textus Receptus” Bibles of the Protestant Reformation – Textus Receptus meaning the “Received Text.”
However, like so many of the following champions of the traditional and Textus Receptus, the “Received Text,” Lucian met a martyr’s death in 312.
THE VAUDOIS
Now there were a Christian people called the “Vaudois” (pronounced: vahd-wah). These people lived among the foothills in the northwest corner of the Italian Alps, east of France, called the “Italia.” The Vaudois are known by a number of names, but they are best known as the Waldenses or Waldensians. The name Waldenses comes from the Italian word for “valleys.” As these Christians spread over France they were called Vaudois, which means “inhabitants of the valleys.” Accordingly, the historical name of this people, as properly derived from the valleys where they lived, is “Vaudois.”
There are those who claim that the beginning of the Waldenses were followers of a Peter Waldo, one whom God raised up in about 1175 to combat the errors of Roman Catholicism. The enemies of the Waldenses have always claimed this rather than accept the fact that they go back as far as the original Apostles, yet there is abundant evidence that the history of the Waldenses, or Vaudois, dates back to that time.
The history of the Waldenses, or Vaudois, begins centuries before the days of Peter Waldo. The Vaudois are, in fact, descended from those refugees from Italy who abandoned their beautiful country and fled from persecution, after the Apostle Paul had preached the gospel there. In those wild Alpine mountains they have attempted, to this day, to hand down the gospel from father to son in the same purity and simplicity as it was preached by Paul.
The Vaudois have been known by other names. Various Papal decrees have denounced them as Waldenses, Cathari, Passagians or Albigenses, Albi being the French city which was their headquarters. However, the diversity of names bestowed upon them began to disappear as they took the general name of Waldenses. Because of this, most historians and writers refer to this people as the Waldenses, yet there are those who still refer to them as the Vaudois. Therefore, as you continue reading, please do not become confused when either one or the other name is used in referring to this Christian people of the Alpine Valleys of France and Italy – the Vaudois, or Waldenses.
As a side note: It is interesting to know that the language used by the Vaudois was the Romance language, for it was from this language that the French and Italian languages were formed.
Now many of the Vaudois became converts to Christ, and it wasn’t long before some went to Antioch to receive more of God’s word. No later than 157 AD, they had meticulously translated the original Antioch Greek Bible into their language – that of Latin. The “Old Latin” Bible, often called the “Vulgate” (meaning common), was now available to the whole Roman Empire and beyond. This Old Latin Bible has become known as the “Italia” Bible; its very name, “Italia,” is derived from the Italic district regions of the Vaudois. By way of Vaudois missionaries, this Bible made its way to Northern Europe, over to Great Brittan, and even down to Rome before 200 AD. At the time, Rome was still pagan and not Christian. Consequently, there were great persecutions and slaughters of those faithful Vaudois missionaries until the time of Emperor Constantine, who was a pagan like most all other Romans.
Research into the history of the Waldensian Bible has shown that it is a direct descendant of the Old Latin Italia. In other words, the Italia has come down to us in the Vaudois form, and is clearly one of the Received Text used the Authorized King James Version of the Holy Bible. And the inhabitants of the valleys, the Vaudois, never were part of the Papacy, contrary to what the papacy claims, for their existence predates Constantine, and they, in fact, always considered Roman Catholicism the “newcomer.”
THE JEROME’S BIBLE
After consolidating his power over both church and state by legalizing Christianity, Emperor Constantine wanted copies of a Bible. He employed Eusebius, the Bishop of Caesarea, to fetch him 50 Greek copies, and it so happened that Eusebius, in about 331, had already edited Origen’s edition of the Bible. Now Eusebius believed in Origen’s teachings, and was an anti-Semitic Aryan Gentile that did not believe in the divinity of Jesus Christ. Constantine recognized Eusebius’ work as a fulfilment of his need. So instead of going to the Vaudois for an authentic Latin Vulgate Italia, Constantine ended up with 50 copies of Origen’s bogus Bible.
Of course, not all Christians were ready to accept Constantine’s doctrinal decrees. One of their most strenuous objections was his Eusebio-Origen Bible which was out of harmony with the Syriac Peshitta, Lucian’s Bible, and also the Old Latan Italia; all three of the latter being basically the same and considered a Textus Receptus.
Lucian’s Greek Bible was most preferred in the East over the Eusebius Bible obtained by Constantine. And having their Italia, the Vaudois could easily see that Rome was the pagan “whore of Babylon.” Anxious to overcome this threat, Pope Damasus I, in 382, commissioned his Secretary Jerome (About 340-420), one of his most intellectual and learned monks, to create a Bible in Latin for the Roman church that they could also call a “Vulgate” – meaning common.
Jerome, after moving to Bethlehem and studying Hebrew, changed some of Origen’s work to read like his own interpretations. This new counterfeit Bible was called the Roman Catholic Latin Vulgate, which consisted of many errors as did the previous Eusebian Bible. Now the Christian world was starting to get confused, a thing the Papacy loved to do, because there were now two “Vulgates: 1) the “Old Latin” Italia Vulgate, and 2) the new Romanish “Latin” Vulgate. However, it did not gain acceptance with the majority of the people at first, and some nine hundred years were to pass before being accepted as the Vulgate. And the Jerome Bible became the foundation for future Catholic translations, eight of which have been produced during the twentieth century.
Of this time H. H. Meyers wrote: “Three great branches of Christianity arose, each having its own Bible and liturgy. To the east there was the original Apostolic Church which branched out from Greece and Syria and quickly spread into Persia, India and even into China and Japan. They came to rely on Lucian’s Greek Vulgate and the Syriac Peshitta. ... To the west there arose the great Latin communities of Northern Italy and the numerous Celtic communities of Christians who spread from Galatia into what is now France, and from there to England, Scotland and Ireland. These Christians took with them the Italia or Latin Bible, which dates back to the mid-second century. ... The third great branch into which Christianity separated lay to the south, in the Roman portion of Italy and in North Africa, especially around Alexandria. It was this branch of Christianity which increasingly gorged itself on pagan philosophy and set up its religio-political headquarters in Rome. Its authority was a mixture of Jerome’s Origen-impregnated Bible and the traditions of man.” (Meyers, Battle of the Bibles, Chapter Thirteen.)
PERSECUTION OF THE ITALIA
In the meantime, the true Christian believers, the Vaudois, were tucked away in the lower Alpine valleys and still preferring their Old Latin Vulgate. This Italia Bible was being read publicly in all the churches of Italy, France, Spain, England, Scotland, Germany, Hungary, Bohemia, Saxony, Poland, Lithuania, Bulgaria, Croatia, Dalmatia, Constantinople, Africa and wherever Latin was understood. It was in stark contrast to the false doctrines of Catholicism; the Vaudois being foremost among the ancient Christians in their opposition to the Papacy. They rejected the mystical doctrines, the high ranking of priesthood, and worldly titles while they clung to the simplicity of their Old Latin Bible. Through the spiritual darkness to come, they undertook to preserve, in its purity, their precious Italia. And this undaunted persistence made them the object of persecution by the Papacy.
The Pope was determined to destroy those who would not accept the new Catholic Latin Vulgate, so he gave an ultimatum that all were to accept Jerome’s Latin Vulgate Bible or be put to death. The Pope’s henchmen were more than happy to do his bidding since they were permitted to keep the property of the accused heretics they butchered. Thus, the long centuries of the “Dark Ages” began.
However, these persecutions were suspended in about 410 because of the 10 years of invasions by the Visigoths. After these raids and collapse of the Roman Empire, only the perverted pagan Church of Roman Catholicism was left to hold things together. And as before, one of its first tasks was to try and eradicate the Old Latin Italia Bible of the Vaudois.
The noble Vaudois withstood every attempt of Rome to bring them under subjection. Century after Century, fear and ignorance ran rampant in the Roman Catholic controlled nations. True Christians went into hiding; if found, they were tortured before being brutally butchered. From the days of Pope Sylvester (early 300's) until the massacres of 1655, they were slaughtered, had their name blackened, and their records destroyed; yet they remained true to the Holy Word. There was no village of the Vaudois valleys that did not have its martyrs. Considered heretics by Rome, thousands of these Christians, old men, women and children, were either burned alive, hanged, drawn-and-quartered, stretched upon the rack or wheel, and had their property seized for the benefit of the king and/or the Papacy.
The Pope and his cohorts did their utmost to destroy their character, their records and their Bible; attempting to totally eradicate any trace of their noble past, and leave no trace of the barbarous persecution they endured. The persecutions went on for over 900 years until about 1380. After this time until the present, it still continues, but more clandestinely behind a multiplicity of smokescreens.
History does not give us a record of cruelty greater than that manifested by Rome toward the Vaudois, or Waldenses. It is impossible to fully recount the stirring history of this persecuted people, whose history is embellished with stories of gripping intrigue. Why? Because the Roman Church had obliterated the records of this courageous and faithful people. This not only affected the faithful Vaudois, but all people. In 1229, the Synod of Toulouse forbid the reading or owning of a Vaudois Bible, and in 1234, the Council of Tarragona stated that there was to be no Bible permitted in one’s native language – all of them had to be burned. A time came when only Priests were qualified to read and interpret Jerome’s Latin Vulgate Bible. The destruction of Vaudois records began about the year 600 by Gregory I, and has been pursued with thoroughness by the secret agents of the Papacy, even up to this day.
Thus when Christianity was legitimized by the Emperor Constantine, the Vaudois in northern Italy - later the Waldenses - were found standing in opposition to that Roman Church. Their Bible was that translation into Latin which represents the Received Text, the Old Latin Vulgate, the Italia. On page 27 of a work entitled, Our Authorized Bible Vindicated, the author writes, “The old Italic version into the rude Low Latin of the second century held its own as long as Latin continued to be the language of the people. The critical version of Jerome never displaced it, and only replaced it when the Latin ceased to be a living language, and became the language of the learned.”
From the author of Truth Triumphant we read: “Their obedience to the book of God was at once the cause of [the Vaudois] incomparable success, as it was also the offense which they gave to their enemies. Through the long night of the Dark Ages these people were a sanctuary for the Holy Scriptures. They were the ark in Europe which safely carried the Bible across the stormy waters of medieval persecution.” (Truth Triumphant, Ch. 16.)
EARLY BIBLICAL TRANSLATIONS
John Wycliffe (1320-84) is called “The Morning Star of the Reformation.” He protested against papal supremacy, along with many other things, and believed that the common people should be able to possess and study the Bible. By 1382, Wycliffe had translated the complete English Bible. He did it at a time when it was illegal to translate the Bible, when Latin was the only legal language of education, and when someone could be put to death for his work. It wasn’t long before a Catholic named John Purvey started distorting Wycliffe’s edition of the Bible, making it look like an English version of the Roman Catholic Bible. And in 1408, the Third Synod of Oxford declared it to be heresy to have an “unauthorized” English Bible.
Fortunately for Wycliffe, he escaped a martyr’s death and died of natural causes. However, he was so hated by the Catholic Church that, in 1415, some 21 years after his death, the church dug up his body and tried him for heresy. Of course he was found guilty. His body was then burned, and his ashes dumped in the river. Nevertheless, his teachings had spread to the distant land of Bohemia, where it received an enthusiastic welcome.
It was Wycliffe’s teachings that provided the great Bohemian reformer, John Huss, with the tools he needed to gain popular support for his attack on the Church. Huss also believed that the common people, not just the priests, should read the Bible. Because of his work, he was summoned to appear before the general council in 1414 to answer charges of heresy, was tried, condemned, and after refusing to recant, he was burned alive at the stake in July, 1415. Those that looked on said that he sang hymns until his passing.
In the 1450’s, Johannes Gutenberg (1398-1468), the inventor of the printing press, published about 200 volumes of the Roman Catholic Latin Vulgate. It wasn’t long before others were able to make printing presses and started to print books themselves; the most prevalent, of course, being the Bible.
In England, William Tyndale (1494-1536) read the true Bible in Greek and started translating it into English. Traveling to Germany, he became friends with Martin Luther and published the first preserved English New Testament in 1525. He had to smuggle his Bibles back into England, and was hated by the famous Thomas More (1478-1535), who later received the status of “Saint” by the Vatican. More liked to burn Bible-believers, and was known to torture them in his own house. He paid a high price for the capture of Tyndale, a price equal to about a “million” dollars in money today. Following Thomas More’s conniving plan, Tyndale was betrayed by a supposed friend, suffered in prison for 16 months and was finally burned at the stake on October 6, 1536. However, the day he died, his Bible was being printed by the presses of King Henry VIII, and under his command.
More was one of the most respected figures in English history: a statesman, scholar, author, noted for his wit as well as for his devotion to his Roman Catholic religion. But he received, what some would call in Great Britain, his just comeuppance. Thomas More was executed as a traitor for his refusal to acknowledge King Henry VIII’s supremacy over the English church.
During this same period, Desiderius Erasmus (1466-1536) of Rotterdam, Netherlands, was a leading scholar of the religious Renaissance. Although be became a priest in the Augustinian order, he found dissatisfaction with it and was released in 1494. From that time on he was a traveling scholar, desiring a reformed Christianity. In 1516 Erasmus compiled all the original available Greek manuscripts that had been faithfully handed down by true Christian believers, all of which agreeing together, with the exception of Origen’s Greek Septuagint or any of those of Romanish thought. Erasmus edited, compiled and produced what has become known as one of the Greek “Textus Receptus.”
It wasn’t long before the people rebelled against Roman Catholic suppression. But there was still another hand to be played by the pagan Pope to try and kill the free Christian movement and the dissemination of God’s Word by way of the Old Latin Vulgate Bible, now being translated and printed in various languages.
John Calvin was led to his work by Olivetan, who was one of the most illustrious Waldensian pastors from the valleys of the Vaudois. Olivetan translated the New Testament into French which, harmonized with the Textus Receptus, was unlike the manuscripts of the Pope’s, because the latter were full of falsehoods. Later, Calvin edited a second edition of the Olivetan Bible. The Olivetan in turn became the basis of the Geneva Bible in English, which was the leading version in England in 1611 when the King James Bible was published.
Theodore Beza (1519-1605) was an outstanding French Protestant Christian scholar who played an important role in the early Reformation. He was a disciple of John Calvin and lived most of his life in Switzerland.
Beza astonished the world with the Greek manuscripts he unearthed. This later edition of the Received Text is in reality a Greek New Testament brought out under Waldensian influence.
Diodati, also a foremost scholar, took the same and translates into Italian a new edition which was adopted and circulated by the Vaudois.
There are several editions of the Greek Received Text, the basis for all of the Protestant Bibles until the late 19th century, all of them referred to as an edition of the Textus Receptus. Erasmus published five editions (1516, 1519, 1522, 1527, 1535); Robert Stephanus published four editions (1546, 1549, 1550, 1551); Theodore Beza published at least four independent editions (1556, 1582, 1588-89, 1598); the Elziver family printed two editions (1624, 1633); And other edition of the Greek Received Text have been published.
THE WALDENSES INFLUENCE
The Waldenses, or Vaudois, of northern Italy were chief among the early Christians of Europe in their resistance to the Papacy. They not only took the brunt of Rome’s persecution but were also successful in holding the torch of truth aloft to the world until the reformers took it from their hands.
It was the teachings of the Waldenses that introduce the Reformation. Huss, Luther, Calvin, and the like, only carried on the work courageously pursued by the Vaudois; and because of more favorable political climates, they were able to greatly enlarge upon their work. The Reformers accepted the fact that the Waldensian Church dated from about 120, passing down from father to son the teachings received from the apostles.
In his work, Truth Triumphant, the author states that: “In 1517, the dawn of the Protestant Reformation came to Europe. Protestantism was not so much a separation from the Church of Rome as it was a revival of apostolic doctrines so long held by the Waldenses – a spiritual expansion of the Church of the Vaudois. Of the remaining evangelical churches which had come down from the days of the apostles, the Waldenses were the purest and the most prominent.” (Truth Triumphant, Ch. 16.)
And James D. McCabe writes concerning the delegates of early Reformers sent to a synodal assembly of the Waldenses: “Thus the time passed on until the Reformation dawned upon the world. The Vaudois were well pleased at this general awakening of the human mind. They entered into correspondence with the Reformers in various parts of Europe, and sent several of their Barbas to them to instruct them. The Reformers on their part, admitted the antiquity of the Vaudois rites and the purity of their faith, and treated the mountain church with the greatest respect. On the twelfth of September, 1532, a Synodal Assembly was held at Angrogna. It was attended by a number of deputies from the Reformed Churches in France and Switzerland. Among them was William Farel of France.... He manifested the greatest interest in the manuscript copies of the Bible which the Vaudois had preserved from the earliest times, and at his insistence, the entire Bible was translated into French, and sent as a free gift from the Vaudois to the French Church.”
Benjamin G. Wilkinson, the author of Our Authorized Bible Vindicated, wrote: “To show that the messengers of God who carried manuscripts from the churches of Judea to the churches of northern Italy and on, brought to the forerunners of the Waldenses a Bible different from the Bible of Roman Catholicism, I quote the following: ‘ ... in the ecclesiastical history of every century, from the fourth century, which he considers a period early enough for the enquirer after apostolical purity of doctrine, there are clear proofs that doctrines, unlike those which the Romish Church holds, and conformable to the belief of the Waldensian and Reformed Churches, were maintained by theologians of the north of Italy down to the period, when the Waldenses first came into notice. – Gilly, Waldensian Researches, pp. 118, 119.’” (From Our Authorized Bible Vindicated, 1930, pp. 31-42 )
THE KING JAMES BIBLE
There was still another hand to be played by the Papacy to try and kill the free Christian movement and the distribution of God’s Word by way of the Old Latin Italia now being translated and printed in various languages. Knowing that King James was about to publish a version of the Holy Bible in English, the Jesuits came out in 1609 with their new Bible, their Rheims-Douay Bible. It was an endeavor to rival the English text of what was to become known as the King James Bible. But it was not quite soon enough.
In the seventeenth century, fifty-four scholars were commissioned by King James to translate a version of the Bible into English that would be accepted by the Church of England. In 1611, God’s word was translated from the Greek “Textus Receptus” and published in English as “The Authorized Version,” a version which has existed for the English speaking world for nearly 400 years. Because of it being translated from the Textus Receptus, and because of the title "Authorized Version," though the King James Version was never formally authorized by either King or Parliament, this translation was touted as the "one holy and infallible" version of the Bible.
Edward F. Hills, a noted biblical scholor who had a doctorate in modern textual criticism from Harvard, made the following important statement in regard to the KJV and the Received Text: “The King James Version is a variety of the Textus Receptus. The translators that produced the King James Version relied mainly, it seems, on the later editions of Beza’s Greek New Testament, especially his 4th edition (1588-89). But also they frequently consulted the editions of Erasmus and Stephanus and the Complutensian Polyglot. ... Hence the King James version ought to be regarded not merely as a translation of the Textus Receptus but also as an independent variety of the Textus Receptus....” (Edward F. Hills, The King James Version Defended, 4th edition, pp. 220, 223).
Unquestionably, the leaders of the Reformation, German, French, and English, were convinced that the Received Text was the genuine New Testament, not only by its own irresistible history and internal evidence, but also because it matched with the Received Text which in Waldensian form came down from the days of the apostles.”
From his vast research, Dr. Wilkinson concludes: “It is therefore evident that the translators of 1611 had before them four Bibles which had come under Waldensian influences: the Diodati in Italian, the Olivetan in French, the Lutheran in German, and the Genevan in English. We have every reason to believe that they had access to at least six Waldensian Bibles written in the old Waldensian vernacular.” (From Our Authorized Bible Vindicated, 1930, pp. 31-42.)
Within a very short time, in only one generation, the King James Bible was THE Bible used by most everyone in Europe, even the Pilgrims who ventured to America.
TOWARD THE MODERN VERSIONS
The early versions of the Bible were translated into Greek before 350 A.D., the three primary versions being the Syriac Peshitta, Old Latin, and Egyptian Coptic. The two former were translated about 150 and the latter Egyptian Coptic about the year 200. Many people believe that it was the Roman Catholic Church that gave the world the Holy Bible, as the Roman Church claims. This is NOT so! What she gave was an impure text, a text with thousands of verses so changed as to make way for her unscriptural doctrines.
Unfortunately, the war of the Bibles continues to this very day. We must remember that the Jesuits are not only supposed to be priests or missionaries, they are also soldiers and assassins. They are, likewise, TEACHERS who do not wear the uniform of the soldier or the habiliments of any religious order; they wear the same clothing or uniform any other individual might wear in their daily life or profession. In their seductive disguise, this Satanic order of Jesuits has virtually infiltrated EVERY major Christian religion, Bible College, Seminary, and Religious Institutions such as Colleges and Universities, to undermine the beliefs of the non-Roman Catholic world, to instill doubt and confusion in the minds of the people, to create greater doctrinal division among the sects, and destroy the King James Bible. Bible-believing students had no idea what was going to happen. Their professors looked Christian, but began teaching contrary doctrines.
For example, many Bible societies were created to help push Protestants towards Catholicism. In 1833 the “Tractarians” of England called themselves “The Association of the Friends of the Church,” but they didn't say which church. Each tract had a subtle message promoting doubt in the faith of the reader, and were anti-Protestantism and pro-Catholicism.
A man named John Newman (1801-90) was a Vatican spy who controlled the Tractarian society, and who was able to shift the thinking of the English Protestants. In 1845, when he finally revealed who and what he was, he still took about 875 ministers, theologians, professors and members of Parliament to the pagan whore of the Papacy. In 1879, Newman became a Cardinal by Pope Pius IX for leaving the English Anglican Church, and for writing a tract designed to destroy that Church.
The underlying Greek text for the Authorized King James Version of the Bible, was the Textus Receptus. The Greek text that was the foundation for the many modern versions of the Bible was designed by the Jesuits to adulterate the Textus Receptus; they were the Vaticanus and Siniaticus, neither of which agreed with the other, and which both leave out many words and phrases while adding additional material and Newman’s own “spurious” interpretation.
THE WESTCOTT – HORT THEORY
Last century, about the time when Darwin was trying to show how there could be a creation without a Creator, two Cambridge professors, Brooke F. Westcott and F. J. A. Hort developed an elaborate argument in favor of a shorter text instead of the longer and more complete Received Text. These men were “spiritualists” who belong to an occult-type group called the “Ghostly Guild.” And, along with being Anglican by tradition, they were also Mary-worshipers employed to try and destroy the Christian world by debasing true biblical teaching; believing in seances, crystal-gazing, evolution and contempt for the true Bible.
A female ally of Westcott and Hort was one Madame Helena Petrovna Blavatzky, an ardent Luciferin — one who worshiped Lucifer. They became captivated by her intellect and understanding of the spiritualistic, and happily received her input into the creation of the new scriptures.
Madame Helena Petrovna Blavatsky was initiated into the Freemasons as a Co-Mason during the early part of last century. She was the founder of one of the most deeply Satanic secret society on earth, the occult Theosophical Society. People who learned Satanism from her included Lenin with some of his Communist leaders, and Adolf Hitler and some of his men. Hitler, particularly, found Blavatsky’s teachings to be crucial to his Satanic doctrines, especially her treatise, Secret Doctrine. Hitler’s Holocaust occurred in large part because of Blavatsky’s teachings. Would anyone ever believe that such an individual would have provided input into what some consider the Holy Bible?
What were some of the feelings of Westcott and Hort concerning the 1611 King James and other related topics? Let’s first consider Mr. Westcott, a socialist, who made statements such as: “I have been persuaded for many years that Mary-worship and Jesus-worship have very much in common...” “The Romish view seems to me nearer, and more likely to lead to the truth than the Evangelical...”; “... the book that has most engaged me is Darwin... My feeling is strong that the theory is unanswerable.” (Let’s Weigh the Evidence, B. Burton, pp. 67-68); “The old dogmatic view of the Bible therefore, is not only open to attack from the standpoint of science and historical criticism, for if taken seriously it becomes a danger to religion and public morals;” “Moses has left us no writings, and we know little of him with certainty.” (The Authority of the Bible, C. H. Dodd, pp. 14, 27.); and, like his partner Mr. Hort, he also spoke of “... the vile Textus Receptus...,” on which the 1611 King James Bible was based.
Now consider Mr. Hort who wrote to a friend in 1851 when only twenty-three years of age: “I had no idea till the last few weeks of the importance of texts, having read so little Greek Testament, and dragged on with the villainous Textus Receptus...Think of that vile Textus Receptus... “ (Life and Letters of Fenton John Anthony Hort, 1896, Vol 1, p. 211). With these remarks, Hort began a career devoted to the subversion of the Received Text, and the King James Bible in particular. About Hort, Ernest Colwell wrote: “The dead hand of Fenton John Anthony Hort lies heavy upon us. In the early years of this century Kirsopp Lake described Hort’s work as a failure, though a glorious one. But Hort did not fail to reach his major goal. He dethroned the Textus Receptus. (Scribal Habits in Early Papyri, The Bible in Modern Scholarship, Abingdon, 1965, p. 370.)
In 1853 these two men, Westcott and Hort, started making changes in the Bible, inviting Cardinal John Newman, and others, to join the group in revamping the scriptures. From then on the religious world would never be the same. They slipped in many teachings of Origen and the Jerome Bible, and in 1881-85 they came out with a perverted Alexandrian Bible. Others before them had attempted the same, but Westcott and Hort developed their approach into a very convincing argument. Thus we have what has been referred to as the “Westcott-Hort Theory.” What they had achieved is known as a “conflation.” That is the combining of two diverse or unlike interpretations into a single text.
Their theory, and resulting biblical text, has greatly influenced the beliefs of Bible translators since that time. The Church of England bought the “new and improved” Greek text, which was called the English Revised Version (ERV). Shortly thereafter (1901), the American Standard Version (ASV) came upon the scene, along with a revival — a revival not of faith, but of doubt; not of knowledge from God’s word, but of the opinion of man. In addition to these bogus Bibles which cause confusion, we now have a slew of Roman Catholic Bibles created for the Protestant world. What are some of these Bibles? To mention just a few, some of the others that surfaced are the:
Revised Standard Version (RSV – 1946, 52);
New American Standard Version (NASV – 1963, 71);
New Revised Standard Version (NRSV – 1989);
English Standard Version (ESV – 2001);
New World Translation (NWT – 1950-84, Used by Jehovah’s Witnesses);
Amplified Bible (AB – 1965, 87);
Living Bible (LB – 1967, 71, Peddled by Billy Graham);
Moffatt Bible (1926);
New English Bible (NEB – 1961, 70);
Good News Bible (GNB or TEV – 1966-76);
New International Version (NIV – 1973, 78, The pet of most all Christian schools and seminaries);
New King James Bible (NKJV – 1979)
New Century Bible (NCV – 1987)
The Message (1993, 2002);
Holman Christian Standard Version (HCSV – 2001, 04);
Today’s New International Version (TNIV – 2002, 05).
HOW PURE THE WORD?
The King James Version has not changed since its original 1611 edition. However, over the years, after the original publications of these spurious bibles, each one has gone through some sort of revision without warning the public of their changes. So what we have today is NOT the same NKJV that we had with its first publication, nor do we have the same NIV as it was when it was first published, and so on down the line with the other new bibles. This is a slick way of introducing false concepts and doctrines while, at the same time, confusing the reader and fostering doubt in the mind of the Christian community in the process.
With a closer look at some of those who have their hands in many of these bogus biblical translation, one would begin to shudder. For example: Who is the Chairman of the New International Version’s (NIV) Old Testament committee? It a supporter of the “homosexual” movement, Martin Woudra.
The printing rights to the (NIV) are now owned by the “pornographer,” Rupert Murdock. Not only is Murdock the owner of Twentieth Century Fox Movie Studios, Fox Broadcasting, along with the family-degrading and disgusting Bart Simpson TV show, but he is also the owner of Zondervan Publishing, one of the world’s largest publishing houses of Christian Books.
The Roman Catholic Cardinal, Carlo Maria Martini, was touted by Time magazine, in 1995, as being the most likely one to become the next Pope, after John Paul II. Cardinal Martini is now one of the Editors of the NIV and the New American Standard Version (NASV). Personally, he neither believes in the Lordship of Jesus Christ, that the Holy Bible is the word of God, nor that the biblical miracles were true.
Considering these other biblical versions, can they truly be called the “Holy” Bible, or should they be considered the “unholy” bible?
THE READER’S CHOICE
What is so remarkable is that, although the tenets of Westcott and Hort (and other cohort) as used in their translation, have been continuously refuted by theologians, the theologians still teach those doctrines anyway. One thing appears quite certain, considering their gross insensibility to the obvious consequence, their return to the King James Bible is in serious doubt. Despite the proven fallacy, it is apparent that the theological colleges are simply not willing to upset the status quo.
As one considers the modern translations, they will find that various words or passages are either missing, drastically changed, or new words and phrases added. Without going into a lot of comparisons between the King James Version and the modern versions of the Holy Bible (which discussion is too lengthy at this time), it can be pointed out that they differ in some 5,337 places, and the modern versions downgrade or deny the Godhood of Jesus Christ, His virgin birth, blood atonement, resurrection, and the reliability of the written word of God. The old devil has a way of confusing and casting doubt.
For example, during Bible study classes where everyone has a different version, you hear such things as, “My Bible says ...,” “But mine says ...,” “I can’t seem to find it in my Bible ...,” etc. Yet Paul said to the Corinthians, “For God is not the author of confusion, but of peace ...” (1 Cor. 14:33.)
Surprisingly, there are some Bible translators who really don’t believe in the Bible much at all, and their lack of belief shows up in their work. Today, most Bible Colleges encourage the use of some of these spurius translations which we have just mentioned, holding the King James Version in contempt. To compound the problem, many students and regular church-goers don’t want to bother with checking things out for themselves, so they find it easier to ignorantly believe the so-called religious scholars.
On top of that, many Christian book stores get “perks” for promoting new Bibles, such as the New International Version, and are being educated how to drive customers away from the King James Bible to the other versions. Most of these other texts have been tampered with by the evil Jesuits, attempting to deprive us of the true Word of God. The Jesuits had a goal, to destroy the Protestant movement, the King James Bible, and alter the faith of the faithful Christian.
An exact Greek text (a Textus Receptus), that the King James Bible was based upon, has more recently been published in English by the Trinitarian Bible Society of England, and in America by the Dean Burgon Society. This text was restored by Frederick Scrivener and published in 1891.
It is this author’s firm belief that it is not the goal of the Roman Catholic Church, nor their Satanic Jesuit Order and their tampering with God’s word, to convert the world to Christ, but to force them into pagan worship and idolatry.
In the modern world, the Vatican (the Whore of Babylon) is responsible for: All Satanic Bible versions based on the corrupted Alexandrian Gnostic manuscripts. The King James Version is the only reliable Biblical “Word of God.”
Many versions of the Bible bring confusion, which is the obvious plan of the adversary. Consequently, I believe that there are, in reality, only two Bibles offered today: The Authorized King James Bible, and the counterfeit Catholic Bible, regardless of how many titles it may be hidden behind. I do not believe that these other versions can be totally trusted to present true gospel doctrine as intended.
The subject of which Bible translation is best has been a debate since the very first Catholic Bible arrived upon the scene. Hopefully, the forgoing discussion found in this discussion has helped resolve any questions regarding the subject. It is also hoped that this brief historical discussion on the Bible successfully answers the question imposed by the title of the chapter.
north of Jerusalem, in Syria, there was a city named Antioch. It became to the Gentile Christians what Jerusalem had been to the Jews, and superseded Jerusalem as the base for the spread of the Gospel. The Book of Acts leaves us with no doubt that Antioch was the center of early church activity. Paul’s great ministries had their base in Antioch. Mark, Barnabas, and Silas were there; as was Peter and probably Luke. The very center of first century Christianity was at Antioch in Syria. Syrian Christianity had a close connection with many of the branches of the church that had received inspired letters that we find in the New Testament.In this city all the scrolls of the Christian writers were gathered. In fact, it was in this city that the followers of Christ were first called Christians: “... And the disciples were called Christians first in Antioch.” (Acts 11:26.) The Syrian church had direct contact with the Apostles and writers of scripture. These writings, which were in “Koine” Greek (the common language of the day), were carefully collected and taken to Antioch where they were translated into Syriac about the year 150 A.D. This translation came to be known as the “Peshitta,” or common language Bible. It was a forerunner of what came to be known as the Italia Bible. The Syrian version of biblical text, known as the Syriac Peshitta, appears, then, to have been written with direct access to the original letters of the Apostles. These Christian believers collected and made many exact copies of those sacred writings, eventually culminating into one single book known as the New Testament.
In Biblical times there were two major Greek languages: Classical, or “Attic” (the dialect of Athens on the Attica Peninsula), and Hellenistic, or “Koine” (meaning common). Though brief and compact, Attic was considered the more elegant of the two. Attic was the language of the golden age of Greece, and was in fashion from about 480 to 323 B.C. After Alexander the Great, the more simple and precise Koine began to be spoken, and became the more common language of the eastern Mediterranean region until the fourth century A.D. when it was superseded by Byzantine Greek. Koine was the dialect of the New Testament. It was a simple, clear, plain, precise and full dialect, whereas the Attic left much to the imagination and pretended to much elegance.
ALEXANDRIA, EGYPT
About 317 miles southwest of Jerusalem was Alexandria, Egypt. In this city were gathered the “intellectual” scriptorians. These so called religious philosophers revered books more than they understood them. They specialized in certain areas, and became vicious over that which was petty and jealous of the learning of others. As David W. Daniels, an authority on biblical history, puts it, “... the Alexandrian ‘scholars’ were stuck up, selfish, jealous hypocrites who could never agree on anything.”
Certainly Antioch has by far the more glorious Biblical heritage. Egypt shares no such glory. It has always been looked upon as a symbol of a world-system which is opposed to the things of God. God would not allow His Son (Matt. 2), His nation (Ex. 12), His patriarchs (Gen. 50), or even the bones of the patriarchs (Ex. 13:19) to remain there. The Jews were warned repeatedly not to return to Egypt, not to rely upon it for help, not to even purchase horses there, etc. Thus, in contrast to what is being claimed today, it is hard to believe that Egypt and Alexandria would have been the central place where God would preserve His Holy Word. Frankly, it was the last place on earth that one could trust in doctrinal and biblical matters. It certainly wasn’t safe to get a Bible there! So guess what happened to the pure Bible of Antioch after the so called intellectual scholars of Alexandria got hold of it? – Much changed.
History simply gives the name of one of these scriptural philosophers as, Origen (about 185-254 AD). Origen was an early Christian theologian and a native of Alexandria who sought to reconcile the old Greek philosophy of Platonism with Christianity. He didn’t have much respect for true Bible teachings, and his way of interpreting it was called “Allegorical Exegesis,” the main points of which are that God didn’t always mean what He said.
Not believing in much of what Jesus taught, Origen removed what he felt were needless words from scripture declaring the Godhood of Jesus Christ. He also didn’t believe in Old or New Testament miracles nor that the Holy Ghost is eternal. Origen created his own perverted Bible by inserting New Testament verses into the Old Testament, causing confusion or misunderstanding; added the Apocrypha, which some consider “counterfeit” holy books; added, removed and changed many words; and generally corrupted the New Testament. The result was Origen’s Alexandrian Septuagint Bible, also translated into Greek. Origen is now treated as a “saint” and his writings are honored by both Roman Catholics and Protestants alike, but he was not even a real Christian.
So after the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, Satan, using Gnostics in Alexandria, Egypt, corrupted the Biblical scriptures, playing down the deity of Jesus and added the Apocrypha. Now we have two Bibles on the scene, the authentic being the original Antioch Greek Bible and the Alexandrian Greek Bible of which Origen was the origin.
LUCIAN' TRANSLATION
Now back to Syria.
In the middle of the third century, there was born in Antioch one who was to have a lasting influence on Christianity. His name was Lucian. Antioch by this time was a thriving Roman metropolis, but it was also a center of Greek life and culture.
By this time Lucian was in his early twenties, he had become a very well-educated man. Lucian noticed that the scriptures which the Roman church used were substantially different from those being used by Syrian Christians. Being a committed Christian in the apostolic tradition, he determined to resist the philosophy that characterized these spurious biblical texts. He rejected the growing notion of the supremacy of the Bishop of Rome, who exalted his position by using deceptive writings of an Apocryphal nature which supported Peter as being the foundation of their faith.
As a counter to bogus scriptures, Lucian determined to certify the Apostolic New Testament by editing the Peshitta, and also translated the Hebrew Old Testament into Greek, which held its own in Constantinople and in most of the East. Thus we can attribute to this Christian scholar the honor of producing the first complete Bible, which established what has become known as the Traditional or “Byzantine Text” from which eventually came the “Textus Receptus” Bibles of the Protestant Reformation – Textus Receptus meaning the “Received Text.”
However, like so many of the following champions of the traditional and Textus Receptus, the “Received Text,” Lucian met a martyr’s death in 312.
THE VAUDOIS
Now there were a Christian people called the “Vaudois” (pronounced: vahd-wah). These people lived among the foothills in the northwest corner of the Italian Alps, east of France, called the “Italia.” The Vaudois are known by a number of names, but they are best known as the Waldenses or Waldensians. The name Waldenses comes from the Italian word for “valleys.” As these Christians spread over France they were called Vaudois, which means “inhabitants of the valleys.” Accordingly, the historical name of this people, as properly derived from the valleys where they lived, is “Vaudois.”
There are those who claim that the beginning of the Waldenses were followers of a Peter Waldo, one whom God raised up in about 1175 to combat the errors of Roman Catholicism. The enemies of the Waldenses have always claimed this rather than accept the fact that they go back as far as the original Apostles, yet there is abundant evidence that the history of the Waldenses, or Vaudois, dates back to that time.
The history of the Waldenses, or Vaudois, begins centuries before the days of Peter Waldo. The Vaudois are, in fact, descended from those refugees from Italy who abandoned their beautiful country and fled from persecution, after the Apostle Paul had preached the gospel there. In those wild Alpine mountains they have attempted, to this day, to hand down the gospel from father to son in the same purity and simplicity as it was preached by Paul.
The Vaudois have been known by other names. Various Papal decrees have denounced them as Waldenses, Cathari, Passagians or Albigenses, Albi being the French city which was their headquarters. However, the diversity of names bestowed upon them began to disappear as they took the general name of Waldenses. Because of this, most historians and writers refer to this people as the Waldenses, yet there are those who still refer to them as the Vaudois. Therefore, as you continue reading, please do not become confused when either one or the other name is used in referring to this Christian people of the Alpine Valleys of France and Italy – the Vaudois, or Waldenses.
As a side note: It is interesting to know that the language used by the Vaudois was the Romance language, for it was from this language that the French and Italian languages were formed.
Now many of the Vaudois became converts to Christ, and it wasn’t long before some went to Antioch to receive more of God’s word. No later than 157 AD, they had meticulously translated the original Antioch Greek Bible into their language – that of Latin. The “Old Latin” Bible, often called the “Vulgate” (meaning common), was now available to the whole Roman Empire and beyond. This Old Latin Bible has become known as the “Italia” Bible; its very name, “Italia,” is derived from the Italic district regions of the Vaudois. By way of Vaudois missionaries, this Bible made its way to Northern Europe, over to Great Brittan, and even down to Rome before 200 AD. At the time, Rome was still pagan and not Christian. Consequently, there were great persecutions and slaughters of those faithful Vaudois missionaries until the time of Emperor Constantine, who was a pagan like most all other Romans.
Research into the history of the Waldensian Bible has shown that it is a direct descendant of the Old Latin Italia. In other words, the Italia has come down to us in the Vaudois form, and is clearly one of the Received Text used the Authorized King James Version of the Holy Bible. And the inhabitants of the valleys, the Vaudois, never were part of the Papacy, contrary to what the papacy claims, for their existence predates Constantine, and they, in fact, always considered Roman Catholicism the “newcomer.”
THE JEROME’S BIBLE
After consolidating his power over both church and state by legalizing Christianity, Emperor Constantine wanted copies of a Bible. He employed Eusebius, the Bishop of Caesarea, to fetch him 50 Greek copies, and it so happened that Eusebius, in about 331, had already edited Origen’s edition of the Bible. Now Eusebius believed in Origen’s teachings, and was an anti-Semitic Aryan Gentile that did not believe in the divinity of Jesus Christ. Constantine recognized Eusebius’ work as a fulfilment of his need. So instead of going to the Vaudois for an authentic Latin Vulgate Italia, Constantine ended up with 50 copies of Origen’s bogus Bible.
Of course, not all Christians were ready to accept Constantine’s doctrinal decrees. One of their most strenuous objections was his Eusebio-Origen Bible which was out of harmony with the Syriac Peshitta, Lucian’s Bible, and also the Old Latan Italia; all three of the latter being basically the same and considered a Textus Receptus.
Lucian’s Greek Bible was most preferred in the East over the Eusebius Bible obtained by Constantine. And having their Italia, the Vaudois could easily see that Rome was the pagan “whore of Babylon.” Anxious to overcome this threat, Pope Damasus I, in 382, commissioned his Secretary Jerome (About 340-420), one of his most intellectual and learned monks, to create a Bible in Latin for the Roman church that they could also call a “Vulgate” – meaning common.
Jerome, after moving to Bethlehem and studying Hebrew, changed some of Origen’s work to read like his own interpretations. This new counterfeit Bible was called the Roman Catholic Latin Vulgate, which consisted of many errors as did the previous Eusebian Bible. Now the Christian world was starting to get confused, a thing the Papacy loved to do, because there were now two “Vulgates: 1) the “Old Latin” Italia Vulgate, and 2) the new Romanish “Latin” Vulgate. However, it did not gain acceptance with the majority of the people at first, and some nine hundred years were to pass before being accepted as the Vulgate. And the Jerome Bible became the foundation for future Catholic translations, eight of which have been produced during the twentieth century.
Of this time H. H. Meyers wrote: “Three great branches of Christianity arose, each having its own Bible and liturgy. To the east there was the original Apostolic Church which branched out from Greece and Syria and quickly spread into Persia, India and even into China and Japan. They came to rely on Lucian’s Greek Vulgate and the Syriac Peshitta. ... To the west there arose the great Latin communities of Northern Italy and the numerous Celtic communities of Christians who spread from Galatia into what is now France, and from there to England, Scotland and Ireland. These Christians took with them the Italia or Latin Bible, which dates back to the mid-second century. ... The third great branch into which Christianity separated lay to the south, in the Roman portion of Italy and in North Africa, especially around Alexandria. It was this branch of Christianity which increasingly gorged itself on pagan philosophy and set up its religio-political headquarters in Rome. Its authority was a mixture of Jerome’s Origen-impregnated Bible and the traditions of man.” (Meyers, Battle of the Bibles, Chapter Thirteen.)
PERSECUTION OF THE ITALIA
In the meantime, the true Christian believers, the Vaudois, were tucked away in the lower Alpine valleys and still preferring their Old Latin Vulgate. This Italia Bible was being read publicly in all the churches of Italy, France, Spain, England, Scotland, Germany, Hungary, Bohemia, Saxony, Poland, Lithuania, Bulgaria, Croatia, Dalmatia, Constantinople, Africa and wherever Latin was understood. It was in stark contrast to the false doctrines of Catholicism; the Vaudois being foremost among the ancient Christians in their opposition to the Papacy. They rejected the mystical doctrines, the high ranking of priesthood, and worldly titles while they clung to the simplicity of their Old Latin Bible. Through the spiritual darkness to come, they undertook to preserve, in its purity, their precious Italia. And this undaunted persistence made them the object of persecution by the Papacy.
The Pope was determined to destroy those who would not accept the new Catholic Latin Vulgate, so he gave an ultimatum that all were to accept Jerome’s Latin Vulgate Bible or be put to death. The Pope’s henchmen were more than happy to do his bidding since they were permitted to keep the property of the accused heretics they butchered. Thus, the long centuries of the “Dark Ages” began.
However, these persecutions were suspended in about 410 because of the 10 years of invasions by the Visigoths. After these raids and collapse of the Roman Empire, only the perverted pagan Church of Roman Catholicism was left to hold things together. And as before, one of its first tasks was to try and eradicate the Old Latin Italia Bible of the Vaudois.
The noble Vaudois withstood every attempt of Rome to bring them under subjection. Century after Century, fear and ignorance ran rampant in the Roman Catholic controlled nations. True Christians went into hiding; if found, they were tortured before being brutally butchered. From the days of Pope Sylvester (early 300's) until the massacres of 1655, they were slaughtered, had their name blackened, and their records destroyed; yet they remained true to the Holy Word. There was no village of the Vaudois valleys that did not have its martyrs. Considered heretics by Rome, thousands of these Christians, old men, women and children, were either burned alive, hanged, drawn-and-quartered, stretched upon the rack or wheel, and had their property seized for the benefit of the king and/or the Papacy.
The Pope and his cohorts did their utmost to destroy their character, their records and their Bible; attempting to totally eradicate any trace of their noble past, and leave no trace of the barbarous persecution they endured. The persecutions went on for over 900 years until about 1380. After this time until the present, it still continues, but more clandestinely behind a multiplicity of smokescreens.
History does not give us a record of cruelty greater than that manifested by Rome toward the Vaudois, or Waldenses. It is impossible to fully recount the stirring history of this persecuted people, whose history is embellished with stories of gripping intrigue. Why? Because the Roman Church had obliterated the records of this courageous and faithful people. This not only affected the faithful Vaudois, but all people. In 1229, the Synod of Toulouse forbid the reading or owning of a Vaudois Bible, and in 1234, the Council of Tarragona stated that there was to be no Bible permitted in one’s native language – all of them had to be burned. A time came when only Priests were qualified to read and interpret Jerome’s Latin Vulgate Bible. The destruction of Vaudois records began about the year 600 by Gregory I, and has been pursued with thoroughness by the secret agents of the Papacy, even up to this day.
Thus when Christianity was legitimized by the Emperor Constantine, the Vaudois in northern Italy - later the Waldenses - were found standing in opposition to that Roman Church. Their Bible was that translation into Latin which represents the Received Text, the Old Latin Vulgate, the Italia. On page 27 of a work entitled, Our Authorized Bible Vindicated, the author writes, “The old Italic version into the rude Low Latin of the second century held its own as long as Latin continued to be the language of the people. The critical version of Jerome never displaced it, and only replaced it when the Latin ceased to be a living language, and became the language of the learned.”
From the author of Truth Triumphant we read: “Their obedience to the book of God was at once the cause of [the Vaudois] incomparable success, as it was also the offense which they gave to their enemies. Through the long night of the Dark Ages these people were a sanctuary for the Holy Scriptures. They were the ark in Europe which safely carried the Bible across the stormy waters of medieval persecution.” (Truth Triumphant, Ch. 16.)
EARLY BIBLICAL TRANSLATIONS
John Wycliffe (1320-84) is called “The Morning Star of the Reformation.” He protested against papal supremacy, along with many other things, and believed that the common people should be able to possess and study the Bible. By 1382, Wycliffe had translated the complete English Bible. He did it at a time when it was illegal to translate the Bible, when Latin was the only legal language of education, and when someone could be put to death for his work. It wasn’t long before a Catholic named John Purvey started distorting Wycliffe’s edition of the Bible, making it look like an English version of the Roman Catholic Bible. And in 1408, the Third Synod of Oxford declared it to be heresy to have an “unauthorized” English Bible.
Fortunately for Wycliffe, he escaped a martyr’s death and died of natural causes. However, he was so hated by the Catholic Church that, in 1415, some 21 years after his death, the church dug up his body and tried him for heresy. Of course he was found guilty. His body was then burned, and his ashes dumped in the river. Nevertheless, his teachings had spread to the distant land of Bohemia, where it received an enthusiastic welcome.
It was Wycliffe’s teachings that provided the great Bohemian reformer, John Huss, with the tools he needed to gain popular support for his attack on the Church. Huss also believed that the common people, not just the priests, should read the Bible. Because of his work, he was summoned to appear before the general council in 1414 to answer charges of heresy, was tried, condemned, and after refusing to recant, he was burned alive at the stake in July, 1415. Those that looked on said that he sang hymns until his passing.
In the 1450’s, Johannes Gutenberg (1398-1468), the inventor of the printing press, published about 200 volumes of the Roman Catholic Latin Vulgate. It wasn’t long before others were able to make printing presses and started to print books themselves; the most prevalent, of course, being the Bible.
In England, William Tyndale (1494-1536) read the true Bible in Greek and started translating it into English. Traveling to Germany, he became friends with Martin Luther and published the first preserved English New Testament in 1525. He had to smuggle his Bibles back into England, and was hated by the famous Thomas More (1478-1535), who later received the status of “Saint” by the Vatican. More liked to burn Bible-believers, and was known to torture them in his own house. He paid a high price for the capture of Tyndale, a price equal to about a “million” dollars in money today. Following Thomas More’s conniving plan, Tyndale was betrayed by a supposed friend, suffered in prison for 16 months and was finally burned at the stake on October 6, 1536. However, the day he died, his Bible was being printed by the presses of King Henry VIII, and under his command.
More was one of the most respected figures in English history: a statesman, scholar, author, noted for his wit as well as for his devotion to his Roman Catholic religion. But he received, what some would call in Great Britain, his just comeuppance. Thomas More was executed as a traitor for his refusal to acknowledge King Henry VIII’s supremacy over the English church.
During this same period, Desiderius Erasmus (1466-1536) of Rotterdam, Netherlands, was a leading scholar of the religious Renaissance. Although be became a priest in the Augustinian order, he found dissatisfaction with it and was released in 1494. From that time on he was a traveling scholar, desiring a reformed Christianity. In 1516 Erasmus compiled all the original available Greek manuscripts that had been faithfully handed down by true Christian believers, all of which agreeing together, with the exception of Origen’s Greek Septuagint or any of those of Romanish thought. Erasmus edited, compiled and produced what has become known as one of the Greek “Textus Receptus.”
It wasn’t long before the people rebelled against Roman Catholic suppression. But there was still another hand to be played by the pagan Pope to try and kill the free Christian movement and the dissemination of God’s Word by way of the Old Latin Vulgate Bible, now being translated and printed in various languages.
John Calvin was led to his work by Olivetan, who was one of the most illustrious Waldensian pastors from the valleys of the Vaudois. Olivetan translated the New Testament into French which, harmonized with the Textus Receptus, was unlike the manuscripts of the Pope’s, because the latter were full of falsehoods. Later, Calvin edited a second edition of the Olivetan Bible. The Olivetan in turn became the basis of the Geneva Bible in English, which was the leading version in England in 1611 when the King James Bible was published.
Theodore Beza (1519-1605) was an outstanding French Protestant Christian scholar who played an important role in the early Reformation. He was a disciple of John Calvin and lived most of his life in Switzerland.
Beza astonished the world with the Greek manuscripts he unearthed. This later edition of the Received Text is in reality a Greek New Testament brought out under Waldensian influence.
Diodati, also a foremost scholar, took the same and translates into Italian a new edition which was adopted and circulated by the Vaudois.
There are several editions of the Greek Received Text, the basis for all of the Protestant Bibles until the late 19th century, all of them referred to as an edition of the Textus Receptus. Erasmus published five editions (1516, 1519, 1522, 1527, 1535); Robert Stephanus published four editions (1546, 1549, 1550, 1551); Theodore Beza published at least four independent editions (1556, 1582, 1588-89, 1598); the Elziver family printed two editions (1624, 1633); And other edition of the Greek Received Text have been published.
THE WALDENSES INFLUENCE
The Waldenses, or Vaudois, of northern Italy were chief among the early Christians of Europe in their resistance to the Papacy. They not only took the brunt of Rome’s persecution but were also successful in holding the torch of truth aloft to the world until the reformers took it from their hands.
It was the teachings of the Waldenses that introduce the Reformation. Huss, Luther, Calvin, and the like, only carried on the work courageously pursued by the Vaudois; and because of more favorable political climates, they were able to greatly enlarge upon their work. The Reformers accepted the fact that the Waldensian Church dated from about 120, passing down from father to son the teachings received from the apostles.
In his work, Truth Triumphant, the author states that: “In 1517, the dawn of the Protestant Reformation came to Europe. Protestantism was not so much a separation from the Church of Rome as it was a revival of apostolic doctrines so long held by the Waldenses – a spiritual expansion of the Church of the Vaudois. Of the remaining evangelical churches which had come down from the days of the apostles, the Waldenses were the purest and the most prominent.” (Truth Triumphant, Ch. 16.)
And James D. McCabe writes concerning the delegates of early Reformers sent to a synodal assembly of the Waldenses: “Thus the time passed on until the Reformation dawned upon the world. The Vaudois were well pleased at this general awakening of the human mind. They entered into correspondence with the Reformers in various parts of Europe, and sent several of their Barbas to them to instruct them. The Reformers on their part, admitted the antiquity of the Vaudois rites and the purity of their faith, and treated the mountain church with the greatest respect. On the twelfth of September, 1532, a Synodal Assembly was held at Angrogna. It was attended by a number of deputies from the Reformed Churches in France and Switzerland. Among them was William Farel of France.... He manifested the greatest interest in the manuscript copies of the Bible which the Vaudois had preserved from the earliest times, and at his insistence, the entire Bible was translated into French, and sent as a free gift from the Vaudois to the French Church.”
Benjamin G. Wilkinson, the author of Our Authorized Bible Vindicated, wrote: “To show that the messengers of God who carried manuscripts from the churches of Judea to the churches of northern Italy and on, brought to the forerunners of the Waldenses a Bible different from the Bible of Roman Catholicism, I quote the following: ‘ ... in the ecclesiastical history of every century, from the fourth century, which he considers a period early enough for the enquirer after apostolical purity of doctrine, there are clear proofs that doctrines, unlike those which the Romish Church holds, and conformable to the belief of the Waldensian and Reformed Churches, were maintained by theologians of the north of Italy down to the period, when the Waldenses first came into notice. – Gilly, Waldensian Researches, pp. 118, 119.’” (From Our Authorized Bible Vindicated, 1930, pp. 31-42 )
THE KING JAMES BIBLE
There was still another hand to be played by the Papacy to try and kill the free Christian movement and the distribution of God’s Word by way of the Old Latin Italia now being translated and printed in various languages. Knowing that King James was about to publish a version of the Holy Bible in English, the Jesuits came out in 1609 with their new Bible, their Rheims-Douay Bible. It was an endeavor to rival the English text of what was to become known as the King James Bible. But it was not quite soon enough.
In the seventeenth century, fifty-four scholars were commissioned by King James to translate a version of the Bible into English that would be accepted by the Church of England. In 1611, God’s word was translated from the Greek “Textus Receptus” and published in English as “The Authorized Version,” a version which has existed for the English speaking world for nearly 400 years. Because of it being translated from the Textus Receptus, and because of the title "Authorized Version," though the King James Version was never formally authorized by either King or Parliament, this translation was touted as the "one holy and infallible" version of the Bible.
Edward F. Hills, a noted biblical scholor who had a doctorate in modern textual criticism from Harvard, made the following important statement in regard to the KJV and the Received Text: “The King James Version is a variety of the Textus Receptus. The translators that produced the King James Version relied mainly, it seems, on the later editions of Beza’s Greek New Testament, especially his 4th edition (1588-89). But also they frequently consulted the editions of Erasmus and Stephanus and the Complutensian Polyglot. ... Hence the King James version ought to be regarded not merely as a translation of the Textus Receptus but also as an independent variety of the Textus Receptus....” (Edward F. Hills, The King James Version Defended, 4th edition, pp. 220, 223).
Unquestionably, the leaders of the Reformation, German, French, and English, were convinced that the Received Text was the genuine New Testament, not only by its own irresistible history and internal evidence, but also because it matched with the Received Text which in Waldensian form came down from the days of the apostles.”
From his vast research, Dr. Wilkinson concludes: “It is therefore evident that the translators of 1611 had before them four Bibles which had come under Waldensian influences: the Diodati in Italian, the Olivetan in French, the Lutheran in German, and the Genevan in English. We have every reason to believe that they had access to at least six Waldensian Bibles written in the old Waldensian vernacular.” (From Our Authorized Bible Vindicated, 1930, pp. 31-42.)
Within a very short time, in only one generation, the King James Bible was THE Bible used by most everyone in Europe, even the Pilgrims who ventured to America.
TOWARD THE MODERN VERSIONS
The early versions of the Bible were translated into Greek before 350 A.D., the three primary versions being the Syriac Peshitta, Old Latin, and Egyptian Coptic. The two former were translated about 150 and the latter Egyptian Coptic about the year 200. Many people believe that it was the Roman Catholic Church that gave the world the Holy Bible, as the Roman Church claims. This is NOT so! What she gave was an impure text, a text with thousands of verses so changed as to make way for her unscriptural doctrines.
Unfortunately, the war of the Bibles continues to this very day. We must remember that the Jesuits are not only supposed to be priests or missionaries, they are also soldiers and assassins. They are, likewise, TEACHERS who do not wear the uniform of the soldier or the habiliments of any religious order; they wear the same clothing or uniform any other individual might wear in their daily life or profession. In their seductive disguise, this Satanic order of Jesuits has virtually infiltrated EVERY major Christian religion, Bible College, Seminary, and Religious Institutions such as Colleges and Universities, to undermine the beliefs of the non-Roman Catholic world, to instill doubt and confusion in the minds of the people, to create greater doctrinal division among the sects, and destroy the King James Bible. Bible-believing students had no idea what was going to happen. Their professors looked Christian, but began teaching contrary doctrines.
For example, many Bible societies were created to help push Protestants towards Catholicism. In 1833 the “Tractarians” of England called themselves “The Association of the Friends of the Church,” but they didn't say which church. Each tract had a subtle message promoting doubt in the faith of the reader, and were anti-Protestantism and pro-Catholicism.
A man named John Newman (1801-90) was a Vatican spy who controlled the Tractarian society, and who was able to shift the thinking of the English Protestants. In 1845, when he finally revealed who and what he was, he still took about 875 ministers, theologians, professors and members of Parliament to the pagan whore of the Papacy. In 1879, Newman became a Cardinal by Pope Pius IX for leaving the English Anglican Church, and for writing a tract designed to destroy that Church.
The underlying Greek text for the Authorized King James Version of the Bible, was the Textus Receptus. The Greek text that was the foundation for the many modern versions of the Bible was designed by the Jesuits to adulterate the Textus Receptus; they were the Vaticanus and Siniaticus, neither of which agreed with the other, and which both leave out many words and phrases while adding additional material and Newman’s own “spurious” interpretation.
THE WESTCOTT – HORT THEORY
Last century, about the time when Darwin was trying to show how there could be a creation without a Creator, two Cambridge professors, Brooke F. Westcott and F. J. A. Hort developed an elaborate argument in favor of a shorter text instead of the longer and more complete Received Text. These men were “spiritualists” who belong to an occult-type group called the “Ghostly Guild.” And, along with being Anglican by tradition, they were also Mary-worshipers employed to try and destroy the Christian world by debasing true biblical teaching; believing in seances, crystal-gazing, evolution and contempt for the true Bible.
A female ally of Westcott and Hort was one Madame Helena Petrovna Blavatzky, an ardent Luciferin — one who worshiped Lucifer. They became captivated by her intellect and understanding of the spiritualistic, and happily received her input into the creation of the new scriptures.
Madame Helena Petrovna Blavatsky was initiated into the Freemasons as a Co-Mason during the early part of last century. She was the founder of one of the most deeply Satanic secret society on earth, the occult Theosophical Society. People who learned Satanism from her included Lenin with some of his Communist leaders, and Adolf Hitler and some of his men. Hitler, particularly, found Blavatsky’s teachings to be crucial to his Satanic doctrines, especially her treatise, Secret Doctrine. Hitler’s Holocaust occurred in large part because of Blavatsky’s teachings. Would anyone ever believe that such an individual would have provided input into what some consider the Holy Bible?
What were some of the feelings of Westcott and Hort concerning the 1611 King James and other related topics? Let’s first consider Mr. Westcott, a socialist, who made statements such as: “I have been persuaded for many years that Mary-worship and Jesus-worship have very much in common...” “The Romish view seems to me nearer, and more likely to lead to the truth than the Evangelical...”; “... the book that has most engaged me is Darwin... My feeling is strong that the theory is unanswerable.” (Let’s Weigh the Evidence, B. Burton, pp. 67-68); “The old dogmatic view of the Bible therefore, is not only open to attack from the standpoint of science and historical criticism, for if taken seriously it becomes a danger to religion and public morals;” “Moses has left us no writings, and we know little of him with certainty.” (The Authority of the Bible, C. H. Dodd, pp. 14, 27.); and, like his partner Mr. Hort, he also spoke of “... the vile Textus Receptus...,” on which the 1611 King James Bible was based.
Now consider Mr. Hort who wrote to a friend in 1851 when only twenty-three years of age: “I had no idea till the last few weeks of the importance of texts, having read so little Greek Testament, and dragged on with the villainous Textus Receptus...Think of that vile Textus Receptus... “ (Life and Letters of Fenton John Anthony Hort, 1896, Vol 1, p. 211). With these remarks, Hort began a career devoted to the subversion of the Received Text, and the King James Bible in particular. About Hort, Ernest Colwell wrote: “The dead hand of Fenton John Anthony Hort lies heavy upon us. In the early years of this century Kirsopp Lake described Hort’s work as a failure, though a glorious one. But Hort did not fail to reach his major goal. He dethroned the Textus Receptus. (Scribal Habits in Early Papyri, The Bible in Modern Scholarship, Abingdon, 1965, p. 370.)
In 1853 these two men, Westcott and Hort, started making changes in the Bible, inviting Cardinal John Newman, and others, to join the group in revamping the scriptures. From then on the religious world would never be the same. They slipped in many teachings of Origen and the Jerome Bible, and in 1881-85 they came out with a perverted Alexandrian Bible. Others before them had attempted the same, but Westcott and Hort developed their approach into a very convincing argument. Thus we have what has been referred to as the “Westcott-Hort Theory.” What they had achieved is known as a “conflation.” That is the combining of two diverse or unlike interpretations into a single text.
Their theory, and resulting biblical text, has greatly influenced the beliefs of Bible translators since that time. The Church of England bought the “new and improved” Greek text, which was called the English Revised Version (ERV). Shortly thereafter (1901), the American Standard Version (ASV) came upon the scene, along with a revival — a revival not of faith, but of doubt; not of knowledge from God’s word, but of the opinion of man. In addition to these bogus Bibles which cause confusion, we now have a slew of Roman Catholic Bibles created for the Protestant world. What are some of these Bibles? To mention just a few, some of the others that surfaced are the:
Revised Standard Version (RSV – 1946, 52);
New American Standard Version (NASV – 1963, 71);
New Revised Standard Version (NRSV – 1989);
English Standard Version (ESV – 2001);
New World Translation (NWT – 1950-84, Used by Jehovah’s Witnesses);
Amplified Bible (AB – 1965, 87);
Living Bible (LB – 1967, 71, Peddled by Billy Graham);
Moffatt Bible (1926);
New English Bible (NEB – 1961, 70);
Good News Bible (GNB or TEV – 1966-76);
New International Version (NIV – 1973, 78, The pet of most all Christian schools and seminaries);
New King James Bible (NKJV – 1979)
New Century Bible (NCV – 1987)
The Message (1993, 2002);
Holman Christian Standard Version (HCSV – 2001, 04);
Today’s New International Version (TNIV – 2002, 05).
HOW PURE THE WORD?
The King James Version has not changed since its original 1611 edition. However, over the years, after the original publications of these spurious bibles, each one has gone through some sort of revision without warning the public of their changes. So what we have today is NOT the same NKJV that we had with its first publication, nor do we have the same NIV as it was when it was first published, and so on down the line with the other new bibles. This is a slick way of introducing false concepts and doctrines while, at the same time, confusing the reader and fostering doubt in the mind of the Christian community in the process.
With a closer look at some of those who have their hands in many of these bogus biblical translation, one would begin to shudder. For example: Who is the Chairman of the New International Version’s (NIV) Old Testament committee? It a supporter of the “homosexual” movement, Martin Woudra.
The printing rights to the (NIV) are now owned by the “pornographer,” Rupert Murdock. Not only is Murdock the owner of Twentieth Century Fox Movie Studios, Fox Broadcasting, along with the family-degrading and disgusting Bart Simpson TV show, but he is also the owner of Zondervan Publishing, one of the world’s largest publishing houses of Christian Books.
The Roman Catholic Cardinal, Carlo Maria Martini, was touted by Time magazine, in 1995, as being the most likely one to become the next Pope, after John Paul II. Cardinal Martini is now one of the Editors of the NIV and the New American Standard Version (NASV). Personally, he neither believes in the Lordship of Jesus Christ, that the Holy Bible is the word of God, nor that the biblical miracles were true.
Considering these other biblical versions, can they truly be called the “Holy” Bible, or should they be considered the “unholy” bible?
THE READER’S CHOICE
What is so remarkable is that, although the tenets of Westcott and Hort (and other cohort) as used in their translation, have been continuously refuted by theologians, the theologians still teach those doctrines anyway. One thing appears quite certain, considering their gross insensibility to the obvious consequence, their return to the King James Bible is in serious doubt. Despite the proven fallacy, it is apparent that the theological colleges are simply not willing to upset the status quo.
As one considers the modern translations, they will find that various words or passages are either missing, drastically changed, or new words and phrases added. Without going into a lot of comparisons between the King James Version and the modern versions of the Holy Bible (which discussion is too lengthy at this time), it can be pointed out that they differ in some 5,337 places, and the modern versions downgrade or deny the Godhood of Jesus Christ, His virgin birth, blood atonement, resurrection, and the reliability of the written word of God. The old devil has a way of confusing and casting doubt.
For example, during Bible study classes where everyone has a different version, you hear such things as, “My Bible says ...,” “But mine says ...,” “I can’t seem to find it in my Bible ...,” etc. Yet Paul said to the Corinthians, “For God is not the author of confusion, but of peace ...” (1 Cor. 14:33.)
Surprisingly, there are some Bible translators who really don’t believe in the Bible much at all, and their lack of belief shows up in their work. Today, most Bible Colleges encourage the use of some of these spurius translations which we have just mentioned, holding the King James Version in contempt. To compound the problem, many students and regular church-goers don’t want to bother with checking things out for themselves, so they find it easier to ignorantly believe the so-called religious scholars.
On top of that, many Christian book stores get “perks” for promoting new Bibles, such as the New International Version, and are being educated how to drive customers away from the King James Bible to the other versions. Most of these other texts have been tampered with by the evil Jesuits, attempting to deprive us of the true Word of God. The Jesuits had a goal, to destroy the Protestant movement, the King James Bible, and alter the faith of the faithful Christian.
An exact Greek text (a Textus Receptus), that the King James Bible was based upon, has more recently been published in English by the Trinitarian Bible Society of England, and in America by the Dean Burgon Society. This text was restored by Frederick Scrivener and published in 1891.
It is this author’s firm belief that it is not the goal of the Roman Catholic Church, nor their Satanic Jesuit Order and their tampering with God’s word, to convert the world to Christ, but to force them into pagan worship and idolatry.
In the modern world, the Vatican (the Whore of Babylon) is responsible for: All Satanic Bible versions based on the corrupted Alexandrian Gnostic manuscripts. The King James Version is the only reliable Biblical “Word of God.”
Many versions of the Bible bring confusion, which is the obvious plan of the adversary. Consequently, I believe that there are, in reality, only two Bibles offered today: The Authorized King James Bible, and the counterfeit Catholic Bible, regardless of how many titles it may be hidden behind. I do not believe that these other versions can be totally trusted to present true gospel doctrine as intended.
The subject of which Bible translation is best has been a debate since the very first Catholic Bible arrived upon the scene. Hopefully, the forgoing discussion found in this discussion has helped resolve any questions regarding the subject. It is also hoped that this brief historical discussion on the Bible successfully answers the question imposed by the title of the chapter.
