How We Got Bible cont
....the coffer rings, the troubled soul from Purgatory springs!” Pope Leo the Tenth showed his true feelings when he said, “The fable of Christ has been quite profitable to us!”
Let me state at this point, that it is not my intent to offend or “bash” Roman Catholics. It is unavoidable that every historical account has its “good guys” and its “bad guys”. Just as it is impossible to accurately tell the story of World War II without offending the Germans and the Italians who were undeniably the enemies of world peace at that time… it is equally impossible to accurately tell the story of the English Bible without unintentionally offending those who continue to revere the Roman Catholic and Anglican Churches. Please FORGIVE me
Where was the true church of God during these Dark Ages? Well maybe on the Scottish Island of Iona. In 563 AD, a man named Columba started a Bible College. For the next 700 years, this was the source of much of the non-Catholic, evangelical Bible teaching through those centuries of the Dark and Middle Ages. The students of this college were called “Culdees”, which means “certain stranger”. The Culdees were a secret society, and the remnant of the true Christian faith was kept alive by these men during the many centuries that led up to the Protestant Reformation. In fact, the first man to be called a “Culdee” was Joseph of Aremethia. I would like to note the Bible tells us that a Joseph of Aremethia gave up his tomb for Jesus.
In the late 1300’s, the secret society of Culdees chose John Wycliffe to lead the world out of the Dark Ages. Wycliffe has been called the “Morning Star of the Reformation”. That Protestant Reformation was about one thing: getting the Word of God back into the hands of the masses in their own native language, so that the corrupt church would be exposed and the message of salvation in Christ alone, by scripture alone, through faith alone would be proclaimed again.
What follows is what I discovered about the many twists and turns the English Bible has taken in the last 700 years. Each person involved has been involve or motivated for very interesting reasons. So read about each one carefully and you will discover for yourself their motivation.
The first hand-written English language Bible manuscripts were produced in the 1380's AD by John Wycliffe, an Oxford professor, scholar, and theologian. Wycliffe, (also spelled “Wycliff” & “Wyclif”), was well-known throughout Europe for his opposition to the teaching of the organized Roman Catholic Church, which he believed to be contrary to the Bible.
With the help of his followers, called the Lollards, and his assistant Purvey, and many other faithful scribes, Wycliffe produced dozens of English language manuscript copies of the scriptures. They were translated out of the Latin Vulgate, which was the only source text available to Wycliffe. The Pope was so infuriated by his teachings and his translation of the Bible into English, that 44 years after Wycliffe had died, he ordered the bones to be dug-up, crushed, burned and scattered in the river!
One of Wycliffe’s followers, John Hus, actively promoted Wycliffe’s ideas: that people should be permitted to read the Bible in their own language, and they should oppose the tyranny of the Roman church that threatened anyone possessing a non-Latin Bible with execution. Hus was burned at the stake in 1415, with Wycliffe’s manuscript Bibles used as kindling for the fire.
The last words of John Hus were that, “in 100 years, God will raise up a man whose calls for reform cannot be suppressed.” Almost exactly 100 years later, in 1517, Martin Luther nailed his famous 95 Theses of Contention (a list of 95 issues of heretical theology and crimes of the Roman Catholic Church) into the church door at Wittenberg. The prophecy of Hus had come true!
Martin Luther went on to be the first person to translate and publish the Bible in the commonly-spoken dialect of the German people; a translation more appealing than previous German Biblical translations. Foxe’s Book of Martyrs records that in that same year, 1517, seven people were burned at the stake by the Roman Catholic Church for the crime of teaching their children to say the Lord’s Prayer in English rather than Latin.
Johann Gutenberg invented the printing press in the 1450's, and the first book to ever be printed was a Latin language Bible, printed in Mainz, Germany. Gutenberg’s Bibles were surprisingly beautiful, as each leaf Gutenberg printed was later colorfully hand-illuminated.
Born as “Johann Gensfleisch” (John Gooseflesh), he preferred to be known as “Johann Gutenberg” (John Beautiful Mountain). Ironically, though he had created what many believe to be the most important invention in history, Gutenberg was a victim of unscrupulous business associates who took control of his business and left him in poverty. Nevertheless, the invention of the movable-type printing press meant that Bibles and books could finally be effectively produced in large quantities in a short period of time. This was essential to the success of the Reformation.
In the 1490’s another Oxford professor, and the personal physician to King Henry the 7th and 8th, Thomas Linacre, decided to learn Greek. After reading the Gospels in Greek, and comparing it to the Latin Vulgate, he wrote in his diary, “Either this (the original Greek) is not the Gospel… or we are not Christians.” The Latin had become so corrupt that it no longer even preserved the message of the Gospel… yet the Roman Catholic Church still threatened to kill anyone who read the scripture in any language other than Latin… though Latin was not an original language of the scriptures.
In 1496, John Colet, another Oxford professor and the son of the Mayor of London, started reading the New Testament in Greek and translating it into English for his students at Oxford, and later for the public at Saint Paul’s Cathedral in London.
The people were so hungry to hear the Word of God in a language they could understand, that within six months there were 20,000 people packed in the church and at least that many outside trying to get in! (Sadly, while the enormous and beautiful Saint Paul’s Cathedral remains the main church in London today, as of 2006, when I took your Grand-Mother back home to England a typical Sunday morning worship attendance is only around 200 people… and most of them are tourists). Fortunately for Colet, he was a powerful man with friends in high places, so he amazingly managed to avoid execution.
In considering the experiences of Linacre and Colet, the great scholar Erasmus was so moved to correct the corrupt Latin Vulgate, that in 1516, with the help of printer John Froben, he published a Greek-Latin Parallel New Testament. The Latin part was not the corrupt Vulgate, but his own fresh rendering of the text from the more accurate and reliable Greek, which he had managed to collate from a half-dozen partial old Greek New Testament manuscripts he had acquired.
This milestone was the first non-Latin Vulgate text of the scripture to be produced in a millennium and the first ever to come off a printing press. The 1516 Greek-Latin New Testament of Erasmus further focused attention on just how corrupt and inaccurate the Latin Vulgate had become, and how important it was to go back and use the original Greek (New Testament) and original Hebrew (Old Testament) languages to maintain accuracy and to translate them faithfully into the languages of the common people, whether that be English, German, or any other tongue. No sympathy for this “illegal activity” was to be found from Rome even as the words of Pope Leo X's declaration that "the fable of Christ was quite profitable to him" continued through the years to infuriate the people of God.
William Tyndale was the Captain of the Army of Reformers, and was their spiritual leader. Tyndale holds the distinction of being the first man to ever print the New Testament in the English language. Tyndale was a true scholar and a genius, so fluent in eight languages that it was said one would think any one of them to be his native tongue. He is frequently referred to as the “Architect of the English Language”, (even more so than William Shakespeare) as so many of the phrases Tyndale coined are still in our language today.
Martin Luther had a small head-start on Tyndale, as Luther declared his intolerance for the Roman Church’s corruption on Halloween in 1517, by nailing his 95 Theses of Contention to the Wittenberg Church door. Luther, who would be exiled in the months following the Diet of Worms Council in 1521 that was designed to martyr him, would translate the New Testament into German for the first time from the 1516 Greek-Latin New Testament of Erasmus, and publish it in September of 1522. Luther also published a German Pentateuch in 1523, and another edition of the German New Testament in 1529. In the 1530’s he would go on to publish the entire Bible in German.
William Tyndale wanted to use the same 1516 Erasmus text as a source to translate and print the New Testament in English for the first time in history. Tyndale showed up on Luther's doorstep in Germany in 1525, and by year's end had translated the New Testament into English. Tyndale had been forced to flee England, because of the wide-spread rumor that his English New Testament project was underway, causing inquisitors and bounty hunters to be constantly on Tyndale's trail to arrest him and prevent his project. God foiled their plans, and in 1525-1526 the Tyndale New Testament became the first printed edition of the scripture in the English language. Subsequent printings of the Tyndale New Testament in the 1530's were often elaborately illustrated.
They were burned as soon as the Bishop of the Roman Catholic Church could confiscate them, but copies trickled through and actually ended up in the bedroom of King Henry VIII. The more the King and Bishop resisted its distribution, the more fascinated the public at large became. The church declared it contained thousands of errors as they torched hundreds of New Testaments confiscated by the clergy, while in fact, they burned them because they could find no errors at all. One risked death by burning if caught in mere possession of Tyndale's forbidden books.
Having God's Word available to the public in the language of the common man, English, would have meant disaster to the church. No longer would they control access to the scriptures. If people were able to read the Bible in their own tongue, the church's income and power would crumble. (Stop and think about this for a few minutes, sounds like today doesn't it?) They could not possibly continue to get away with selling indulgences (the forgiveness of sins) or selling the release of loved ones from a church-manufactured "Purgatory". People would begin to challenge the church's authority if the church were exposed as frauds and thieves. The contradictions between what God's Word said, and what the priests taught, would open the public's eyes and the truth would set them free from the grip of fear that the institutional church held.
Salvation through faith, not works or donations, would be understood. The need for priests would vanish through the priesthood of all believers. The veneration of church-canonized Saints and Mary would be called into question. The availability of the scriptures in English was the biggest threat imaginable to the wicked church. Neither side would give up without a fight.
Today, there are only two known copies left of Tyndale’s 1525-26 First Edition. Any copies printed prior to 1570 are extremely valuable. Tyndale's flight was an inspiration to freedom-loving Englishmen who drew courage from the 11 years that he was hunted. Books and Bibles flowed into England in bales of cotton and sacks of flour.
Ironically, Tyndale’s biggest customer was the King’s men, who would buy up every copy available to burn them… and Tyndale used their money to print even more! In the end, Tyndale was caught: betrayed by an Englishman that he had befriended. Tyndale was incarcerated for 500 days before he was strangled and burned at the stake in 1536.
Tyndale’s last words were, "Oh Lord, open the King of England’s eyes". This prayer would be answered just three years later in 1539, when King Henry VIII finally allowed, and even funded, the printing of an English Bible known as the “Great Bible”. But before that could happen…
John Rogers went on to print the second complete English Bible in 1537. It was, however, the first English Bible translated from the original Biblical languages of Hebrew & Greek. He printed it under the pseudonym "Thomas Matthew", (an assumed name that had actually been used by Tyndale at one time) as a considerable part of this Bible was the translation of Tyndale, whose writings had been condemned by the Rome & English authorities. It is a composite made up of Tyndale's Pentateuch and New Testament (1534-1535 edition) and Coverdale's Bible and some of Roger's own translation of the text. It remains known most commonly as the Matthew-Tyndale Bible. It went through a nearly identical second-edition printing in 1549.
Myles Coverdale and John “Thomas Matthew” Rogers had remained loyal disciples the last six years of Tyndale's life, and they carried the English Bible project forward and even accelerated it. Coverdale finished translating the Old Testament, and in 1535 he printed the first complete Bible in the English language, making use of Luther's German text and the Latin as sources. Thus, the first complete English Bible was printed on October 4, 1535, and is known as the Coverdale Bible.
It was not that King Henry VIII had a change of conscience regarding publishing the Bible in English. His motives were more sinister but the Lord sometimes uses the evil intentions of men to bring about His glory. King Henry VIII had in fact, requested that the Pope permit him to divorce his wife and marry his mistress. The Pope refused. King Henry responded by marrying his mistress anyway, (later having two of his many wives executed), and thumbing his nose at the Pope by renouncing Roman Catholicism, taking England out from under Rome’s religious control, and declaring himself as the reigning head of State to also be the new head of the Church. This new branch of the Christian Church, neither Roman Catholic nor truly Protestant, became known as the Anglican Church or the Church of England. King Henry acted essentially as its “Pope”. His first act was to further defy the wishes of Rome by funding the printing of the scriptures in English… the first legal English Bible just for spite.
The ebb and flow of freedom continued through the 1540's and into the 1550's. After King Henry VIII, King Edward VI took the throne, and after his death, the reign of Queen “Bloody” Mary was the next obstacle to the printing of the Bible in English. She was possessed in her quest to return England to the Roman Church. In 1555, John "Thomas Matthew" Rogers and Thomas Cranmer were both burned at the stake. Mary went on to burn reformers at the stake by the hundreds for the "crime" of being a Protestant. This era was known as the Marian Exile, and the refugees fled from England with little hope of ever seeing their home or friends again.
In the 1550's, the Church at Geneva, Switzerland, was very sympathetic to the reformer refugees and was one of only a few safe havens for a desperate people. Many of them met in Geneva, led by Myles Coverdale and John Foxe (publisher of the famous Foxe's Book of Martyrs, which is to this day the only exhaustive reference work on the persecution and martyrdom of Early Christians and Protestants from the first century up to the mid-16th century), as well as Thomas Sampson and William Whittingham. There, with the protection of the great theologian John Calvin (author of the most famous theological book ever published, Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Religion) and John Knox, the great Reformer of the Scottish Church, the Church of Geneva determined to produce a Bible that would educate their families while they continued in exile.
The New Testament was completed in 1557, and the complete Bible was first published in 1560. It became known as the Geneva Bible. Due to a passage in Genesis describing the clothing that God fashioned for Adam and Eve upon expulsion from the Garden of Eden as "Breeches" (an antiquated form of "Britches"), some people referred to the Geneva Bible as the Breeches Bible.
The Geneva Bible was the first Bible to add numbered verses to the chapters, so that referencing specific passages would be easier. Every chapter was also accompanied by extensive marginal notes and references so thorough and complete that the Geneva Bible is also considered the first English "Study Bible". William Shakespeare quotes hundreds of times in his plays from the Geneva translation of the Bible.
The Geneva Bible became the Bible of choice for over 100 years of English speaking Christians. Between 1560 and 1644 at least 144 editions of this Bible were published.
Examination of the 1611 King James Bible shows clearly that its translators were influenced much more by the Geneva Bible, than by any other source. The Geneva Bible itself retains over 90% of William Tyndale's original English translation. The Geneva in fact, remained more popular than the King James Version until decades after its original release in 1611!
The Geneva holds the honor of being the first Bible taken to America, and the Bible of the Puritans and Pilgrims. It is truly the “Bible of the Protestant Reformation.” Strangely, the famous Geneva Bible has been out-of-print since 1644, so the only way to obtain one is to either purchase an original printing of the Geneva Bible, or a less costly facsimile reproduction of the original 1560 Geneva Bible.
With the end of Queen Mary's bloody reign, the reformers could safely return to England. The Anglican Church, now under Queen Elizabeth I, reluctantly tolerated the printing and distribution of Geneva version Bibles in England.
The marginal notes, which were vehemently against the institutional Church of the day, did not rest well with the rulers of the day. Another version, one with a less inflammatory tone was desired, and the copies of the Great Bible were getting to be decades old. In 1568, a revision of the Great Bible known as the Bishop's Bible was introduced. Despite 19 editions being printed between 1568 and 1606, this Bible, referred to as the “rough draft of the King James Version”, never gained much of a foothold of popularity among the people.
The Geneva may have simply been too much to compete with. By the 1580's, the Roman Catholic Church saw that it had lost the battle to suppress the will of God: that His Holy Word be available in the English language. In 1582, the Church of Rome surrendered their fight for "Latin only" and decided that if the Bible was to be available in English, they would at least have an official Roman Catholic English translation. And so, using the corrupt and inaccurate Latin Vulgate as the only source text, they went on to publish an English Bible with all the distortions and corruptions that Erasmus had revealed and warned of 75 years earlier. Because it was translated at the Roman Catholic College in the city of Rheims, it was known as the Rheims New Testament (also spelled Rhemes).
The Douay Old Testament was translated by the Church of Rome in 1609 at the College in the city of Douay (also spelled Doway & Douai). The combined product is commonly referred to as the "Doway/Rheims" Version. In 1589, Dr. William Fulke of Cambridge published the "Fulke's Refutation", in which he printed in parallel columns the Bishops Version along side the Rheims Version, attempting to show the error and distortion of the Roman Church's corrupt compromise of an English version of the Bible.
With the death of Queen Elizabeth I, Prince James VI of Scotland became King James I of England. (I would note your attention to the earlier fact about Scottish Island of Iona, in 563 AD) The Protestant clergy approached the new King in 1604 and announced their desire for a new translation to replace the Bishop's Bible first printed in 1568. They knew that the Geneva Version had won the hearts of the people because of its excellent scholarship, accuracy, and exhaustive commentary. However, they did not want the controversial marginal notes (proclaiming the Pope an Anti-Christ, etc.) Essentially, the leaders of the church desired a Bible for the people, with scriptural references only for word clarification or cross-references.
This "translation to end all translations" (for a while at least) was the result of the combined effort of about fifty scholars. They took into consideration: The Tyndale New Testament, The Coverdale Bible, The Matthews Bible, The Great Bible, The Geneva Bible, and even the Rheims New Testament. The great revision of the Bishop's Bible had begun. From 1605 to 1606 the scholars engaged in private research. From 1607 to 1609 the work was assembled. In 1610 the work went to press, and in 1611 the first of the huge (16 inch tall) pulpit folios known today as "The 1611 King James Bible" came off the printing press.
A typographical discrepancy in Ruth 3:15 rendered a pronoun "He" instead of "She" in that verse in some printings. This caused some of the 1611 First Editions to be known by collectors as "He" Bibles, and others as "She" Bibles. Starting just one year after the huge 1611 pulpit-size King James Bibles were printed and chained to every church pulpit in England; printing then began on the earliest normal-size printings of the King James Bible. These were produced so individuals could have their own personal copy of the Bible. However, there was more to come later as we uncovered unknown facts about the Ancient Hebrew. More on this latter.
The Anglican Church’s King James Bible took decades to overcome the more popular Protestant Church’s Geneva Bible. One of the greatest ironies of history, is that many Protestant Christian churches today embrace the King James Bible exclusively as the “only” legitimate English language translation yet it is not even a Protestant translation! It was printed to compete with the Protestant Geneva Bible, by authorities who throughout most of history were hostile to Protestants… and killed them.
While many Protestants are quick to assign the full blame of persecution to the Roman Catholic Church, it should be noted that even after England broke from Roman Catholicism in the 1500’s, the Church of England (The Anglican Church) continued to persecute Protestants throughout the 1600’s. One famous example of this is John Bunyan, who while in prison for the crime of preaching the Gospel, wrote one of Christian history’s greatest books, Pilgrim’s Progress.
Throughout the 1600’s, as the Puritans and the Pilgrims fled the religious persecution of England to cross the Atlantic and start a new free nation in America, they took with them their precious Geneva Bible, and rejected the King’s Bible. America was founded upon the Geneva Bible, not the King James Bible. Or better yet founded on the GOSPEL of Jesus Christ “GOD’s WORD”
Protestants today are largely unaware of their own history, and unaware of the Geneva Bible (which is textually 95% the same as the King James Version, but 50 years older than the King James Version, and not influenced by the Roman Catholic Rheims New Testament that the King James translators admittedly took into consideration). Nevertheless, the King James Bible turned out to be a some what accurate translation, and it became the most printed book in the history of the world, and the only book with one billion copies in print.
In fact, for over 250 years until the appearance of the English Revised Version of 1881-1885 the King James Version reigned without much of a rival. One little-known fact, is that for the past 200 years, all King James Bibles published in America are actually the 1769 Baskerville spelling and wording revision of the 1611. The original “1611” preface is deceivingly included by the publishers, and no mention of the fact that it is really the 1769 version is to be found, because that might hurt sales. The only way to obtain a true, unaltered, 1611 version is to either purchase an original pre-1769 printing of the King James Bible, or a less costly facsimile reproduction of the original 1611 King James Bible.
Although the first Bible printed in America was done in the native Algonquin Indian Language by John Eliot in 1663; the first English language Bible to be printed in America by Robert Aitken in 1782 was a King James Version. Robert Aitken’s 1782 Bible was also the only Bible ever authorized by the United States Congress. He was commended by President George Washington for providing Americans with Bibles during the embargo of imported English goods due to the Revolutionary War. In 1808, Robert’s daughter, Jane Aitken, would become the first woman to ever print a Bible… and to do so in America, of course.
In 1791, Isaac Collins vastly improved upon the quality and size of the typesetting of American Bibles and produced the first "Family Bible" printed in America... also a King James Version. Also in 1791, Isaiah Thomas published the first Illustrated Bible printed in America...in the King James Version.
While Noah Webster, just a few years after producing his famous Dictionary of the English Language, would produce his own modern translation of the English Bible in 1833; the public remained too loyal to the King James Version for Webster’s version to have much impact. It was not really until the 1880’s that England’s own planned replacement for their King James Bible, the English Revised Version( E.R.V.) would become the first English language Bible to gain popular acceptance as a post-King James Version modern-English Bible. The widespread popularity of this modern-English translation brought with it another curious characteristic: the absence of the 14 Apocryphal books.
Up until the 1880’s every Protestant Bible (not just Catholic Bibles) had 80 books, not 66! The inter-testamental books written hundreds of years before Christ called “The Apocrypha” were part of virtually every printing of the Tyndale-Matthews Bible, the Great Bible, the Bishops Bible, the Protestant Geneva Bible, and the King James Bible until their removal in the 1880’s! The original 1611 King James contained the Apocrypha, and King James threatened anyone who dared to print the Bible without the Apocrypha with heavy fines and a year in jail.
Only for the last 120 years has the Protestant Church rejected these books, and removed them from their Bibles. This has left most modern-day Christians believing the popular myth that there is something “Roman Catholic” about the Apocrypha. There is, however, no truth in that myth, and no widely-accepted reason for the removal of the Apocrypha in the 1880’s has ever been officially issued by a mainline Protestant denomination.
The Americans responded to England’s E.R.V. Bible by publishing the nearly-identical American Standard Version (A.S.V.) in 1901. It was also widely-accepted and embraced by churches throughout America for many decades as the leading modern-English version of the Bible. In the 1971, it was again revised and called New American Standard Version Bible (often referred to as the N.A.S.V. or N.A.S.B. or N.A.S.). This New American Standard Bible is considered by nearly all evangelical Christian scholars and translators today, to be the most accurate translation of the original Greek and Hebrew scriptures into the modern English language that has ever been produced. However, I will talk to you a bit later on this issue. It remains the most popular version among theologians, professors, scholars, and seminary students today. Some, however, have taken issue with it because it is so direct and literal a translation (focused on accuracy), that it does not flow as easily in conversational English.
In 1955 Jay P. Green Sr. was moved to have everyone read Jehovah's (God's) Original Words For Yourself Directly From The Original Hebrew & Greek Language With No Knowledge Of Hebrew & Greek — All of the Interlinear Bible is Coded To Strong's Dictionary Allowing You to Research Each and Every Hebrew & Greek Word Yourself In Any of the Dictionaries, Lexicons & Concordances That Are Coded To The Same Strong's Numbering System. It is the first complete Interlinear Bible. The Interlinear Bible places the English translation of the Hebrew and Greek words directly below those words. Over 350,000 of these Bibles are in print and used by virtually every seminary, minister, and laymen who truly seek to understand God's words exactly as He wrote them. I will also talk about this one as well.
For this reason, in 1973, the New International Version (N.I.V.) was produced, which was offered as a “dynamic equivalent” translation into modern English. The N.I.V. was designed not for “word-for-word” accuracy, but rather, for “phrase-for-phrase”, ease of reading even at a Junior High-School reading level. It was meant to appeal to a broader (and in some instances less-educated) cross-section of the general public. Critics of the N.I.V. often jokingly refer to it as the “Nearly Inspired Version”, but that has not stopped it from becoming the best-selling modern-English translation of the Bible ever published.
In 1982, Thomas Nelson Publishers produced what they called the “New King James Version”. Their original intent was to keep the basic wording of the King James to appeal to King James Version loyalists, while only changing the most obscure words and the Elizabethan “thee, thy, thou” pronouns. This was an interesting marketing ploy, however, upon discovering that this was not enough of a change for them to be able to legally copyright the result, they had to make more significant revisions, which defeated their purpose in the first place. It was never taken seriously by scholars, but it has enjoyed some degree of public acceptance, simply because of its clever “New King James Version” marketing name.
In 1995 Jay P. Green Sr. with the help of his son Jay P. Green Jr. Started publishing The Literal Translation of the Holy Bible (LITV) which is an All English Bible created from the Literal Translation the Hebrew and Greek words from the Interlinear Bibles above.
In 2002, a major attempt was made to bridge the gap between the simple readability and the extremely precise accuracy. The 21st Century will certainly continue to bring new translations of God’s Word in the modern English language. Christians, must be very careful to make intelligent and informed decisions about what translations of the Bible we choose to read.
On the liberal extreme, we have people who would give us heretical new translations that attempt to change God’s Word to make it politically correct. One example of this, which has made headlines recently is the Today’s New International Version (T.N.I.V.) which seeks to remove all gender-specific references in the Bible whenever possible! Not all new translations are good… and some are very bad.
The efforts of translating the Bible from its original languages into over 2,000 others have spanned more than two millennia. Partial translations of the Bible into languages of the English people can be traced back to the end of the 10th century, including translations into Old English and Middle English as well as the language we know today. Over 450 versions have been created over time.
Son it’s for these reasons that I chose the translation by Jay P. Green through both the Interlinear Bibles and the 1995 and 2005 reprint. However, I have found that the NASB is a good translation but you must keep referring to the key notes to know the words real meaning.
The King James Version was meant to be, an exact word-for-word translation (as I said I will talk to you about this a little later) of the Hebrew and Greek texts. This title indicates that this new Bible is an exact literal, word-for-word translation of the Masoretic Hebrew Text and the Greek Received Text (Textus Receptus), the main texts used by the Authorised/King James Version translators. Certainly you will want to know all the truths that God has written in the original Hebrew and Greek languages, for it is truth that has the power to set you free:
The difference between this translation and all other English versions ever created in the past is this: This version contains all of God’s words, as He wrote them, with no words added, and no words deleted. Note that God has commanded this several times. See Deuteronomy 4:2, 12:32, Proverbs 30:6, Revelation 22:18, 19. KJ3/LITV “You shall not add onto the Word I command you, neither shall you take away from it, to keep the commandments which I have commanded you.”
When a version adds words to the words that God breathed out or fails to translate what God has written, and hides from the reader what they have added or subtracted from God’s word, they are deceiving the reader by in effect saying, “These are the words that God wrote,” when the truth is that God did not write many of the words that they have put into their Bibles.
This is especially grievous in the Bibles like the NIV that use “Dynamic Equivalence” as their translation methodology. Basically, “Dynamic Equivalence” is storytelling or a short commentary of what God has breathed out to us. The alleged translator reads a passage of the Bible in its native language (Greek or Hebrew), perceives or interprets the meaning, and writes in his own words what the alleged translator believes the Bible is saying. There is no effort to translate each word of the Hebrew or Greek. For example, the translator; “uses the Greek genitive-case form with the corresponding use of the English preposition "of" to illustrate how to eliminate ambiguities. "Cup of the Lord" (1 Cor 10:21) is rendered "the cup by which we remember the Lord," "wisdom of words" (1 Cor 1:17) is taken to be "well arranged words," and "sons of wrath" (Eph 2:3) becomes "those with whom God is angry”” Nida, Toward a Science 207-208; cf. also Nida and Taber, The Theory 35-37; Wonderly, Bible Translations 163.
This is directly from the works that our seminaries are using in teaching our future Christian leaders, pastors, professors, headmaster, teachers, et al. We are not talking about the luke-warm religions or the luke-warm seminaries, but rather virtually every seminary in the free world has been infected with this rationale. It is the modern world Pharisees and Saducees at work. Only they may interpret what the Word of God truly states and then they tell us in their own words. Martin Luther would roll over in his grave. He and our other forefathers fought to bring the Word of God out of the priests and monks hands directly to the hands of Christ’s flock. Now our modern day Pharisees and Scribes are trying to take the Word of God back away from that flock. Kid yourself not, this is a Holy War we are fighting.
The amazing thing is how many sound Christian leaders have fallen for this rationale. We have not been able to discern whether they just don’t know any better, haven’t had time to investigate these translations, or what other reason they continue using the NIV. But the NIV has penetrated and been accepted by some very good churches with pastors sound in every area except the use of God’s text. The whole foundation of Christianity lies in the Bible and what God has written to us. If we can’t trust that, then what can we trust.
Another example of this mistranslation is found as follows: Jesus said to his brothers, “I am not yet going up to the feast, for my time has not yet been fulfilled.” (John 7:8) Despite the overwhelming evidence of all but two Egyptian manuscripts, the New Versions follow the Gnostic Egyptian codices which deliberately remove the word “yet” leaving Jesus saying “I am not going up to the feast.” In the first example, Jesus says that I am not going to the feast yet, which implies that he will be going to the feast later. In the second example, Jesus will not be going to the feast at all. This makes Jesus lie to His brothers. But Jesus is God, and “It is impossible for God to lie” (Hebrews 6:18) It is just one more way to deny that Jesus is God.
In all versions printed there is a consistent failure to report to the reader the precise use of these word forms (verbs have been falsely translated as nouns, and vice versa; adjectives have been largely ignored; when reported the previous translations do not tell the reader whether they are plural or singular. Hundreds of adverbs have been inserted which are not in the original Greek of Hebrew words.
When a verse contains two verbs, invariably they falsely add an adverb, saying “you shall surely die”, but there is no adverb in the Hebrew here, but correctly translated is says “Dying you shall die”. Hundreds of time the other translations mistranslates “seed” as offspring or other plurals.
Verses containing double negatives (not, not) have been mistranslated by inserting words that falsely translate one of these emphatic words such as “By all means”; or, “not at all” words that are not in the Greek, or they will not translate the second negative (“not, not”). In an attempt to avoid the English rule that two negatives make a positive. But there is a way to avoid this violation: e.g. “And the light of a lamp will not still shine in you, not ever” (Revelation 18:23); using both “nots.”
In Isaiah 24:19 there are four verbs that need no added words, but the New Versions do it anyhow:
NIV: “The earth is utterly broken up, the earth is [split asunder], the earth is [thoroughly shaken]. The earth [reels] like a drunkard . . . .” The adverbs are added without cause.
KJ3/LITV: “The earth is breaking, breaking! The earth is crashing, crashing! The earth is tottering, tottering! The earth is staggering, staggering; like a drunkard the earth is staggering.”
The worst mistranslations: “Lord” for the divine name (“I am YHVH, that is my name,”). God’s name is mistranslated more than 6,000 times. Every nation had their lords, but only Israel had YHVH as their God. All other countries were “the nations.” In the New Testament “Gentiles” is falsely put for the “nations.” “Church” is a word God never wrote: instead he called the meeting place “the assembly” both in the New and Old Testament. “The children of Israel” never existed as such, for the word, for “sons” is badly translated as “children.”
In many versions this occurs more than 500 times. Dead is either an adjective (“dead ones”) or a verb (“to die”), (e.g. “he has died”). Also (“put to death”) is from this verb, and most often translated as “cause to die”. Usually, with most translations which have the same verb twice, one of the verbs will be replaced with an adverb. Charles Spurgeon had the following to say about translation.
“Concerning the fact of difference between the Revised and Authorized Versions, I would say that no Baptist should ever fear any honest attempt to produce the correct text, & an accurate interpretation of the Old/New Testaments. For many years Baptists have insisted upon it that we ought to have the Word of God translated in the best possible manner, whether it would confirm certain religious opinions and practices, or work against them. All we want is the exact mind of the Spirit, as far as we can get it. Beyond all other Christians we are concerned in this, seeing we have no other sacred book; we have no prayer book or binding creek, or authoritative minutes of conference — we have nothing but the Bible — and we would have that as pure as ever we can get it. By the best and most honest scholarship that can be found we desire that the common version may be purged of every blunder of transcribers, or addition of human ignorance, or human knowledge, that so the Word of God may come to us as it came from his own hand.” [Charles H. Spurgeon from Heart-Disease Curable MTP Vol 27, Year 1881, pgs. 341, 342-3, Isaiah 61:1]
Only by going back to the each and every word of the Hebrew and Greek manuscripts can we ever attempt to have the pure translation that Charles Spurgeon above desires. This is what I am doing. And here's what I found out so far.
The next problem I encountered is the order (the 66 or 89 books are assembled in) that "ALL" printed English translations are given.
Let me state at this point, that it is not my intent to offend or “bash” Roman Catholics. It is unavoidable that every historical account has its “good guys” and its “bad guys”. Just as it is impossible to accurately tell the story of World War II without offending the Germans and the Italians who were undeniably the enemies of world peace at that time… it is equally impossible to accurately tell the story of the English Bible without unintentionally offending those who continue to revere the Roman Catholic and Anglican Churches. Please FORGIVE me
Where was the true church of God during these Dark Ages? Well maybe on the Scottish Island of Iona. In 563 AD, a man named Columba started a Bible College. For the next 700 years, this was the source of much of the non-Catholic, evangelical Bible teaching through those centuries of the Dark and Middle Ages. The students of this college were called “Culdees”, which means “certain stranger”. The Culdees were a secret society, and the remnant of the true Christian faith was kept alive by these men during the many centuries that led up to the Protestant Reformation. In fact, the first man to be called a “Culdee” was Joseph of Aremethia. I would like to note the Bible tells us that a Joseph of Aremethia gave up his tomb for Jesus.
In the late 1300’s, the secret society of Culdees chose John Wycliffe to lead the world out of the Dark Ages. Wycliffe has been called the “Morning Star of the Reformation”. That Protestant Reformation was about one thing: getting the Word of God back into the hands of the masses in their own native language, so that the corrupt church would be exposed and the message of salvation in Christ alone, by scripture alone, through faith alone would be proclaimed again.
What follows is what I discovered about the many twists and turns the English Bible has taken in the last 700 years. Each person involved has been involve or motivated for very interesting reasons. So read about each one carefully and you will discover for yourself their motivation.
The first hand-written English language Bible manuscripts were produced in the 1380's AD by John Wycliffe, an Oxford professor, scholar, and theologian. Wycliffe, (also spelled “Wycliff” & “Wyclif”), was well-known throughout Europe for his opposition to the teaching of the organized Roman Catholic Church, which he believed to be contrary to the Bible.
With the help of his followers, called the Lollards, and his assistant Purvey, and many other faithful scribes, Wycliffe produced dozens of English language manuscript copies of the scriptures. They were translated out of the Latin Vulgate, which was the only source text available to Wycliffe. The Pope was so infuriated by his teachings and his translation of the Bible into English, that 44 years after Wycliffe had died, he ordered the bones to be dug-up, crushed, burned and scattered in the river!
One of Wycliffe’s followers, John Hus, actively promoted Wycliffe’s ideas: that people should be permitted to read the Bible in their own language, and they should oppose the tyranny of the Roman church that threatened anyone possessing a non-Latin Bible with execution. Hus was burned at the stake in 1415, with Wycliffe’s manuscript Bibles used as kindling for the fire.
The last words of John Hus were that, “in 100 years, God will raise up a man whose calls for reform cannot be suppressed.” Almost exactly 100 years later, in 1517, Martin Luther nailed his famous 95 Theses of Contention (a list of 95 issues of heretical theology and crimes of the Roman Catholic Church) into the church door at Wittenberg. The prophecy of Hus had come true!
Martin Luther went on to be the first person to translate and publish the Bible in the commonly-spoken dialect of the German people; a translation more appealing than previous German Biblical translations. Foxe’s Book of Martyrs records that in that same year, 1517, seven people were burned at the stake by the Roman Catholic Church for the crime of teaching their children to say the Lord’s Prayer in English rather than Latin.
Johann Gutenberg invented the printing press in the 1450's, and the first book to ever be printed was a Latin language Bible, printed in Mainz, Germany. Gutenberg’s Bibles were surprisingly beautiful, as each leaf Gutenberg printed was later colorfully hand-illuminated.
Born as “Johann Gensfleisch” (John Gooseflesh), he preferred to be known as “Johann Gutenberg” (John Beautiful Mountain). Ironically, though he had created what many believe to be the most important invention in history, Gutenberg was a victim of unscrupulous business associates who took control of his business and left him in poverty. Nevertheless, the invention of the movable-type printing press meant that Bibles and books could finally be effectively produced in large quantities in a short period of time. This was essential to the success of the Reformation.
In the 1490’s another Oxford professor, and the personal physician to King Henry the 7th and 8th, Thomas Linacre, decided to learn Greek. After reading the Gospels in Greek, and comparing it to the Latin Vulgate, he wrote in his diary, “Either this (the original Greek) is not the Gospel… or we are not Christians.” The Latin had become so corrupt that it no longer even preserved the message of the Gospel… yet the Roman Catholic Church still threatened to kill anyone who read the scripture in any language other than Latin… though Latin was not an original language of the scriptures.
In 1496, John Colet, another Oxford professor and the son of the Mayor of London, started reading the New Testament in Greek and translating it into English for his students at Oxford, and later for the public at Saint Paul’s Cathedral in London.
The people were so hungry to hear the Word of God in a language they could understand, that within six months there were 20,000 people packed in the church and at least that many outside trying to get in! (Sadly, while the enormous and beautiful Saint Paul’s Cathedral remains the main church in London today, as of 2006, when I took your Grand-Mother back home to England a typical Sunday morning worship attendance is only around 200 people… and most of them are tourists). Fortunately for Colet, he was a powerful man with friends in high places, so he amazingly managed to avoid execution.
In considering the experiences of Linacre and Colet, the great scholar Erasmus was so moved to correct the corrupt Latin Vulgate, that in 1516, with the help of printer John Froben, he published a Greek-Latin Parallel New Testament. The Latin part was not the corrupt Vulgate, but his own fresh rendering of the text from the more accurate and reliable Greek, which he had managed to collate from a half-dozen partial old Greek New Testament manuscripts he had acquired.
This milestone was the first non-Latin Vulgate text of the scripture to be produced in a millennium and the first ever to come off a printing press. The 1516 Greek-Latin New Testament of Erasmus further focused attention on just how corrupt and inaccurate the Latin Vulgate had become, and how important it was to go back and use the original Greek (New Testament) and original Hebrew (Old Testament) languages to maintain accuracy and to translate them faithfully into the languages of the common people, whether that be English, German, or any other tongue. No sympathy for this “illegal activity” was to be found from Rome even as the words of Pope Leo X's declaration that "the fable of Christ was quite profitable to him" continued through the years to infuriate the people of God.
William Tyndale was the Captain of the Army of Reformers, and was their spiritual leader. Tyndale holds the distinction of being the first man to ever print the New Testament in the English language. Tyndale was a true scholar and a genius, so fluent in eight languages that it was said one would think any one of them to be his native tongue. He is frequently referred to as the “Architect of the English Language”, (even more so than William Shakespeare) as so many of the phrases Tyndale coined are still in our language today.
Martin Luther had a small head-start on Tyndale, as Luther declared his intolerance for the Roman Church’s corruption on Halloween in 1517, by nailing his 95 Theses of Contention to the Wittenberg Church door. Luther, who would be exiled in the months following the Diet of Worms Council in 1521 that was designed to martyr him, would translate the New Testament into German for the first time from the 1516 Greek-Latin New Testament of Erasmus, and publish it in September of 1522. Luther also published a German Pentateuch in 1523, and another edition of the German New Testament in 1529. In the 1530’s he would go on to publish the entire Bible in German.
William Tyndale wanted to use the same 1516 Erasmus text as a source to translate and print the New Testament in English for the first time in history. Tyndale showed up on Luther's doorstep in Germany in 1525, and by year's end had translated the New Testament into English. Tyndale had been forced to flee England, because of the wide-spread rumor that his English New Testament project was underway, causing inquisitors and bounty hunters to be constantly on Tyndale's trail to arrest him and prevent his project. God foiled their plans, and in 1525-1526 the Tyndale New Testament became the first printed edition of the scripture in the English language. Subsequent printings of the Tyndale New Testament in the 1530's were often elaborately illustrated.
They were burned as soon as the Bishop of the Roman Catholic Church could confiscate them, but copies trickled through and actually ended up in the bedroom of King Henry VIII. The more the King and Bishop resisted its distribution, the more fascinated the public at large became. The church declared it contained thousands of errors as they torched hundreds of New Testaments confiscated by the clergy, while in fact, they burned them because they could find no errors at all. One risked death by burning if caught in mere possession of Tyndale's forbidden books.
Having God's Word available to the public in the language of the common man, English, would have meant disaster to the church. No longer would they control access to the scriptures. If people were able to read the Bible in their own tongue, the church's income and power would crumble. (Stop and think about this for a few minutes, sounds like today doesn't it?) They could not possibly continue to get away with selling indulgences (the forgiveness of sins) or selling the release of loved ones from a church-manufactured "Purgatory". People would begin to challenge the church's authority if the church were exposed as frauds and thieves. The contradictions between what God's Word said, and what the priests taught, would open the public's eyes and the truth would set them free from the grip of fear that the institutional church held.
Salvation through faith, not works or donations, would be understood. The need for priests would vanish through the priesthood of all believers. The veneration of church-canonized Saints and Mary would be called into question. The availability of the scriptures in English was the biggest threat imaginable to the wicked church. Neither side would give up without a fight.
Today, there are only two known copies left of Tyndale’s 1525-26 First Edition. Any copies printed prior to 1570 are extremely valuable. Tyndale's flight was an inspiration to freedom-loving Englishmen who drew courage from the 11 years that he was hunted. Books and Bibles flowed into England in bales of cotton and sacks of flour.
Ironically, Tyndale’s biggest customer was the King’s men, who would buy up every copy available to burn them… and Tyndale used their money to print even more! In the end, Tyndale was caught: betrayed by an Englishman that he had befriended. Tyndale was incarcerated for 500 days before he was strangled and burned at the stake in 1536.
Tyndale’s last words were, "Oh Lord, open the King of England’s eyes". This prayer would be answered just three years later in 1539, when King Henry VIII finally allowed, and even funded, the printing of an English Bible known as the “Great Bible”. But before that could happen…
John Rogers went on to print the second complete English Bible in 1537. It was, however, the first English Bible translated from the original Biblical languages of Hebrew & Greek. He printed it under the pseudonym "Thomas Matthew", (an assumed name that had actually been used by Tyndale at one time) as a considerable part of this Bible was the translation of Tyndale, whose writings had been condemned by the Rome & English authorities. It is a composite made up of Tyndale's Pentateuch and New Testament (1534-1535 edition) and Coverdale's Bible and some of Roger's own translation of the text. It remains known most commonly as the Matthew-Tyndale Bible. It went through a nearly identical second-edition printing in 1549.
Myles Coverdale and John “Thomas Matthew” Rogers had remained loyal disciples the last six years of Tyndale's life, and they carried the English Bible project forward and even accelerated it. Coverdale finished translating the Old Testament, and in 1535 he printed the first complete Bible in the English language, making use of Luther's German text and the Latin as sources. Thus, the first complete English Bible was printed on October 4, 1535, and is known as the Coverdale Bible.
It was not that King Henry VIII had a change of conscience regarding publishing the Bible in English. His motives were more sinister but the Lord sometimes uses the evil intentions of men to bring about His glory. King Henry VIII had in fact, requested that the Pope permit him to divorce his wife and marry his mistress. The Pope refused. King Henry responded by marrying his mistress anyway, (later having two of his many wives executed), and thumbing his nose at the Pope by renouncing Roman Catholicism, taking England out from under Rome’s religious control, and declaring himself as the reigning head of State to also be the new head of the Church. This new branch of the Christian Church, neither Roman Catholic nor truly Protestant, became known as the Anglican Church or the Church of England. King Henry acted essentially as its “Pope”. His first act was to further defy the wishes of Rome by funding the printing of the scriptures in English… the first legal English Bible just for spite.
The ebb and flow of freedom continued through the 1540's and into the 1550's. After King Henry VIII, King Edward VI took the throne, and after his death, the reign of Queen “Bloody” Mary was the next obstacle to the printing of the Bible in English. She was possessed in her quest to return England to the Roman Church. In 1555, John "Thomas Matthew" Rogers and Thomas Cranmer were both burned at the stake. Mary went on to burn reformers at the stake by the hundreds for the "crime" of being a Protestant. This era was known as the Marian Exile, and the refugees fled from England with little hope of ever seeing their home or friends again.
In the 1550's, the Church at Geneva, Switzerland, was very sympathetic to the reformer refugees and was one of only a few safe havens for a desperate people. Many of them met in Geneva, led by Myles Coverdale and John Foxe (publisher of the famous Foxe's Book of Martyrs, which is to this day the only exhaustive reference work on the persecution and martyrdom of Early Christians and Protestants from the first century up to the mid-16th century), as well as Thomas Sampson and William Whittingham. There, with the protection of the great theologian John Calvin (author of the most famous theological book ever published, Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Religion) and John Knox, the great Reformer of the Scottish Church, the Church of Geneva determined to produce a Bible that would educate their families while they continued in exile.
The New Testament was completed in 1557, and the complete Bible was first published in 1560. It became known as the Geneva Bible. Due to a passage in Genesis describing the clothing that God fashioned for Adam and Eve upon expulsion from the Garden of Eden as "Breeches" (an antiquated form of "Britches"), some people referred to the Geneva Bible as the Breeches Bible.
The Geneva Bible was the first Bible to add numbered verses to the chapters, so that referencing specific passages would be easier. Every chapter was also accompanied by extensive marginal notes and references so thorough and complete that the Geneva Bible is also considered the first English "Study Bible". William Shakespeare quotes hundreds of times in his plays from the Geneva translation of the Bible.
The Geneva Bible became the Bible of choice for over 100 years of English speaking Christians. Between 1560 and 1644 at least 144 editions of this Bible were published.
Examination of the 1611 King James Bible shows clearly that its translators were influenced much more by the Geneva Bible, than by any other source. The Geneva Bible itself retains over 90% of William Tyndale's original English translation. The Geneva in fact, remained more popular than the King James Version until decades after its original release in 1611!
The Geneva holds the honor of being the first Bible taken to America, and the Bible of the Puritans and Pilgrims. It is truly the “Bible of the Protestant Reformation.” Strangely, the famous Geneva Bible has been out-of-print since 1644, so the only way to obtain one is to either purchase an original printing of the Geneva Bible, or a less costly facsimile reproduction of the original 1560 Geneva Bible.
With the end of Queen Mary's bloody reign, the reformers could safely return to England. The Anglican Church, now under Queen Elizabeth I, reluctantly tolerated the printing and distribution of Geneva version Bibles in England.
The marginal notes, which were vehemently against the institutional Church of the day, did not rest well with the rulers of the day. Another version, one with a less inflammatory tone was desired, and the copies of the Great Bible were getting to be decades old. In 1568, a revision of the Great Bible known as the Bishop's Bible was introduced. Despite 19 editions being printed between 1568 and 1606, this Bible, referred to as the “rough draft of the King James Version”, never gained much of a foothold of popularity among the people.
The Geneva may have simply been too much to compete with. By the 1580's, the Roman Catholic Church saw that it had lost the battle to suppress the will of God: that His Holy Word be available in the English language. In 1582, the Church of Rome surrendered their fight for "Latin only" and decided that if the Bible was to be available in English, they would at least have an official Roman Catholic English translation. And so, using the corrupt and inaccurate Latin Vulgate as the only source text, they went on to publish an English Bible with all the distortions and corruptions that Erasmus had revealed and warned of 75 years earlier. Because it was translated at the Roman Catholic College in the city of Rheims, it was known as the Rheims New Testament (also spelled Rhemes).
The Douay Old Testament was translated by the Church of Rome in 1609 at the College in the city of Douay (also spelled Doway & Douai). The combined product is commonly referred to as the "Doway/Rheims" Version. In 1589, Dr. William Fulke of Cambridge published the "Fulke's Refutation", in which he printed in parallel columns the Bishops Version along side the Rheims Version, attempting to show the error and distortion of the Roman Church's corrupt compromise of an English version of the Bible.
With the death of Queen Elizabeth I, Prince James VI of Scotland became King James I of England. (I would note your attention to the earlier fact about Scottish Island of Iona, in 563 AD) The Protestant clergy approached the new King in 1604 and announced their desire for a new translation to replace the Bishop's Bible first printed in 1568. They knew that the Geneva Version had won the hearts of the people because of its excellent scholarship, accuracy, and exhaustive commentary. However, they did not want the controversial marginal notes (proclaiming the Pope an Anti-Christ, etc.) Essentially, the leaders of the church desired a Bible for the people, with scriptural references only for word clarification or cross-references.
This "translation to end all translations" (for a while at least) was the result of the combined effort of about fifty scholars. They took into consideration: The Tyndale New Testament, The Coverdale Bible, The Matthews Bible, The Great Bible, The Geneva Bible, and even the Rheims New Testament. The great revision of the Bishop's Bible had begun. From 1605 to 1606 the scholars engaged in private research. From 1607 to 1609 the work was assembled. In 1610 the work went to press, and in 1611 the first of the huge (16 inch tall) pulpit folios known today as "The 1611 King James Bible" came off the printing press.
A typographical discrepancy in Ruth 3:15 rendered a pronoun "He" instead of "She" in that verse in some printings. This caused some of the 1611 First Editions to be known by collectors as "He" Bibles, and others as "She" Bibles. Starting just one year after the huge 1611 pulpit-size King James Bibles were printed and chained to every church pulpit in England; printing then began on the earliest normal-size printings of the King James Bible. These were produced so individuals could have their own personal copy of the Bible. However, there was more to come later as we uncovered unknown facts about the Ancient Hebrew. More on this latter.
The Anglican Church’s King James Bible took decades to overcome the more popular Protestant Church’s Geneva Bible. One of the greatest ironies of history, is that many Protestant Christian churches today embrace the King James Bible exclusively as the “only” legitimate English language translation yet it is not even a Protestant translation! It was printed to compete with the Protestant Geneva Bible, by authorities who throughout most of history were hostile to Protestants… and killed them.
While many Protestants are quick to assign the full blame of persecution to the Roman Catholic Church, it should be noted that even after England broke from Roman Catholicism in the 1500’s, the Church of England (The Anglican Church) continued to persecute Protestants throughout the 1600’s. One famous example of this is John Bunyan, who while in prison for the crime of preaching the Gospel, wrote one of Christian history’s greatest books, Pilgrim’s Progress.
Throughout the 1600’s, as the Puritans and the Pilgrims fled the religious persecution of England to cross the Atlantic and start a new free nation in America, they took with them their precious Geneva Bible, and rejected the King’s Bible. America was founded upon the Geneva Bible, not the King James Bible. Or better yet founded on the GOSPEL of Jesus Christ “GOD’s WORD”
Protestants today are largely unaware of their own history, and unaware of the Geneva Bible (which is textually 95% the same as the King James Version, but 50 years older than the King James Version, and not influenced by the Roman Catholic Rheims New Testament that the King James translators admittedly took into consideration). Nevertheless, the King James Bible turned out to be a some what accurate translation, and it became the most printed book in the history of the world, and the only book with one billion copies in print.
In fact, for over 250 years until the appearance of the English Revised Version of 1881-1885 the King James Version reigned without much of a rival. One little-known fact, is that for the past 200 years, all King James Bibles published in America are actually the 1769 Baskerville spelling and wording revision of the 1611. The original “1611” preface is deceivingly included by the publishers, and no mention of the fact that it is really the 1769 version is to be found, because that might hurt sales. The only way to obtain a true, unaltered, 1611 version is to either purchase an original pre-1769 printing of the King James Bible, or a less costly facsimile reproduction of the original 1611 King James Bible.
Although the first Bible printed in America was done in the native Algonquin Indian Language by John Eliot in 1663; the first English language Bible to be printed in America by Robert Aitken in 1782 was a King James Version. Robert Aitken’s 1782 Bible was also the only Bible ever authorized by the United States Congress. He was commended by President George Washington for providing Americans with Bibles during the embargo of imported English goods due to the Revolutionary War. In 1808, Robert’s daughter, Jane Aitken, would become the first woman to ever print a Bible… and to do so in America, of course.
In 1791, Isaac Collins vastly improved upon the quality and size of the typesetting of American Bibles and produced the first "Family Bible" printed in America... also a King James Version. Also in 1791, Isaiah Thomas published the first Illustrated Bible printed in America...in the King James Version.
While Noah Webster, just a few years after producing his famous Dictionary of the English Language, would produce his own modern translation of the English Bible in 1833; the public remained too loyal to the King James Version for Webster’s version to have much impact. It was not really until the 1880’s that England’s own planned replacement for their King James Bible, the English Revised Version( E.R.V.) would become the first English language Bible to gain popular acceptance as a post-King James Version modern-English Bible. The widespread popularity of this modern-English translation brought with it another curious characteristic: the absence of the 14 Apocryphal books.
Up until the 1880’s every Protestant Bible (not just Catholic Bibles) had 80 books, not 66! The inter-testamental books written hundreds of years before Christ called “The Apocrypha” were part of virtually every printing of the Tyndale-Matthews Bible, the Great Bible, the Bishops Bible, the Protestant Geneva Bible, and the King James Bible until their removal in the 1880’s! The original 1611 King James contained the Apocrypha, and King James threatened anyone who dared to print the Bible without the Apocrypha with heavy fines and a year in jail.
Only for the last 120 years has the Protestant Church rejected these books, and removed them from their Bibles. This has left most modern-day Christians believing the popular myth that there is something “Roman Catholic” about the Apocrypha. There is, however, no truth in that myth, and no widely-accepted reason for the removal of the Apocrypha in the 1880’s has ever been officially issued by a mainline Protestant denomination.
The Americans responded to England’s E.R.V. Bible by publishing the nearly-identical American Standard Version (A.S.V.) in 1901. It was also widely-accepted and embraced by churches throughout America for many decades as the leading modern-English version of the Bible. In the 1971, it was again revised and called New American Standard Version Bible (often referred to as the N.A.S.V. or N.A.S.B. or N.A.S.). This New American Standard Bible is considered by nearly all evangelical Christian scholars and translators today, to be the most accurate translation of the original Greek and Hebrew scriptures into the modern English language that has ever been produced. However, I will talk to you a bit later on this issue. It remains the most popular version among theologians, professors, scholars, and seminary students today. Some, however, have taken issue with it because it is so direct and literal a translation (focused on accuracy), that it does not flow as easily in conversational English.
In 1955 Jay P. Green Sr. was moved to have everyone read Jehovah's (God's) Original Words For Yourself Directly From The Original Hebrew & Greek Language With No Knowledge Of Hebrew & Greek — All of the Interlinear Bible is Coded To Strong's Dictionary Allowing You to Research Each and Every Hebrew & Greek Word Yourself In Any of the Dictionaries, Lexicons & Concordances That Are Coded To The Same Strong's Numbering System. It is the first complete Interlinear Bible. The Interlinear Bible places the English translation of the Hebrew and Greek words directly below those words. Over 350,000 of these Bibles are in print and used by virtually every seminary, minister, and laymen who truly seek to understand God's words exactly as He wrote them. I will also talk about this one as well.
For this reason, in 1973, the New International Version (N.I.V.) was produced, which was offered as a “dynamic equivalent” translation into modern English. The N.I.V. was designed not for “word-for-word” accuracy, but rather, for “phrase-for-phrase”, ease of reading even at a Junior High-School reading level. It was meant to appeal to a broader (and in some instances less-educated) cross-section of the general public. Critics of the N.I.V. often jokingly refer to it as the “Nearly Inspired Version”, but that has not stopped it from becoming the best-selling modern-English translation of the Bible ever published.
In 1982, Thomas Nelson Publishers produced what they called the “New King James Version”. Their original intent was to keep the basic wording of the King James to appeal to King James Version loyalists, while only changing the most obscure words and the Elizabethan “thee, thy, thou” pronouns. This was an interesting marketing ploy, however, upon discovering that this was not enough of a change for them to be able to legally copyright the result, they had to make more significant revisions, which defeated their purpose in the first place. It was never taken seriously by scholars, but it has enjoyed some degree of public acceptance, simply because of its clever “New King James Version” marketing name.
In 1995 Jay P. Green Sr. with the help of his son Jay P. Green Jr. Started publishing The Literal Translation of the Holy Bible (LITV) which is an All English Bible created from the Literal Translation the Hebrew and Greek words from the Interlinear Bibles above.
In 2002, a major attempt was made to bridge the gap between the simple readability and the extremely precise accuracy. The 21st Century will certainly continue to bring new translations of God’s Word in the modern English language. Christians, must be very careful to make intelligent and informed decisions about what translations of the Bible we choose to read.
On the liberal extreme, we have people who would give us heretical new translations that attempt to change God’s Word to make it politically correct. One example of this, which has made headlines recently is the Today’s New International Version (T.N.I.V.) which seeks to remove all gender-specific references in the Bible whenever possible! Not all new translations are good… and some are very bad.
The efforts of translating the Bible from its original languages into over 2,000 others have spanned more than two millennia. Partial translations of the Bible into languages of the English people can be traced back to the end of the 10th century, including translations into Old English and Middle English as well as the language we know today. Over 450 versions have been created over time.
Son it’s for these reasons that I chose the translation by Jay P. Green through both the Interlinear Bibles and the 1995 and 2005 reprint. However, I have found that the NASB is a good translation but you must keep referring to the key notes to know the words real meaning.
The King James Version was meant to be, an exact word-for-word translation (as I said I will talk to you about this a little later) of the Hebrew and Greek texts. This title indicates that this new Bible is an exact literal, word-for-word translation of the Masoretic Hebrew Text and the Greek Received Text (Textus Receptus), the main texts used by the Authorised/King James Version translators. Certainly you will want to know all the truths that God has written in the original Hebrew and Greek languages, for it is truth that has the power to set you free:
“And you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free” (John 8:32)
The difference between this translation and all other English versions ever created in the past is this: This version contains all of God’s words, as He wrote them, with no words added, and no words deleted. Note that God has commanded this several times. See Deuteronomy 4:2, 12:32, Proverbs 30:6, Revelation 22:18, 19. KJ3/LITV “You shall not add onto the Word I command you, neither shall you take away from it, to keep the commandments which I have commanded you.”
When a version adds words to the words that God breathed out or fails to translate what God has written, and hides from the reader what they have added or subtracted from God’s word, they are deceiving the reader by in effect saying, “These are the words that God wrote,” when the truth is that God did not write many of the words that they have put into their Bibles.
This is especially grievous in the Bibles like the NIV that use “Dynamic Equivalence” as their translation methodology. Basically, “Dynamic Equivalence” is storytelling or a short commentary of what God has breathed out to us. The alleged translator reads a passage of the Bible in its native language (Greek or Hebrew), perceives or interprets the meaning, and writes in his own words what the alleged translator believes the Bible is saying. There is no effort to translate each word of the Hebrew or Greek. For example, the translator; “uses the Greek genitive-case form with the corresponding use of the English preposition "of" to illustrate how to eliminate ambiguities. "Cup of the Lord" (1 Cor 10:21) is rendered "the cup by which we remember the Lord," "wisdom of words" (1 Cor 1:17) is taken to be "well arranged words," and "sons of wrath" (Eph 2:3) becomes "those with whom God is angry”” Nida, Toward a Science 207-208; cf. also Nida and Taber, The Theory 35-37; Wonderly, Bible Translations 163.
This is directly from the works that our seminaries are using in teaching our future Christian leaders, pastors, professors, headmaster, teachers, et al. We are not talking about the luke-warm religions or the luke-warm seminaries, but rather virtually every seminary in the free world has been infected with this rationale. It is the modern world Pharisees and Saducees at work. Only they may interpret what the Word of God truly states and then they tell us in their own words. Martin Luther would roll over in his grave. He and our other forefathers fought to bring the Word of God out of the priests and monks hands directly to the hands of Christ’s flock. Now our modern day Pharisees and Scribes are trying to take the Word of God back away from that flock. Kid yourself not, this is a Holy War we are fighting.
The amazing thing is how many sound Christian leaders have fallen for this rationale. We have not been able to discern whether they just don’t know any better, haven’t had time to investigate these translations, or what other reason they continue using the NIV. But the NIV has penetrated and been accepted by some very good churches with pastors sound in every area except the use of God’s text. The whole foundation of Christianity lies in the Bible and what God has written to us. If we can’t trust that, then what can we trust.
Another example of this mistranslation is found as follows: Jesus said to his brothers, “I am not yet going up to the feast, for my time has not yet been fulfilled.” (John 7:8) Despite the overwhelming evidence of all but two Egyptian manuscripts, the New Versions follow the Gnostic Egyptian codices which deliberately remove the word “yet” leaving Jesus saying “I am not going up to the feast.” In the first example, Jesus says that I am not going to the feast yet, which implies that he will be going to the feast later. In the second example, Jesus will not be going to the feast at all. This makes Jesus lie to His brothers. But Jesus is God, and “It is impossible for God to lie” (Hebrews 6:18) It is just one more way to deny that Jesus is God.
In all versions printed there is a consistent failure to report to the reader the precise use of these word forms (verbs have been falsely translated as nouns, and vice versa; adjectives have been largely ignored; when reported the previous translations do not tell the reader whether they are plural or singular. Hundreds of adverbs have been inserted which are not in the original Greek of Hebrew words.
When a verse contains two verbs, invariably they falsely add an adverb, saying “you shall surely die”, but there is no adverb in the Hebrew here, but correctly translated is says “Dying you shall die”. Hundreds of time the other translations mistranslates “seed” as offspring or other plurals.
Verses containing double negatives (not, not) have been mistranslated by inserting words that falsely translate one of these emphatic words such as “By all means”; or, “not at all” words that are not in the Greek, or they will not translate the second negative (“not, not”). In an attempt to avoid the English rule that two negatives make a positive. But there is a way to avoid this violation: e.g. “And the light of a lamp will not still shine in you, not ever” (Revelation 18:23); using both “nots.”
In Isaiah 24:19 there are four verbs that need no added words, but the New Versions do it anyhow:
NIV: “The earth is utterly broken up, the earth is [split asunder], the earth is [thoroughly shaken]. The earth [reels] like a drunkard . . . .” The adverbs are added without cause.
KJ3/LITV: “The earth is breaking, breaking! The earth is crashing, crashing! The earth is tottering, tottering! The earth is staggering, staggering; like a drunkard the earth is staggering.”
The worst mistranslations: “Lord” for the divine name (“I am YHVH, that is my name,”). God’s name is mistranslated more than 6,000 times. Every nation had their lords, but only Israel had YHVH as their God. All other countries were “the nations.” In the New Testament “Gentiles” is falsely put for the “nations.” “Church” is a word God never wrote: instead he called the meeting place “the assembly” both in the New and Old Testament. “The children of Israel” never existed as such, for the word, for “sons” is badly translated as “children.”
In many versions this occurs more than 500 times. Dead is either an adjective (“dead ones”) or a verb (“to die”), (e.g. “he has died”). Also (“put to death”) is from this verb, and most often translated as “cause to die”. Usually, with most translations which have the same verb twice, one of the verbs will be replaced with an adverb. Charles Spurgeon had the following to say about translation.
“Concerning the fact of difference between the Revised and Authorized Versions, I would say that no Baptist should ever fear any honest attempt to produce the correct text, & an accurate interpretation of the Old/New Testaments. For many years Baptists have insisted upon it that we ought to have the Word of God translated in the best possible manner, whether it would confirm certain religious opinions and practices, or work against them. All we want is the exact mind of the Spirit, as far as we can get it. Beyond all other Christians we are concerned in this, seeing we have no other sacred book; we have no prayer book or binding creek, or authoritative minutes of conference — we have nothing but the Bible — and we would have that as pure as ever we can get it. By the best and most honest scholarship that can be found we desire that the common version may be purged of every blunder of transcribers, or addition of human ignorance, or human knowledge, that so the Word of God may come to us as it came from his own hand.” [Charles H. Spurgeon from Heart-Disease Curable MTP Vol 27, Year 1881, pgs. 341, 342-3, Isaiah 61:1]
Only by going back to the each and every word of the Hebrew and Greek manuscripts can we ever attempt to have the pure translation that Charles Spurgeon above desires. This is what I am doing. And here's what I found out so far.
The next problem I encountered is the order (the 66 or 89 books are assembled in) that "ALL" printed English translations are given.
