Titus 3:10 ought to set a fire under you about the heresies of the modern Bibles if nothing else does

I've been having a discussion on a Christian forum over the last couple of days in which one poster has consistently denied the inspiration of scripture, specifically by denying the inspiration of the apostle Paul's writings. Many have criticized him quite aptly but nobody has called him a heretic but me. I am hoping others will come along to convince me either that this term is accurate or is false.

But many of the posters there accept the modern versions and it occurred to me they may be a bit leery of the very word "heretic" because their versions don't use the term. A couple there have even seemed to suggest that the very idea of heresy went out with the Middle Ages when many considered to be heretics were persecuted, tortured and put to death.

Anyway, here is my latest post on the subject there:

If I am convinced by others here that ***** does not deserve to be called a heretic then of course I would agree that he is to be accepted as a brother in Christ.

But if he does deserve it then the KJV has this to say:

Tit 3:10 A man that is an heretick after the first and second admonition reject;

But anyone who does not have a KJV (or a Webster's) will have a different reading at that verse -- you will have a reading that in fact strongly implies to the average reader the exact opposite: that it is someone who identifies a heretic who should be rejected, as a "divisive" or "factious" person.

Here is a page from Blue Letter Bible that makes that clear.

Even the New King James has the altered version of this verse:

Reject a divisive man after the first and second admonition,

A DIVISIVE man!!!! Not a heretic but a "divisive" man!!!

If you consult Strong's you'll find that "divisive" and "factious" are meant to refer to a person who holds false doctrine, or a heretic, but that's not how the average reader understands the term, as the devil of course well knew when he planted the term in the ear of Westcott and Hort.

A comparison of the different readings of Titus 3:10 ought to set off loud alarms among God's people about the many heresies in the modern Bibles put there by the heretics Westcott and Hort back in 1881.

2 Timothy 3:16 and other sorrows

I just looked up 2 Timothy 3:16 at Blue Letter Bible to see which of the translations says "God-breathed" as opposed to the KJV's "given by inspiration of God," because I keep running into people who use that phrase, and in the process of tracking it down I was appalled to find out what a translation called the ASV has for that verse:

Every scripture inspired of God [is] also profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for instruction which is in righteousness.

as opposed to the KJV's:

All scripture [is] given by inspiration of God, and [is] profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness:

Most of the other modern versions of this verse have those annoyingly unnecessary changes in the English that do nothing but keep the flock of Christ from being able to share in the same rendering of His word, as in the change from the KJV's "profitable" to the less precise and less elegant "useful."

But I did find out that only the NIV has "God-breathed" -- a change no doubt done in the need to earn a copyright for this version, since a certain number of changes are necessary to qualify, but this change is also a pretentious attempt to try to sound precise and original, the sort of thing that captivates people who don't have a clue about the work of translation, but is certainly no improvement in the English itself over "given by inspiration of God," and again, divides the flock of Christ, being change for change's sake.

All that is offense enough to report, but the ASV actually drastically changes the meaning of that verse, so that instead of saying that ALL scripture is profitable, it says instead that only those scriptures "inspired by God" are profitable, which implies that there are scriptures NOT inspired by God, and it makes the instruction in itself the righteousness rather than the method of learning righteousness. It's interesting that none of the other versions retained this reading; I guess even they had to suspect it was heresy. Here it is again:

Every scripture inspired of God [is] also profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for instruction which is in righteousness.

I figured the ASV (American Standard Version) must be the precursor to the very popular NASV (or NASB) (NEW American Standard V-for-Version or B-for-Bible) but I wasn't sure so I looked up its history online and got this page:

AMERICAN STANDARD VERSION (ASV) EXPOSED

The American Standard Version (ASV) of the Bible was first published in 1901. This mistranslation of the Bible is in the public domain, since its copyright has expired. Of course, this naturally led to the COPYRIGHTED sequel, the New American Standard Version. As a wise old preacher said, "there is nothing 'new' in fundamentalism." The World English Bible (WEB) is an update of the American Standard Version that is still in the Public Domain, but uses more modern English. Compare the ASV, WEB or NASV to the Textus Receptus and you'll find heresies galore.

And he goes on to list some.

The hideous and successful deception of the modern versions just makes me weep.

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Aug 3, 2011: The post above was obviously done before I had my bearings on this subject and realized that Burgon needs to be the pivot around which all my posts swing.

Found Burgon's discussion of 2 Tim 3:16 in his Revision Revised so I'll do an updated post on this subject eventually. As with all the other enormities committed against the Bible this one also goes directly back to Westcott and Hort. "God-breathed" isn't the main problem with it obviously, although it is an example of a strange sort of disdain for the English language in the modern translations.

Sinister Sinaiticus Bogus Bible Revered by Deceivers Digitized

Whoop-de-do, today a headline at Yahoo says "World's Oldest Christian Bible Digitized." They're talking about Codex Sinaiticus, one of the old manuscripts that Dean J W Burgon excoriated as corrupt (in his Revision Revised, 1883), although it was revered by Westcott and Hort who based their famous 1881 revision (mutilation) of the King James Bible on it.

Maybe the link to the website that is dedicated to the Sinaiticus will last longer if the Yahoo link gives out:

Codex Sinaiticus is one of the most important books in the world. Handwritten well over 1600 years ago, the manuscript contains the Christian Bible in Greek, including the oldest complete copy of the New Testament. Its heavily corrected text is of outstanding importance for the history of the Bible and the manuscript – the oldest substantial book to survive Antiquity – is of supreme importance for the history of the book.

Right. It survived in such complete form BECAUSE it was so mutilated and corrected it was useless to the church.

Burgon treats it as one of five extremely bad Greek texts used by Westcott and Hort in their revision, of which three are the worst, and about those three he says:

...that [these mss] are three of the most scandalously corrupt copies extant: -- exhibit the most shamefully mutilated texts which are anywhere to be met with: -- have become, by whatever process (for their history is wholly unknown), the depositories of the largest amount of fabricated readings, ancient blunders, and intentional perversions of Truth, -- which are discoverable in any known copies of the Word of God. [p. 16, Revision Revised].

But it's the oldest most complete manuscript, although a complete bastard among the texts which represent the true Bible, so it's treated like some kind of precious original. Again, it does not represent the true Bible, it's a bastard. Of course it's important for THAT reason anyway, but that's apparently not the reason for those engaged in this digitization and preservation effort. Those liberal rationalist anti-supernaturalist deceivers W&H adored it along with the other bastard, Vaticanus, and made it the basis of their English Revised Bible, which has become the granddaddy of all the modern Bibles that poor deceived Christians are now assured are based on the true text. What an abomination. What a sad case of wolves in sheep's clothing pulling the wool over the eyes of almost the entire church. SO sad.

Am I being extreme?

Summer Reading

The Divine Original by T. H. Brown
A short history of how we got the corrupted Bible versions, online but also available in booklet form, put out by the Trinitarian Bible Society.

I suggest that only because it's short, and it might whet the appetite for the one book I think all pastors must read, and as many Christians in general who can handle it, Dean John William Burgon's eye-opening The Revision Revised.

I pray for pastors to break the spell of the Bible versions wolves in sheeps' clothing.

Another area of concern is of course 1 Corinthians 11:2-16. Most of the relevant material is online, including Mary Kassian's chapter in her Women, Creation and the Fall, at the CBMW site. Chapter 9. A quick read.

The only book I'm aware of on the subject is Warren Henderson's Glories Seen and Unseen and it's a very good start.

Faith Understands What Intellect Can't Grasp

It seems so simple -- you simply believe it. But if you aren't born again, if you don't have the Holy Spirit, it's apparently impossible.

I was just reading more in David Cloud's book, the Bible Versions Hall of Shame, and read through the information on the fourteen translators of the Revised Standard Version he presents, which is a compendium of modernist/rationalist doubt of the Bible, refusal to believe most of what it says, and every kind of speculative reinterpretation of whatever seemed too incredible for them. Complete destruction of everything the Bible is meant to be to us through simple faith. What a sad story. Infinitely sad.

It made me sad but it also made me SO grateful that God gave me faith in His word from the moment I believed. I just "knew" it was all true, every word of it, and I've never wavered an iota since that moment. I may not understand many things in the Bible but I believe it all and my understanding grows because of my belief. After reading the ugly sad destructive thoughts of these translators it comes home to me with extra force how faith really is a gift of God. I'm SO grateful.

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Later. June 29

Studying the Bible versions problems makes me aware that I believed implicitly in the inerrancy of the scripture before I knew anything about how it is all put together. I believed that the ENGLISH was inerrant I realize now, not merely the original autographs. But that didn't necessarily mean I believed every single word had to be the ONLY word to convey the point, I simply believed that what it SAID was the TRUTH. For that purpose it doesn't matter if some words might have been better chosen or some words change their meaning over time; still they convey the truth as they are. I didn't have the King James particularly in mind though, simply vaguely assumed ALL the English Bibles were inerrant in the same sense.

But now I have to rethink all that. How could all the modern versions, that have sprung up like so many suspect mushrooms from the fetid soil of Westcott and Hort's bogus Greek text and abominable English revision, also be the inerrant word of God? They are too different. I assumed they were inerrant TOO (except maybe some we were frequently told should be avoided), before I had any idea how gratuitous and inelegant were most of their changes in the English, how mutilated the Greek on which they were based.

How am I now to think about this? ARE they the inerrant word of God? Well, no they aren't. Not a single one of them is. Oh they may CONTAIN some of God's word, but in the sense the term is normally used, no, they are not the inerrant Word. I suppose it's a sort of poetic justice too (God's justice is always "poetic"), now that they dominate the field, that the Higher Criticism which presided over their birth also reigns over more and more churches, and more minds, and it tells us that of course the Bible is not inerrant anyway.

Another thing I recognized recently is that I have been aware of the follies of the Higher Criticism since soon after I became a Christian, but it never linked up in my mind with the Bible versions for some reason until now.

Much to mull.

KJV "Errors" and the Fictional History of the Versions

I have a copy of The Layman's Parallel Bible published in 1973 which has the King James, the Modern Language Bible, the Living Bible and the Revised Standard Version side by side for the sake of comparison.

Was just reading the Preface to the RSV and want to note how it presents the history of Bible versions. First it gives a history of the English Bibles before the King James, with the usual compliments to the prose of the King James and so on and so forth. Then goes on:

Yet the King James Version has grave defects.

I'm already worn out from the research I've done so far on the versions but I've realized for some time I'm going to have to do at least a minimum of research into what people mean when they say there are errors in the KJV. How can it be that one group says there are NO errors at all and another says there are "grave defects?" Then there are some in the middle as well who allow for some errors or defects and so on and so forth. Sigh. Makes me really appreciate those who have dedicated the necessary time and study to this issue to be as thorough and accurate as possible.

I already glanced very briefly at a site that lists what they regard as KJV "errors." I randomly chose one reference from their list to see if Burgon says anything about it in his Revision Revised and found out that he did! I'd chosen Luke 2:14, and find Burgon beginning a six-page discussion of this verse with:

A more grievous perversion of the truth of Scripture is scarcely to be found than occurs in the proposed revised exhibition of S. Luke ii. 14, in the Greek and English alike; for indeed not only is the proposed Greek text (...) impossible, but the English of the Revisionists ('peace among men in whom he is well pleased') 'can be arrived at' (as one of themselves has justly remarked) 'only through some process which would make any phrase bear almost any meaning the translator might like to put upon it. [footnote Scrivener's Introduction, p. 515] More than that: the harmony of the exquisite three-part hymn, which the Angels sang on the night of the Nativity, becomes hopelessly marred, and its structural symmetry destroyed, by the welding of the second and third members of the sentence into one. Singular to relate, the addition of a single final letter (Greek s) has done all this mischief....

Over one hundred years later people are still blindly accepting what the revisionists did with that verse instead of heeding Burgon's knowledgeable discussion in favor of the KJV. His discussion goes on for six pages and I've only quoted part of the first paragraph. There are also many footnotes I found in the Index that discuss this same passage that I haven't yet checked out.

Granted, this is only one verse, which I've only barely touched on, and a couple dozen or so "errors" are listed for the KJV which also require investigation in order to be thorough, but if I never get beyond this one I'm happy to conclude that there's no error in the KJV here and if there is none here then it's quite likely the others aren't errors either. All I need is a few words from the righteous and knowledgeable Burgon to conclude that the "error" is no error at all, because he CLEARLY knows what he's talking about and all the rest are ignoramuses by comparison.

In fact the whole idea that there are errors at all is based for starters on the corrupt Alexandrian manuscripts, and the whole list is rationalized by made-up specious explanations by people who don't know what they are talking about.

An unbelievable mess was made of the Bible by the Revisers of 1881, at least the leaders of the pack, who had no feeling for the Greek or the English, no ability to appreciate the work of the KJV translators, a strange personal disdain for the Textus Receptus and indeed for the supernatural revelations of the Bible altogether, and the only right conclusion of this sad tale would be that the whole enterprise be denounced and all the modern Bible versions burned. I'd say we should start all over at that point but clearly there is no one today with the abilities and sensibilities of a Burgon, let alone a whole committee who could be entrusted with the necessary tasks, so there is no starting over possible. The KJV has to become the Bible of all the churches if there is any genuine concern that God's word survive among His people, until such time as Greek and English scholarship improves enough to rethink it, but I'm not holding my breath. I have no doubt but that the Lord Himself will return before that could even become possible.

Oh but I only quoted one line of the Preface to the Revised Standard. There's more (a LOT more):

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

I'm sorry to have to report here that this is simply a lie, in fact it is a collection of lies. The majority of new discoveries were of the Byzantine tradition and agreed with the Textus Receptus and no revision was called for at all.* The very few of the very ancient Alexandrian type were already known to the KJV translators -- they were aware of that other TYPE of manuscript and that TYPE of reading and had REJECTED it as corrupt.

Another lie is that "many" and "serious" defects were the reason for the revision. The reason for the revision was for an UPDATING of the text as MINIMALLY as possible. No hint of many serious defects was given at all.

Another lie is that the finding of these manuscripts had anything whatever to do with the call for a revision. They did not. The other manuscripts were not to figure in the revision at all. The Textus Receptus was to remain the foundation for the revision. That the revisers substituted their own preferred texts was a violation of their agreement.

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*Here's a reference by the Trinitarian Bible Society:

Recent Discoveries and Textual Criticism During the next three hundred years [after the publication of the King James Bible] vast numbers of documents were brought to light and Biblical scholars made many attempts to reconstruct the Greek New Testament. There are now over 5,000 Greek manuscripts, including 90 papyrus fragments (2nd-8th century); 270 Uncial copies (3rd-l0th); 2,800 minuscules (9th-16th); and 2,000 Lectionary copies. The overwhelming majority of these manuscripts agree so closely that they may be said to present the same Greek text, called by some the "Byzantine Text" because it prevailed throughout the Church in the Byzantine period A.D. 312-1453 (and long after).

The Versions. In addition to these Greek sources, scholars have recovered copies of ancient translations in Latin, Syriac, Ethiopic, Armenian, Gothic, etc. Some of these originated before our oldest existing Greek copies and thus testify to the contents of still earlier manuscripts. Much of this evidence is favourable to "The Received Text'' underlying the Authorised Version.

Early Greek and Latin writers -- The "Fathers"The writings of early champions of the truth (and heretics) contain copious references to the Scriptures and again testify concerning the Greek text as it was in the 2nd century onwards. The majority of these witnesses support the "Byzantine" or "Received" or "Traditional" text underlying the Authorised Version, and they establish the antiquity of this text and its superior acceptance in the early period.

The Papyri It is alleged that the most ancient papyrus fragments are hostile to the Received Text, but it must be remembered that the fragments that remain are few in comparison with the many that must have perished through long and frequent use. It is probable that the surviving minority survived because they were not much used and that they fell into disuse because of their deficiencies. A number of papyri of the 6th to 8th centuries do not contain a distinctively "Byzantine" type of text, although it is beyond question that the "Byzantine" text was dominant in that period. These papyri are surviving representatives of a defective and discarded text.

Burgon's Damning Facts 6: The Early Heretical Corruption of the Texts

Burgon, The Revision Revised, p. 29:

But surely (rejoins the intelligent Reader, coming fresh to these studies), the oldest extant Manuscripts (B [Vaticanus], Aleph [Sinaiticus], A C D) must exhibit the purest text! Is it not so?

It ought to be so, no doubt (we answer); but it certainly need not be the case.

We know that Origen in Palestine, Lucian at Antioch, Hesychius in Egypt, 'revised' the text of the N.T. Unfortunately, they did their work in an age when such fatal misapprehension prehvailed on the subject, that each in turn will have inevitably imported a fresh assortment of monstra into the sacred writings. Add the baneful influence of such spirits as Theophilus (sixth Bishop of Antioch, A.D. 168), Tatian, Ammonius, &c., of whom we know there were very many in the primitive age, -- some of whose productions, we further know, were freely multiplied in every quarter of ancient Christendom: -- add, the fabricated Gospels which anciently abounded; notably the Gospel of the Hebrews, about which Jerome is so communicative, and which (he says) he had translated into Greek and Latin: --lastly, freely grant that here and there, with well-meant assiduity, the orthodox themselves may have sought to prop up truths which the early heretics (Basilides, A.D. 134, Valentinus, A.D. 140, with his disciple Heracleon, Marcion, A.D. 150, and the rest,) most perseveringly assailed;--and we have sufficiently explained how it comes to pass that not a few of the codices of primitive Christendom must have exhibited Texts which were even scandalously corrupt. 'It is no less true to fact than paradoxical in sound,' writes the most learned of the Revisionist body,

'that the worst corruptions, to which the New Testament has ever been subjected, originated within a hundred years after it was composed: that Irenaeus [A.D. 150] and the African Fathers, and the whole Western, with a portion of the Syrian Church, used far inferior manuscripts to those employed by Stunica, or Erasmus, or Stephens thirteen centuries later, when moulding the Textus Receptus.' *

[*footnote: Scrivener, Introduction, p. 453. -- Stunica, it will be remembered, was the chief editor of the Complutensian, or first printed edition of the New Testament, (1514).]

And what else are codices Aleph, B C D but specimens--in vastly different degrees-- of the class thus characterized by Prebendary Scrivener? Nay, who will venture to deny that those codices are indebted for their preservation solely to the circumstance that they were long since recognized as the depositories of Readings which rendered them utterly untrustworthy?

Only by singling out some definite portion of the Gospels, and attending closely to the handling it has experienced at the hands of A Aleph B C D,--to the last four of which it is just now the fashion to bow down as to an oracular voice from which there shall be no appeal, --can the student become aware of the hopelessness of any attempt to construct the Text of the N.T. out of the materials which these codices exclusively supply. Let us this time take S. Mark's account of the healing of 'the paralytic borne of four' (ch. ii. 1-12)--and confront their exhibition of it with that of the commonly received Text.

POST UNDER CONSTRUCTION.