John 5:4 The Angel's Stirring of the Pool of Bethesda

I was just listening to a sermon by John Piper at Sermon Audio, and found him repeating the familiar falsehood about the supposed superiority of the Greek texts on which most of the newer Bible translations are based. (This starts at about 6:25 on the counter and goes to about 10 if you are listening to it.)

In this case it's in relation to the omission of John 5:4 from some of these newer translations, the NIV, ESV and the NASB being some he lists. I looked at Blue Letter Bible for the different versions on this verse and the version of the NASB they use appears to have it, at least in brackets.*

The main point is that John Piper accepts the received wisdom of the modern scholars and declares that it's RIGHT to omit John 5:4, saying

"verse four... is omitted intentionally and I think rightly, because it is missing in the oldest and best Greek manuscripts."

He then goes on to discuss a bit of text criticism, gives a speculation as to why verse 4 might have later been added (to make sense of verse 7), says it may be in fact the truth but if it's omitted from the best manuscripts we can't rightly include it, etc.

There's one excellent proof that omitting the verse is wrong:

TERTULLIAN, WRITING ABOUT 198 A.D. REFERS TO THE ANGEL'S STIRRING THE WATERS:

"An angel, by his intervention, used to stir the pool at Bethesda. Those who were complaining of poor health used to watch for him.... 3.169. --in David Bercot's Dictionary of Early Christian Beliefs, p. 67

J W Burgon discusses this passage as well, commenting that

"The troubling of the pool of Bethesda is not even allowed a bracketed place in Dr. Hort's Text [made up of those "oldest and best" Greek texts]. How the accomplished Critic would have set about persuading the Ante-Nicene Fathers that they were in error for holding it to be genuine Scripture, it is hard to imagine."

If someone writing in the 2nd century, who would have had access to many of the Bible manuscripts available at the time, refers to this passage, we can be sure it came from a manuscript taken to be authentic scripture, showing that the supposed "earliest and best" manuscripts were NOT the Alexandrian texts preferred by Westcott and Hort and used in all the modern Bibles, but the very Byzantine type texts, even the Textus Receptus, that the KJV was based on, that the modern scholars despise.

So once again we have evidence that FALSE BIBLES, first foisted on us by the FALSE TEACHERS Westcott and Hort, have poisoned the pulpits of the English-speaking world (and all the rest of the world that follows the same false texts) and the poison is defended by some of the best preachers.

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* Here I want to object to the NASB's choice of wording. Why do we need to be afflicted with such a phrasing as "...made well from whatever disease with which he was afflicted" when the KJV's is so much more direct: "...made whole of whatsoever disease he had." Pompous language, blech! Here's the comparison of the whole verse:

KJV: For an angel went down at a certain season into the pool, and troubled the water: whosoever then first after the troubling of the water stepped in was made whole of whatsoever disease he had.

NASB:...for an angel of the Lord went down at certain seasons into the pool and stirred up the water; whoever then first, after the stirring up of the water, stepped in was made well from whatever disease with which he was afflicted.

But that's a side issue. Just another way the newer translations are inferior.

Does Isaiah 14:12 show that Lucifer is Satan?

Textual Critic Daniel Wallace has a blog entry about a popular You Tube video that purports to show from the Hebrew that Obama is the Antichrist. I watched the video but it doesn't really interest me much and Wallace shows that it manipulates facts to make its point (I'd noticed some time ago that "barak" means "lightning" in Hebrew which I thought was interesting anyway). Obama is certainly AN Antichrist, as I've noted here already, but we're waiting for THE Antichrist to be revealed, some time in the not so distant future I expect. Christians will recognize him then, when he is revealed.

2Th 2:3 ¶ Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition;

But in discussing this video Wallace comments on one vexed verse in the Bible versions controversy:

Isaiah 14:12 How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! how art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations!

Wallace says:

Is Isaiah really the source for the Christian view of Satan? It may contribute to our understanding, but even that is disputed. The one passage that may speak about Satan is indeed Isa 14. But part of the reason for this being so interpreted is due to the influence of the KJV. At v. 12 the King James says, “O Lucifer, son of the morning!” The word lucifer, however, is simply a transliteration of the Latin Vulgate at this point. It is not another name for Satan.

Is this a mistake or merely an overemphasis on the influence of the KJV? Origen, who lived nearly two centuries before the translation of the Latin Vulgate, thought it was another name for Satan, and he didn't have the Vulgate or the King James English Bible, but a Greek Bible -- the Septuagint. Origen reads the passage rather differently than Westcott and Hort did (who are of course responsible for the new readings), understanding it to say the same as Jerome had it say in the Vulgate about the identity of Satan with Lucifer, and yet Jerome translated from the Hebrew text while Origen had the Septuagint:

"Concerning another opposing power, we are taught the following by the prophet Isaiah: The prophet says, 'How is Lucifer, who used to arise in the morning, fallen from heaven!' ... Most evidently by these words a being is shown to have fallen from heaven -- he who formerly was Lucifer, and who used to arise in the morning. For if he originally had a nature of darkness (as some think), how is it said that Lucifer existed this way before? Or how could he arise in the morning -- if he had in himself nothing of the light? Nay, even the Savior Himself teaches us, saying of the devil, 'Behold, I see Satan fallen from heaven like lightning.' For at one time he was light." --Origen, c. 225, 4.259. (From David Bercot's Dictionary of Early Christian Beliefs, p. 410)

Wallace goes on:

The Hebrew word, helel means ‘morning star’ or ‘shining one.’ Most modern translations (the NKJV is the only exception I found of the translations I checked) do not translate helel as Lucifer; rather they have ‘shining one,’ ‘day star,’ ‘morning star,’ etc. (cf., e.g., NET, ASV, RSV, NRSV, ESV, TEV, REB, NIV, TNIV, NAB, NJB, HCSB). Of course, there are still excellent scholars who believe that Isa 14 is ultimately a reference to Satan, though in the historical context it was directed at the Babylonian king.

Even Origen thought it was a reference to Satan, and he couldn't have been influenced by the King James Bible.

Odd that so many of the modern Bible versions prefer to blur this identity that is recognized as far back as Origen. Is it an intentional blurring or just another of Westcott and Hort's stupid blunders? The result is the same in any case: the equation IS blurred in the Bibles that derive from their work.

There is still the disturbing fact that "morning star" is part of Lucifer's title or name, and emphasized in the modern Bible versions, although Jesus Christ claims this title to Himself:

Re 22:16 I Jesus have sent mine angel to testify unto you these things in the churches. I am the root and the offspring of David, and the bright and morning star.

I may come back with some thoughts about this later.

End Times Prophecy site on how the Bible versions have crippled and disunified the church

I just found this site and so far I like it. He calls himself Word Weaver and his site is End Times Prophecy dot net. I haven't read much there yet but he has a good discussion of the Book of Enoch, as well as the text of the book itself, a book that has information that may be of much use to us in the very end days; and he's also KJV-only and has some good things to say about that:

from Part 2:
In short, what Satan started several thousands of years ago,
he has continued to do to our very day, albeit in a slightly
different form. Back then, he had his false scribes create
many different imitation scrolls, in order to confuse the
potential believers. To the untrained eye, to those who had
not been trained directly by Christ, or perhaps by one of
His Apostles, or maybe by one of their immediate Disciples,
it would be difficult to notice the difference between the
Divinely Inspired scrolls, and the false ones. Physically
speaking, they would all look about the same. Not only that,
but a cunning deceiver would gradually introduce changes to
the original text, as changing too much of the text at once
would certainly be too obvious, and would draw a lot of
attention to what was really being committed in the name of
truth. But over a period of time, these small, unnoticed
changes, a few words omitted or changed here, an extra
phrase added there, would result in an entirely new doctrine;
a false doctrine, and a false gospel, which was a perversion
of the original.

Thus, the corruptors did their dirty work, just as they are
doing in our current time as well; and that is why we have
so many different versions of the Bible today. As I point
out in such articles as "Have You Read The New Scriptures
Yet?", as well as in part two of "A Biblical Cafeteria Or
The Whole Course?", this deceptive work was not left to the
Jews alone. Only a few hundred years after Christ, when true
Christianity moved out of the coliseums of Rome, and into
the grandstands, and became a popular religion, others, such
as those people who would eventually become the founding
fathers of the Roman Catholic Church, also got into the act,
in order to promote their own agendas; the purpose of which
was to consolidate both their power and their wealth; even
if it was at the expense of doctrinal purity; which it most
certainly was, and has been.

Yes, our modern Bibles may all look the same on the outside, just as a lot of those old scrolls are similar in appearance as well; but hidden within their thin onion skin pages, they contain many subtle changes which have been slowly made over time; a little change here, a little change there; a little deception here, and a little deception there. As noted a moment ago, on its own, one small change may not appear to be very significant, but collectively, when one considers all of the changes which have been made in a particular new
version, then the truth becomes rather alarming! Someone has intentionally perverted the true Gospel of Jesus Christ!

For this reason then, in our current day, it requires a lot of spiritual discernment, in order to really know what is of Divine Inspiration. Sadly, this Gift of the Spirit is sorely lacking within modern Christianity, as the myriad of Bibles and confusing doctrines attests. It should now be very clear to you what Satan's secret weapon has been. It may very well be that black or red leather or vinyl bound book which is inscribed with the words "Holy Bible"! Is it the real thing; or is it a modern "designer version", designed to trick and deceive you into believing things which are not Scripturally sound, and to destroy the sure foundation of your faith? In the next installment of this series, I will be offering an interesting parallel, which will emphasize how Satan has stripped us of our most valuable weapon, and replaced it with an inferior product.

In addition, I will also begin to offer my explanations as
to why I choose to use the beloved, and time-tested, KJV
Bible. This will include the discussion of such topics as
God's Sword of division or plastic swords, weak shepherds,
ecumenism and the Dalai Lama, the human family or the Lord's
family, children by adoption, one true Gospel and one common
Bible version, constitutions Bibles and hymnals, spiritual
anarchy, hundreds of counterfeits, doctrinal unity through
one version, Elizabethan English and foreign languages,
perverted American English, America's evil children, the
readability of the KJV Bible, my young daughter's example,
parental responsibility, "Baby Hueys", spiritual divorce,
evilness of television and spiritual mountaineers. I trust
that you will join me.

From Part 3:
We can no more use more than one valid English translation
of the Bible, than a congress or parliament can rely upon
more than one valid constitution to write the laws for its
country. Such a body would rarely agree upon anything due to
so many different interpretations of the law being used by
that body; and that country would soon fall into total
anarchy and confusion; and eventually be overrun by its
enemies. Or consider if you were at a sports event, and just
before it was about to begin, everyone stood up to sing your
national anthem. Suddenly, the arena is filled with the
ugliest sound you ever did hear, as twenty thousand people
started singing different versions of the same song, because
some people got the bright idea that they didn't like a few
words, so they decided to change them; or maybe they felt
the tune needed to be modernized a little to fit the time
period, so they changed just a few notes, and increased the
tempo. After all, changing just a few words, or a few notes,
won't make that much of a difference, will it? It's still
the same song isn't it?

EXACTLY! The church is crippled by this use of different versions but so many seem oblivious to this fact.

It reminds me of some of these upbeat, modern versions of traditional Christian hymns. How
disgusting! They have violated the sanctity of the songs, and made them absolutely worldly!

From another perspective, for those of you who are church-
goers, or who attend some form of fellowship, wouldn't it be
rather odd, and cause a great deal of confusion, if your
priest, pastor, minister or shepherd asked his congregation
to turn to a certain verse in the Bible, and to read it
aloud in unison; and all of a sudden, to everyone's great
surprise, the church or fellowship was filled with absolute
confusion as everyone tried to read the same verse from
twenty different versions of the Bible? Or what if your
chorus leader, or inspiration leader, said, "Okay, everyone,
please turn in your hymnals to hymn number fifty". So
everyone obediently turns to hymn number fifty in their
particular hymnal, and again the church or fellowship is
filled with absolute confusion, because everyone is using a
different version of the hymnal book.

WHY ISN'T THIS AN OBVIOUS PROBLEM TO CHRISTIANS? IT HAS ALWAYS DEPRESSED ME WHEN SOMEONE READS FROM A DIFFERENT VERSION THAN THE ONE I HAVE, AND NOW IT DEPRESSES ME WHEN THEY READ FROM ANY OF THE MODERN CORRUPTIONS AT ALL.

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.