Why the King James Version Bible?
The authors of the New Testament (Mathew, Mark, Luke, John, Peter, Paul, James, Jude) wrote their books and spread
copies of them all over. For the next thousand years it was
horrible persecution against the church.
These persecutions
heavily influenced the development of Christianity, shaping
Christian theology and the structure of the Church. Among
other things, persecution sparked written explanations and
defenses of the Christian religion.
Textus Receptus
In the 1500-1600’s persecution
let’s up and the people decide to collect all the copies together and
compare them and put them into English. Keep in mind some
of these bibles have not seen each other in a 1000 years. People
all over the world was copying the
bible. A book in active use is going to have a
limited life span. So after years of use, your original is worn out.
But it doesn’t matter because you have a large number of
copies from it. They found and compared
over 5000+ copies of the Bible that survived. They were
identical in everything except some spelling errors. These manuscripts
came to be known as “Textus Receptus” (received text).
Textus Receptus is the King James Bible
we have today.
The Corrupted Manuscripts
Now in Egypt in 240 AD there are people known as the
Alexandrians (See Origen). They didn’t believe in the deity of Christ,
or the bodily resurrection, they disputed with Stephen; about
the doctrine he preached, and the miracles he wrought, and by
what authority he did these things (Acts 6:9). So they made their
own copy of the Bible. Changing things they didn’t like or believe.
These are known as Vaticanus and Sinaiticus
manuscripts are part of this group.
Vaticanus and Sinaiticus
Codex Vaticanus (B) is considered to be the most authoritative
of the Minority Texts, although it is responsible for over
36,000 changes that appear today in the new versions.
This manuscript was "found" in 1481 in the Vatican library
in Rome, where it is currently held, and from whence it
received its name. It is written on expensive vellum,
a fine parchment originally from the skin of calf or antelope.
Some authorities claim that it was one of a batch of 50 Bibles
ordered from Egypt by the Roman Emperor Constantine;
hence its beautiful appearance and the expensive skins which
were used for its pages. But alas! this manuscript,
like its corrupt Egyptian partner Codex Sinaiticus (Aleph)
is also riddled with omissions, insertions and amendments.
The corrupt and unreliable nature of Codex Vaticanus is best summed up
by one who has thoroughly examined them, John W Burgon:
"The impurity of the text exhibited by these codices is not a
question of opinion but fact...In the Gospels alone,
Codex Vaticanus leaves out words or whole clauses no less
than 1,491 times. It bears traces of careless transcriptions on
every page…"
According to The Westminster Dictionary of the Bible,
"It should be noted . . . that there is no prominent Biblical
(manuscripts) in which there occur such gross cases of
misspelling, faulty grammar, and omission, as in (Codex) B."
Westcott and Hort were 2 Greek scholars and they took theses
manuscripts and created a “new” Greek manuscript in 1875.
Their thinking was because these were older therefore they are
better. Older does not mean they are better. As clarified above.
Used books, or scrolls will wear out. These were not used…for a
reason. True Christians knew they were corrupt.
To be the oldest manuscripts we have, they sure do look
rather new…coincidence? Nope. The Westcott and Hort version
of the bible is what all modern versions rely so heavily.
The modern versions had to use the “Textus Receptus”,
since it contains the majority of the surviving Greek
manuscripts. The problem is that, when the “Textus Receptus”
disagreed with the Vaticanus or the Sinaiticus, they preferred
these corrupted manuscripts over the “Textus Receptus”.
Copyrights
The following versions have copyrights:
Revised Standard Version, New American Standard,
Living Bible, Good News Bible, New International Bible,
New Scofield, and more. The KJV has no copyright, and is the only bible that claims to be the "Authorized" translation of God. The definition of a copyright
"The legal protection given to authors and artists to
prevent reproduction of their work without their consent.
The owner of a copyright has the exclusive right to print,
reprint, publish, copy and sell the material covered by the
copyright." By taking out a copyright on a so-called "Bible",
the copyright owner admits that this is not "God's Word"
but "Their own words."
Side-by-side Verse Comparisons Show Modern
Versions Have Attacked Fundamental Doctrines
- Deity of Christ
- Salvation by faith
- Atonement
- The Second Coming of Christ
- The Virgin Birth of Christ
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