Does it matter which version of the Bible you read?

[Hobie]

Lets compare one verse, 1 John 4:3:

NIV - but every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you have heard is coming and even now is already in the world.

RSV - and every spirit which does not confess Jesus is not of God. This is the spirit of antichrist, of which you heard that it was coming, and now it is in the world already.

ASV and every spirit that confesseth not Jesus is not of God: and this is the spirit of the antichrist, whereof ye have heard that it cometh; and now it is in the world already.

KJV - And every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God: and this is that spirit of antichrist, whereof ye have heard that it should come; and even now already is it in the world.

We see here in 1 John 4:3 that the NIV takes out the whole point in the text, "NIV leaves out the fact that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh--yet another swipe at the divinity of Christ." https://mundall.com/erik/NIV-KJV.htm

There are only 2 streams of Bible versions, the true text of the Textus Receptus (Majority Text) on which the Wycliffe Bible, Martin Luther's German Bible, the Tyndale and the Geneva Bible, the King James Version is based, and then those which picked up the Alexandrian manuscripts (Minority Text), the Codex Alexandrian, Codex Sinaiticus and Codex Vaticanus which have been shown to be tremendous amounts of text and changed many parts snf meaning and are unreliable to say the least. The problem is that it is not a 'different translation', it basically is editing purposely to take out whatever they disagree with or doesn't fit with their doctrine or traditions. Some have taken out whole chapters or missing whole books, or worse. So its not just a 'different translation'....

In the new versions based on the Alexandrian manuscripts (Minority Text), many have the following missing so its message or meaning it gave, has just been wiped out:

Matt 17:21
Matt 18:11
Matt 23:14
Mark 7:16
Mark 9:44
Mark 9:46
Mark 11:26
Mark 15:28
Luke 17:36
Luke 23:17
John 5:4
Acts 8:37
Acts 15:34
Acts 28:29
Romans 16:24

The Majority Text is called that because it has thousands of manuscripts from the Textus Receptus, so it is based on the vast majority of manuscripts still in existence. The manuscripts were brought together by many were faithful to its text such as Lucian, Erasmus, Stephanus, Beza and the Elzevir brothers to form the text known as Textus Receptus. When the Protestant Reformers decided to translate the scriptures directly from Greek into the languages of Europe, they selected Textus Receptus as their foundation Greek document and for good reason. The Minority Text of the Alexandrian manuscripts were clearly and thoroughly useless because of the outright changes and what can only be called a corruption of the original text. They have tried to wipe out the text based on the Textus Receptus, and to diminish Gods truth but yet it still stands. Many of the new modern versions such as the NIV and others are based on a few corrupted manuscripts which form the basis of the Minority Text, many which can be traced back to their original source, the changed Alexandrian manuscripts or Alexandrian codices.

 

[Hobie]

Here is a good explanation of what was done in the book LET'S WEIGH THE EVIDENCE by Barry Burton which gives a good description...

"...There Are Two Kinds of Manuscripts:

-Accurate Copies

These manuscripts represent the manuscripts from which the "Textus Receptus" or Received Text was taken.

They are the majority of Greek manuscripts which agree with each other and have been accepted by Bible believing Christians down through the centuries. It is from these manuscripts that the King James Bible was translated in 1611.

-Corrupted Copies

These manuscripts represent the corrupted copies of the Bible, also known as the Alexandrian manuscripts. These manuscripts, many times, do not even agree with each other. The Vaticanus and Sinaiticus manuscripts are part of this group. These are the manuscripts on which Westcott and Hort and the modern versions rely so heavily.

There are 5,309 surviving Greek manuscripts that contain all or part of the New Testament. These manuscripts agree together 95% of the time. The other 5% account for the differences between the King James and the modern versions.

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 Alexandrian manuscripts, such as the Vaticanus or the Sinaiticus, they preferred these corrupted manuscripts over the Textus Receptus the Majority Text."

The Minority Texts were corrupted by Egyptian Gnosticism mostly in
Alexandria with many changes, which are mostly deletions. The Gnostics were a group that did not believe in the virgin birth, that Jesus was the Son of God, that Jesus was resurrected to heaven, that Jesus was the Creator, or that Jesus made atonement for our sins.

There are many alterations in the Alexandrian manuscripts (Minority Text), the Codex Alexandrian, Codex Sinaiticus and Codex Vaticanus, often a single manuscript being amended by several different scribes over a period of many years.

The Minority Texts omit approximately 200 verses from the Scriptures and contradict themselves throughout. Here is some more background on the corruption of the Minority Text from another site....

"...almost all modern English bibles translated since 1898 are based on the Minority Text (this includes the New American Standard Bible, the New International Version, the Living Bible, the New Revised Standard Version, the New World Translation, the New Century Version, the Good News Bible, etc.). These bible versions are only supported by about five of the over 5,000 manuscripts in existence, or about .1% of all manuscripts, which is why it's also known as the "Minority text.".

The two most prominent manuscripts of the Minority Texts are the Vaticanus and the Sinaiticus....These Minority Texts frequently disagreed with each other as well as with the Majority Text, and also contained many obvious and flagrant mistakes. Up until the late 1800s, the Minority Texts were utterly rejected by Christians.

The fact that these two manuscripts may have been older does not prove they are better. More likely it indicates that they were set aside because of their numerous errors....

The Vaticanus, which is the sole property of the Roman Catholic Church, and the Sinaiticus, are both known to be overwhelmed with errors. Words and whole phrases are repeated twice in succession or completely omitted, while the entire manuscript has had the text mutilated by some person or persons who ran over every letter with a pen making exact identification of many of the characters impossible...."
And more...

"...One of the manuscripts that make up the Minority Text is the Vaticanus. The Vaticanus was found in 1481 in the Vatican library. The other manuscript is the Sinaiticus. The Sinaiticus was found in 1844 in a trash pile at Saint Catherine's monastery, and rescued from a long (and well-deserved) obscurity. It has a great number of omissions and has many words and phrases marked out and re-written. Both of these manuscripts are from Roman Catholic origin...." http://www.ecclesia.org...

Now for centuries the Textus Receptus was the standard and the KJV along with many others used it as the basis of their version:
"Tyndale New Testament 1526-1530.
"Coverdale Bible 1535.
"Matthew Bible 1537.
"Great Bible 1539.
"Geneva Bible 1560-1644.
"Bishops' Bible 1568.

Then late in the 1800's two Anglican churchmen, Westcott & Hort picked up the Alexandrian manuscripts and created a version based on them. Westcott & Hort picked up on these corrupted Alexandrian texts as they supported views prevalent in their time from Darwinism & secular humanist questioning of the validity of orthodox Christianity, if just a few verse could be altered or brought into question, it would serve their purpose. Gone was the resurrection story in the book of Mark (the last twelve verses of the KJV). Gone was Acts 8:37 where the Ethiopian eunuch confesses Jesus as the Son of God along with many other passages. Most of the new modern translations have picked this corrupted version and so are based on the Westcott & Hort Coptic Greek text including the American Standard Version (ASV), the New International Version (NIV), the New World Translation (NWT).

These corrupted Alexandrian texts were used by Westcott & Hort's as they knowingly made a translation of what was a changed or heavily edited and thus corrupted Alexandrian translation of a Greek original."

 

[Hobie]

Now lets go back to give a explanation of who Westcott and Hort were, then go into Wescott's and Hort's Greek translation of the Bible and how Hort and Westcott persuaded scholars of the Revision Committee to switch to the corrupted Alexandrian text for the new version which became the basis of many Bibles now being used.

Westcott (12 January 1825 - 27 July 1901) and Hort (23 April 1828 - 30 November 1892) were Anglican theologians who exerted influence on the members of the Bible committee for revising the translation being done at that time which forms the basis of most modern versions. The Church of England used the King James Bible exclusively which was based on the Textus Receptus and had done so almost from when it first came out. The King James Bible was the Bible of evangelicals in England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland. It also became the Bible of the English colonies across the Atlantic Ocean. The only religious group of any size or importance in England that didn't use the King James Bible was Roman Catholicism. Then there was a rise of Darwinism and Humanism by the 1870's, and a challenge arose in the English world to the primacy of the King James Bible and by extension the Textus Receptus it was based on. This challenge came from men who were officially Protestants: Church of England Bishop Brooke Foss Westcott and Cambridge University Professor Fenton John Anthony Hort.

The crux of Westcott and Hort's theory was that the New Testament was preserved in almost perfect condition in two manuscripts, the Vaticanus and the Sinaiticus. (The Sinaiticus was discovered in a wastebasket in St. Catherine's Momentary near Mt. Sinai in 1844 and the Vaticanus was first documented in the Vatican library in 1475 and was 'rediscovered' in 1845.)

Westcott and Hort, abhored the King James Bible and even after its widespread use now declare it an inferior translation. Westcott and Hort determined to replace the King James Bible and the Greek Textus Receptus. In short, their theory was that for fifteen hundred years the preserved Word of God was lost until it was recovered in the nineteenth century in a trash can and in the Vatican Library.

Hort showed a bias against the Textus Receptus, calling it "villainous" and "vile". Hort aggressively taught that the School at Antioch (associated with Lucian) had loosely translated the true text of Scripture in the second century A. D. So this supposedly created an unreliable text of Scripture which formed the Textus Receptus. This was called the Lucian Recension Theory.

Hort did not have a single historical reference to support that the Lucian Recension took place. He simply theorized that it must have taken place so the Textus Receptus must be discarded. In spite of the fact that there is not a single historical reference to the Lucian Recension, but it became held as fact.

Now here is some of the ideas that show the bent of these men:
Hort:

1. Was a follower of Darwin...in other words, he believed in Evolution.
2. Did not believe in blood atonement. What a surprise that the NIV removes 'through his blood' in Col.1:14.
3. Doubted angels were for real.
4. Was pondering several degrees of salvation. Thats why the newer versions always say 'are being saved' or 'were saved' but unlike the KJB which says we 'ARE SAVED'.
5. Rejected an eternal hell. Maybe thats why 'hell' is taken out 40 of the 53 times in the NIV.
Wescott:

1. Did not believe in a literal heaven...much like the pope today.
2. Said there is no second coming of Christ. My friends, Titus 2:13 says, 'Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ'.
3. He believed the writings of mystics was profitable to read.
4. Thought the first three chapters of Genesis could not possibly have given a literal history.
5. Rejected the infallibility of scriptures.
6. Claimed it was improbable that the miracles of the Bible really occurred.
Westcott & Hort

"In 1870, the Convention of the Church of England commissioned a revision of the Authorized Version... Although it was meant to correct a few supposed "errors" in the Authorized Version, the textual critics of the day assured themselves that they would never again have to submit to the divine authority of the Universal Text.

In November of 1870, Westcott testified of just such a spirit in a letter to Dr. Benson, "In a few minutes I go with Lightfoot to Westminster. More will come of these meetings, I think, than simply a revised version."182

The Convocation had instructed the Revision Committee NOT to deal with the underlying Greek text of the Authorized Version. They were instructed to do as follows: (1) to introduce as few alterations as possible into the text of the King James Bible, and (2) to limit ... the expression of any alterations to the language of the Authorized Version.183

Westcott and Hort had other plans. They had edited the corrupt Vatican and Sinaitic manuscripts of the Local Text of Alexandria and produced their own Greek text. Wisely they had never published it. Thus its existence was unknown to the world, and Westcott and Hort did not have to worry about the investigative eyes of their contemporary scholars, such as Dean John Burgon. Had it been published earlier, it assuredly would have been exposed as corrupt and unfit for translation into English. Drs. Westcott and Hort were definitely "wise as serpents," but unfortunately they were equally as harmful...

​

Since the Committee had been instructed not to deal with matters of the Greek text, and the Westcott and Hort text had not been published, it was necessary for the two Cambridge Catholics to submit it little by little to the Committee. Even this was done in secret.

In order to establish their own Greek text as authorative, they first planned the strategy prior to the first meeting of the Committee. Their old friend Bishop Lightfoot was even there to help as Westcott notes in a letter to Hort dated May 1870, "Your note came with one from Ellicott this morning ... Though I think the Convocation is not competent to initiate such a measure, yet I feel that as 'we three' are together it would be wrong not to 'make the best of it' as Lightfoot says ... There is some hope that alternative readings might find a place in the margin."184

The next month he wrote to Lightfoot himself: "Ought we not to have a conference before the first meeting for revision? There are many points on which it is important that we should be agreed."185

They then secretly submitted their text to the Committee members, and stayed close by their sides to see to it that their scheme was carried out. This fact, Dr. Wilkenson attests to:

"The new Greek Testament upon which Westcott and Hort had been working for twenty years was, portion by portion, secretly committed into the hand of the Revision Committee. Their Greek text was strongly radical and revolutionary. The Revisors followed the guidance of the two Cambridge editors, Westcott and Hort, who were constantly at their elbow, and whose radical Greek New Testament, deviating the furthest possible from the Received Text, is to all intents and purposes the Greek New Testament followed by the Revision Committee. This Greek text, in the main, follows the Vatican and Sinaiticus Manuscripts."186
These actions reek of Jesuit underhandedness. Although Westcott and Hort were men of scholarship, they were not men of integrity."...

An Understandable History of the Bible - Chapter 8: Westcott and Hort

 

[Deborah_]

We see here in 1 John 4:3 that the NIV takes out the whole point in the text, "NIV leaves out the fact that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh--yet another swipe at the divinity of Christ."

This really makes me seethe. Who reads single verses? In verse 2 - the preceding sentence! - the NIV says, "every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God."

Also, surely denying that He has "come in the flesh" is a swipe at His humanity - not His deity!

 

[Webers_Home]

.
The Bible was originally penned in Hebrew, Aramaic, and koiné Greek. I
seriously doubt that there is even one version among the many translations
available in our day that we can say is spot-on primarily because it is
virtually impossible to move thoughts from one language into another
verbatim.

And then there is also the problem of ambiguity. Quite a few of the ancient
words have more than one meaning. Translators do their best to select an
appropriate thought, but must admit that sometimes they are taking an
educated guess. In those situations, Bible readers have an opportunity to be
their own translators because their guess is neither better nor worse than
the scholars' guesses.

Another problem faced by translators is the lack of sufficient text. It's
interesting to note in an interlinear how often words are edited into
translations of the ancient manuscripts to fill them out. Now those fills of
course can't be assured inspired so caveat lector.

A lexicon of the words in the Bible giving their meanings in the original
languages is a big help sometimes although lexicons don't take into account
grammatical rules, viz: lexicons have their uses, but they aren't meant to be
substitutes for an education-- and I haven't even touched on punctuation;
which is a really big problem in itself because none that's placed in
translations came from the manuscripts. It's all arbitrary, and possibly even
biased.

* It's sometimes amusing to watch Bible readers quarrel over the best translation
when all translations are sort of like blind men describing an elephant based
upon which part of its body they happen to be touching.
_

 

[Grailhunter]

 

[Hobie]

This really makes me seethe. Who reads single verses? In verse 2 - the preceding sentence! - the NIV says, "every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God."

Also, surely denying that He has "come in the flesh" is a swipe at His humanity - not His deity!

Every word is inspired and cannot be taken out or distorted to hide its truth..
Isaiah 28:10
For precept must be upon precept, precept upon precept; line upon line, line upon line; here a little, and there a little:

 

[zeland2236]

Continued from above.

The original, complete bible (73 books), was assembled about 400 years after Christ was on earth. This collection of books (known as the Douay-Rheims Bible) remained the same for 1,500 years until Martin Luther removed seven books from the Old Testament in the 16th. Century. He did so because these books did not agree with his “new” idea of salvation by faith alone, especially regarding the idea of Purgatory – “…It is therefore a holy and wholesome thought to pray for the dead, that they may be loosed from sins”. (2 Maccabees 12:43-46). Luther wanted a religion of no accountability.

Today, this is why the Protestant Bible has only 66 books, compared to the 73 of the Catholic Bible. In removing those 7 books, Luther violated a number of scripture passages that condemn such actions (see Revelation 22:18-19; Deuteronomy 4:2; Deuteronomy 12:32; Proverbs 30: 6).

Protestants give numerous reasons why they believe those books should not be in the bible, but all those various reasons can be condensed down into one basic statement - the Catholic Church made a mistake when they included those books in the original Bible.
OK! Let’s consider this for a moment. In doing so we see that there are only two possibilities here.

First case: if the protestant view is correct, then obviously the councils that assembled the Bible were not under the guidance and inspiration of the Holy Spirit. If that were the case, then what were the consequences of that situation? Without such guidance, all we have is the personal opinion of those who choose the books of the Bible. Now if they made one mistake, how do we know that they didn’t make other mistakes, and therefore the entire bible is suspect! What proof do we have that the other books of the Bible are correct? None!

Second case: The councils that assembled the Bible were under the guidance and inspiration of the Holy Spirit, and therefore the Bible is free from errors, and those seven books should be included. This would seem to be the more logical case. Is it reasonable to think that Christ would come to earth, start His Church, and then let it fall into error? No.

Is there any scriptural evidence to support this second case – Yes! Christ promised to keep His Church free from error, and so those councils were guided by the Holy Spirit.

Matthew 16:18-19 (KVJ) - “And I say also unto thee, that thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven”. Note, this absolute authority was not given to Peter personally, but to the office he was to hold.

Matthew 18:18 (KVJ) - “Verily I say unto you, whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. This was a general authority given to the apostles as a group, such as when they met in a council (Councils of Hippo, Carthage, Trent, etc., for example).

Matthew 28:19-20 (KJV) - “Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world. Amen”.

It should be noted in the above three verses, that it was an absolute, unconditional authority that Chris gave to the apostles. No conditions or exceptions were attached to His words. Also see 2 Peter 1:20, and 2 Peter 3:16.

One last side note concerning Martin Luther and Purgatory. While 2 Maccabees 12:43-46 gives the clearest reference to Purgatory, it is not the only scriptural reference to that topic. There are seven other scriptural references to Purgatory in the Old Testament, and approximately 15 such references in the New Testament.

​

 

[Taken]

Does it matter which version of the Bible you read?


Yes.

 

[Jay Ross]

Does it matter which version of the Bible you read?


Yes.

The question that needs to be answered is, have the translators conveyed the actual context of the source text into their translations correctly.

From my limited study of the Hebrew texts, I would suggest that the actual context of the Hebrew texts have been butchered beyond our ability to comprehend because of the lack of comprehension of the translators.

For Israel to be a blessing to all of the peoples of the earth, God needs them to be scattered throughout all of the earth's people groups, but the translations have been written to give the impression that all of the Israelites need to be the land of Canaan before the End Times can start to progress.

In all of the Old Testament, it appears that God intended to plant the nation in His fertile soil/field, which is labelled as the "soil of Israel" which tells me that God can draw all of Isreal to Himself where they are presently living scattered throughout all of the earth and that He will teach them on the Religion of Israel based on the foundation stone premise that Jesus is the Son of God.

Scripture tells us that the Israelites will lead the nations into the worship of God and His Son Jesus Christ on Mt Zion where they are living around the world.

Because the stone that comes down out of heaven in our near future during the time of the kings of the earth will become the largest mountain, i.e. religion, in all of the earth, that Mt Zion will be accessible wherever we live disbursed throughout the whole earth.

The 1,000 years of the great harvest of Souls to enter into God's Everlasting Kingdom will begin to unfold in our near future.

What it means for us, the Saints of God is that we truly start to worship God with all of our heart and soul such that we become a living sacrifice to show His Glory in our respective lives.

What we presently need are refreshed translations that exposes God's heart for all of the nations of the earth.

God's saints, to be able to achieve this outcome must become God's lowly servants so that they can bless all of the peoples of the Nations.

Shalom

 

[GRACE ambassador]

Does it matter which version of the Bible you read?


Yes.

Amen!:

And, precious friend(s), Please Be Very Richly Encouraged and Edified
In The Lord Jesus Christ and In His Precious Word Of Truth (Where Is God's Word Today?)
+
Getting It Rightly Divided:

The Bible: The BIG Picture

Amen.

 

[Wrangler]

Does it matter which version of the Bible you read?​

With the caveat of a couple of things, I’ll say no, it doesn’t matter because you must read in Spirit and prayer that God will grant you to learn what you need to from the verses you read that day. Hebrews 4:12 - the word of God is alive.

The caveats are that it is a sincere translation from devout Christians. It can’t be a work from from enemies of Christ. Also, I love different translations and not every verse hits me the same from each translation. In other words, which way of putting the message resonates most with the individual?

IMO, too many people get caught up in so called literal versions. It becomes unreadable with adjectives after nouns or objects before subjects. It’s like reading a translation by Yoda. To me, the book give. I reject the claim one must be a philologist to grasp God’s word properly.

 

[Taken]

Amen!:

And, precious friend(s), Please Be Very Richly Encouraged and Edified
In The Lord Jesus Christ and In His Precious Word Of Truth (Where Is God's Word Today?)
+
Getting It Rightly Divided:

The Bible: The BIG Picture

Amen.

@Jay Ross

Toddler Bible,
Student Bible,
New Testament ONLY Bible,
Modern Language Bibles. Meanings change.

OT established…Basics.
Commandments,
Statutes, written Laws
Common Laws, effected, not written
Precepts, behaviors among men, yea /nay

NT elaborates, with same Basics.

Talk, Speech, Guidance, Direction…yea/nay
AND:
The Blessings, Gifts, Rewards For yea, follow, accept, Commit.

The “Understanding” the Speech, Guidance, Direction…
ALWAYS Offered to the Committed…
Ask the Source “Lord God”…
And wait in patience…
Only He gives His Understanding of “His Words”…

And THAT Gift of His Understanding.. is “exclusive” For they who “elected TO Commit” to Receive His Offering of Becoming wholly, body, soul, spirit “MADE restored, aNew”.

And WHY, the “unsaved, unrestored, unchanged”…(and Fallen angels)…
Are always in wondering, discontent, can’t get the big picture…( wanting understanding, proof, WITHOUT a commitment of belief).

Their Conundrum!

Prove, so I can Believe…nope.
Faith First, a gift for hearing.
Hear a little, little Faith given.
Keep hearing… Faith increases.
Faith Key to Belief.
Committed Belief Key to Receive Gift of Salvation.
Receive Gift of Salvation…
Done deal, Once and Forever.


Glory to God,
Taken