Our Bible Part 6

IX. Consider the path of the true Old Testament scriptures. A. Recall that Jesus Christ authenticated the true O.T. as consisting of the Law, the Prophets and the Psalms written in Hebrew, excluding the books of the Apocrypha. MAT 5:18; LUK 24:44. B. apocrypha: A writing or statement of doubtful authorship or authenticity; spec. those books included in the Septuagint and Vulgate versions of the Old Testament, which were not originally written in Hebrew and not counted genuine by the Jews... 1. Though the Pope endorsed the Apocrypha, Jerome (producer of the Latin Vulgate) maintained: a. “This prologue to the Scriptures may suit as a helmed preface to all the books which we have rendered from Hebrew into Latin, that we may know that whatever book is beyond these must be reckoned among the Apocrypha.” (Prologus Galeatus) b. “As the Church reads the books of Judith and Tobit and Maccabees but does not receive them among the canonical Scriptures, so also it reads Wisdom and Ecclesiasticus for the edification of the people, not for the authoritative confirmation of doctrine.” (Jerome, Pref. ad Libros Sol) 2. The Apocrypha is also disqualified as the word of God because it disagrees with the Scripture. Our Bible 12-1-24 Page 16  a. 2 Maccabees 12:41-46 teaches the offering of money and prayers for the forgiveness of the dead (a foundation of the doctrine of purgatory). ct/w DEU 26:12-14. (1) Any purported prophetic revelation had to agree with what had already been given by God. DEU 13:1-5. (2) Therefore 2 Maccabees is invalidated as scripture. (3) This principle of agreement with previous divine revelation is borne out by the N.T. declarations of Jesus Christ and the apostles that what they advanced was indeed in complete agreement with previous divine revelation. MAT 5:17; LUK 24:44; ACT 3:22-24; 13:27; 26:22-23. b. Ecclesiasticus 3:30 teaches forgiveness of sins through almsgiving. ct/w PSA 49:6-8; 1PE 1:18-19; EPH 1:7; ROM 11:6. c. Wisdom 7:25 presents wisdom as an emanation from God. (1) This is the pagan/gnostic doctrine of emanations: deities emanating or emitting from God as offshoots from a sea of energy. (2) Jesus Christ is the wisdom of God. 1CO 1:24, 30. (3) Jesus Christ is not an emanation of God; He is God. JOH 1:1-3, 14. 3. If the writings of certain Hebrew prophets did not make it into the Hebrew Canon (2CH 9:29), how much less the non-Hebrew works of the Apocrypha? 4. A very common flaw in many English bibles produced since 1871 is that they are translated from manuscripts which contain the Apocrypha as if it was inspired Scripture. C. The Hebrew Masoretes were families of Hebrew scholars who safeguarded the Hebrew Old Testament text and were especially active from about 500 to 1000 A.D. 1. They held to very strict rules regarding the copying of the Hebrew Old Testament. Two such rules are presented here as examples. The following excerpt is taken from Defending the King James Bible by Dr. D.A. Waite who is citing from General Biblical Introduction by H.S. Miller. a. “The revision of a roll must be made within 30 days after the work was finished; otherwise it was worthless. One mistake on a sheet condemned the sheet; if three mistakes were found on any page, the entire manuscript was condemned.” b. “Every word and every letter was counted, and if a letter were omitted, an extra letter inserted, or if one letter touched another, the manuscript was condemned and destroyed at once.” 2. The Masoretes must have held that they were copying from authentic Scripture preserved in the copies they used as the basis for their work. 3. In 1525 Daniel Bomberg published his second edition of the Hebrew Old Testament text, edited by Abraham Ben Chayyim. This is the Ben Chayyim Masoretic text, the standard Masoretic Hebrew O.T. text for the next 400 years. It is the text on which the King James Version is based in its Old Testament. a. Over against this Hebrew text is The Biblica Hebraica Stuttgartensia, produced by Nazi theologian Rudolph Kittel. b. Kittel's text differs in 30,000+ places from the Masoretic Text, yet it is sometimes referred to by its supporters as a Masoretic text. c. Kittel's text is the basis for virtually all modern English O.T. bibles. X. Consider the path of the true New Testament text, commonly called the Received Text (Textus Our Bible 12-1-24 Page 17 Receptus), or the Byzantine Text or the Syrian Text. A. As of 1981, the Greek manuscripts found and collated numbered 5366. Of these, 99% go along with the Received Text and only 1% go along with the corrupt text underlying the modern bibles. 1. The majority of quotes of Scripture by early Church Fathers (pre-400 A.D. pastors, etc.) favor the Received Text. 2. This would probably be most apparent in writings of Church Fathers that pre-date the influence of Origen of Alexandria, the Nicene Council (325 A.D.) and the influence of Emperor Constantine. 3. The Eastern Orthodox Church has virtually always used the Received Text and rejected the corrupt Greek texts from Rome which opposed it. B. Remember that God had intended to preserve His word through His churches, or disciples. ISA 8:16 c/w ACT 11:26. 1. We should expect that the path of the true text of the N.T. would coincide with the perpetuity of the true N.T. churches of Jesus Christ. 2. We should also expect that Satan, as he has ever done, would establish a counterfeit of this order. 3. We should also expect that the spiritual battle lines would be drawn at these intersections. REV 12:17. 4. An overview of spiritual history from Christ's first advent and forward is one of God preserving His true text through His true churches which are opposed by a rival “Christian” system with its own text that it deems to be superior (and which it would be willing to spill blood for in order to make it preeminent). REV 18:24. 3. Observe this quote from the preface of the Jesuit Rheims Bible of 1582, explaining why the Vulgate had been translated into Italian in 1300 and into French in 1400: “the sooner to shake out of the deceived people's hands, the false heretical translations of a sect called the Waldenses.” 4. “The Vulgate was born about 380 A.D. Nine hundred years later brings us to about 1280 A.D. This accords well with the fact that at the famous Council of Toulouse, 1229 A.D., the Pope gave orders for the most terrible crusade to be waged against the simple Christians of southern France and northern Italy who would not bow to his power. Cruel, relentless, devastating, this war was waged, destroying the BIBLES, BOOKS, AND EVERY VESTIGE OF DOCUMENTS telling the story of the Waldenses and Albigenses.” (Which Bible, by D.O. Fuller, p. 201, caps mine) C. Of special mention is the fact that the Gentiles were evangelized mainly through the ministry of the Apostle Paul, who was commissioned from Antioch of Syria. ACT 11:19-26; 13:1-2; 14:26-28. 1. Syria became the capital of N.T. evangelism. 2. A translation of the Bible into Syrian based upon the apostolic text appeared at about 150 A.D. This is known as the Peshitto. 3. About the same time (157 A.D.), a Latin translation of the Bible appeared, known as the Itala. a. Its superiority over even the acclaimed Latin Vulgate of Jerome was admitted to by Augustine, the Catholic bishop and philosopher, in 400 A.D.: “Now among translations themselves the Italian (Itala) is to be preferred to the others, for it keeps closer to the words without prejudice to clearness of expression.” (Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Christian Lit. Ed., Vol. II, p.542) b. This version derived its name from the Italic district, the regions of the Our Bible 12-1-24 Page 18  Vaudois, or the Waldenses. D. Italy, France and Great Britain were evangelized by Christians from Asia Minor. 1. Their Old Latin script Bibles were the Bibles of the Montanists, Donatists, and later the Albigenses and Waldenses who withstood Rome. 2. When the Pope sent Augustine to convert England in 596 A.D., he found Christians there with Latin Bibles that they had had since the days of imperial Roman power. a. Augustine's mission became one of not only evangelizing heathen England but also to subjugate the churches he found there to papal authority. b. A great area of controversy was the issue of which Bible should be used by English Christians: the one they had been using before Papal Rome's arrival or the Latin Vulgate. 3. There is some evidence that Asiatic Christianity and its Bible had already reached Ireland well before Roman Catholicism did. a. “Before they came together - The woman was espoused at her own, or her father’s house; and, generally, some time elapsed before she was taken home to the house of her husband: Deu_20:7; Jdg_14:7, Jdg_14:8. This custom has been immemorially observed among the inhabitants of Ireland, who have not only this, but many Asiatic customs, which, added to various authentic historic proofs, are collateral evidences that they received the Christian religion, not from the popes of Rome, but through the means of Asiatic missionaries.” (Adam Clarke Commentary, on Matthew 1:18) b. “The old Latin versions were used longest by the western Christians who would not bow to the authority of Rome--- e.g., the Donatists; the Irish in Ireland, Britain, and the Continent; the Albigenses, etc.” (Catholic and Protestant Bibles Compared, Jacobus, p. 200) D. For about 1000 years, Europe went into a period of time known as the dark ages. Roman Catholicism was the dominant spiritual-political power during this time, but she still had to contend with masses of dissenters who were scattered in small churches throughout Europe. 1. In 1453, Constantinople, the capital of the eastern part of the Holy Roman Empire fell to the Turks. In the ensuing flight, its citizens, many of whom were Christians and Greek scholars, dispersed widely into western Europe, carrying with them scores of Greek copies of the Scriptures. 2. As a result of this sudden release of suppressed information the next 100 years saw a great awakening from the sleep of the dark ages. Now we see the Greek N.T.'s of Erasmus (1516, 1522), Stunica (1522), Stephens (1546, 1550, 1551, 1559), Beza (five editions from 1559-1598), and Elzevir (1624). E. The Waldensians had a tremendous influence on the Protestant reformers. The Waldensians were independent churches that can be traced far back into pre-Reformation history and they had a record of standing against the Roman Catholic church and its text. 1. In the preface to the 1st French Bible, the translators say of the Valdenses: “They have always had the full enjoyment of the heavenly truth contained in the Scriptures, ever since they were enriched with the same by the apostles; having in fair manuscripts preserved the entire Bible in their native tongue, from generation to generation.” (Concise History of Baptists, G. H. Orchard, p. 257) 2. Olivetan, a Waldensian, translated his Bible into French, which became known as the Olivetan Bible (1535). This in turn, became the basis for the Geneva Bible, the dominant English version up until 1611. 3. Luther used the Tepl Bible, considered to be a pre-Reformation German translation Our Bible 12-1-24 Page 19  of a Waldensian Bible. This spurred him to use the Greek text of Erasmus to translate the Luther Bible. 4. An Italian version of a Waldensian Bible was translated, called the Diodati (1607). 5. The AV 1611 translators had four Waldensian influenced Bibles and six Waldensian Bibles to access. F. A Spanish Version (1569) and a Czech Version (1602) were based upon the Received Text. G. A number of English Bibles leading up to the King James Bible used the Received Text: Tyndale’s Bible (1525), the Coverdale Bible (1535), the Rogers Bible (1537), the Matthews Bible (1537), the Taverner Bible (1539), the Great Bible (1539-41), the Geneva Bible (1557-60), and the Bishops’ Bible (1568). H. “Erasmus' Latin/Greek New Testament editions and annotations were a major influence for the original German Luther Bible and the translations of the New Testament into English by William Tyndale. Subsequent Textus Receptus editions constituted the main Greek translation-base for the King James Version, the Spanish Reina-Valera translation, the Czech Bible of Kralice, the Portuguese Almeida Recebida, the Dutch Statenvertaling, the Russian Synodal Bible and many other Reformation-era New Testament translations throughout Western, Northern and Central Europe. Despite being viewed as an inferior form of the text of the New Testament by many modern textual critics, some Conservative Christians still view it as the most authentic text of the New Testament. This view is generally based upon a theological doctrine of the supernatural providential preservation of scripture.” (Textus Receptus, Wikipedia, boldface mine) I. The King James Bible (AV 1611) was produced from the Masoretic Text and Received Text. 1. It quickly outpaced and displaced all previous English versions and became the dominant spiritual and moral force for the next 350+ years. 2. Concurrently, English Christianity with the KJV became the dominant evangelistic force in the world while England itself became an imperial power that spread around the earth. 3. “England has two books, the Bible and Shakespeare. England made Shakespeare, but the Bible made England.” (Victor Hugo) Our Bible 12-1-24 Page 20