I will paste a reply that I sent to a PM here:Michael wrote:Basically, those passages do not always exist in the oldest/best manuscripts. (Remember, they didn't have "the originals" in 1611, either!)
I have spoken to one of the Southern Baptist professors who helped write the NIV. I have also read a book about how they went about it. One of the guys involved, who wrote the forward to the original has since renounced it. I have spoken and heard testimony from the students of said professor. They all admit that it is WRONG and have stopped using it!
Older manuscripts do not mean pure today, mean complete, or mean better. Consider this. Consider as a dad, you right a journal for infant son. Everyday, you write about you, him, what he is learning, what he has accomplished, what you are doing for him that he cannot see. Imagine that book writing occuring for years until you die. Say one day that book is lost, torn apart. Lets say that years after he finds the first chapter of the book. Does that chapter contain everything that the whole book encompasses? No. Does that first chapter reveal all of the knowledge and dimension of love between a father and son? No. Complete understanding and complete dimension of love could not be realized without the rest of the book.
We do not have the oldest manuscripts. That is ok. The oldest were a work in progress. In Jeremiah 36 , we have record of a king ripping up and burning the first documented proof of scripture. But God gave Jeremiah the scripture again, and then added to it. Were they both from God? Yes. Were they both complete? No. One was older. Were they both scripture? Yes.
The oldest copies today are not originals. All originals were gone about the time Paul came on the scene. When the first English bibles came about, long before 1611, they still had some copies very close to the original copies.
The big thing that people cannot swallow today is reverence for scripture that people had then. If you study how scripture was copied, even the non-believers feared death if they messed with it. They bathed after writing the word "God", threw their ink and "pen" away, etc. If they messed up, they started completely over, no matter if they were one word from the end. They did word and letter counts per page, chapter, book. Today, people do not accept that kind of dedication of authenticity, because people do not accept God's sovereignty, or respect his Word like they should. Not that the book itself should be worshipped, but how many of us throw our book in the back seat of the car? How many of us have multiples laying around, but never read them? The Christians of the 1st century would think that was blasphemous. Maybe we should too.
All of the texts used for modern translations and versions originated from three cities: Antioch, Alexandria and Rome. Antioch is the home base for missions and the first place people were called "Christians". Lucian taught the literal reading of scripture there. They sent Paul. Paul brought our gospel. He got his text from there. The Waldesians, Anabaptists and Husites held to the Antioch scriptures as well. Study about their persecutions. It is very interesting and convicting.
The other two cities were known for wresting scripture, changing it, and reading it allegorically and mythically. Alexandria is famous for killing Christians, Apollos teaching incorrect doctrine, delivering Paul to Rome by boat (twice!) and Alexander the Great, who claimed to be virgin born and died at 33. Rome killed more Christians in the 1st and 2nd centuries than any other nation. Former Cathoic historian John Wilder documents 68 million deaths by 1800 AD. These cities had negative impact on Christianity. Where would you want your scripture to come from?
According the Law of First Occurance, the first verse to mention a city or a person reveals their impact on Christianity. I Peter 5:8 says that Egypt steals and destroys. Isreal was not even to trade horses with them. Egypt was a symbol of evil to the Isrealite and world to the Christian. Why would you take a modern day version with origins from Egypt? Just a few Refs: Gen 12:10-12, Ex 1:11-16, Ex 20:2, Deut 4:20 (refered to as hell, the iron furnace), I Kings 11:11.
The RSV, NIV and Broadman Southern Baptist Commentarys consider the work of Wescott and Hortt. They are also referenced on that website that you posted, Michael. Those goof balls were black magic practicing, paryer for the dead praying, communion for the dead practicing, pre Catholics, who denied the virgin birth, and heaven as a real place. They even state in their work that Jesus did not physically rise from the grave and salvation can not be known until after death. They got their work from Origin. Origin was paid by Constantine to right his bible. Origin believed in the salvation of Satan. His 50 books became the basis for the Latin Vulgate, which became the basis for the Roman Catholic Bible. Under Constantine, all who rejected his bible were killed. All of these Egytian manuscripts were in classical Greek, which was NOT the Greek spoken by the common men after Rome took over. Classical was the scholarly dialect of the upper-educated philosphers like Plato, Aristotle, etc. All versions except for the KJV base their translation mostly on the Siniaticus and Latin Vaticanus manuscripts, discounting anything else.
Pure scripture was found in Coine Greek, the language of the common man. This became the Textus Receptus, the Syrian Text from Antioch and Syria, and the Byzantine Text.
If what you say is true about the later, suposed older scrolls is true, and they are the best manuscript, the why didn't the people that put the NIV together include the Apocrypha? The RSV includes it. Others have included it. It was in there! Include it all or not at all I say. Why did it come from the Classical Greek, and not the common man's language? Why? Because they were not pure manuscripts.
King James is only on the title of the KJV bible. He did not commission the English bible, nor was his the first English bible. If so, why were all of the men who were part of the translation and printing put to death? Where was there protection of the King? History has been re-written. If you study the writtings of the people who were involved in the seven steps of purification, who cleaned up the printing press errors, etc. You would know where their heart was, who owned it, and what they went through to make the bible available for the common man.
Satan has used a little change here and there to make it seem like nothing at all, but consider:
NIV and NASB remove distiguishable words like "holy" describing men, angels, bretheren, prophets, Holy Ghost, etc. They remove specific names for the God Head, making it an easy substitution for someone else. Older versions omit I John 5:7 descibing the Trinity.
Versions omit Romans 11:6, 1:16, etc as well as other parts of verses that detail salvation and the giver of it. They make it read that salvation is of works. Some call Satan the morning star in Isa 14:112-15. Some omit Jesus from being present at creation in Eph 3:9.
I have books and books of the changes. I have all of these bibles, and the notes from the publishers all agree that the KJV is the defacto standard word-for-word translation.
There are others that are thought for thought. I don't have a problem with those, as long as they do not change doctrine of Christ, who he is, was and will be. When that do that, it changes who we are, were, and what we will be.
Let me explain how this works. The publishers cannot legally copyright the bible. There is a universal assumption and acknowledgement that the purified English bible is a word for word translation from God's Word. So, you cannot copyright God or his work. So, they change it, at to it, repackage it, so that they can make money on it. (BTW: The KJV is the ONLY bible to be sworn upon in the courts!)
Many, many professors and theologians are not bible-believing Christians. Many teach it and interpret it like it is poetry, not reality. These guys are paid by the major publishers (some of which are secularly, dirty money owned just like the Christian record labels) to come up with new books to sell each year. There is always a newer, easier to undertand, more accurate version. If that is true, then why aren't they recalling all previous versions? If they are printing THE WORD of GOD, and had previously screwed it up, wouldn't you think that they would be concerned for the spiritual health of humanity, and proclaim a recall, saying "WAIT! There has been a mistake!"? Nope they keep all of them in print, on the shelf and gladly take your money.
So these professors include the United Council of Churches and other non-biblical organizations with Lesbian and Gay ministers to help make their bibles less offensive, more gender neutral, and less effective, all in the name of "unity" and tolerance. I hate that word, does that make me intolerant? GOOD! When the young guys like myself go to seminary to unlearn Christianity, the professors who developed these bibles are teaching, pushing them, etc. They slant their teachings which can only be proven by using their versions. They get paid for developing, get paid for sales, etc. As long as they have students, then they have sales. Those pastors go to new churches, they buy all new pew bibles, teach from them, the denominations include them in their teaching materials, quarterlys, etc., and then more money is generated.
The bible = cash. It is the same as music. There is no ministry behind new versions of the bible.
