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Question #43
QUESTION: Isn't the devil behind all
the confusion and fighting over Bible versions?
ANSWER: Undoubtedly.
EXPLANATION: It is a great irony that
many of the critics of the Bible claim rather indignantly that the devil
is behind the battle over the King James Bible. In this they are correct.
But somehow they have managed to assume that it is
the people claiming perfection for the Bible who the devil is guiding.
Is this a correct assumption? Let us consider the history of the battle.
From the time of its publication in 1611 the King James
Bible has grown in popularity. Although not mandated by the King to
be used in the churches of England, it did, in a matter of a few years,
manage to supplant all of the great versions translated before it. Though
it was not advertised in the Madison Avenue fashion of today's versions,
it soon swept all other versions from the hearts and hands of the citizenry
of England and its colonies.
With the conquest of the British Empire behind it, it
crossed the Atlantic to the United States. Landing here it overwhelmed
the double foothold of the Roman Catholic Church planted previously
under the flags of Spain and France.
It then began to permeate young America with its ideals.
Its truths led to the establishment of an educational system, based
on Scripture, that was unparalleled in the world. It instilled in men
the ideals of freedom and personal liberty, thoughts so foreign to the
minds of men that their inclusion in our Constitution could only be
described as an "experiment" in government.
It commissioned preachers of righteousness who, on foot
and horseback, broke trails into the wilderness and spread the truth
of the gospel and of right living. In its wake was left what could only
be described..."one nation, under God..."
This accomplished, it set out for the conquest of the heathen world.
Bible colleges (Princeton, Harvard, Yale) were founded. Mission societies
formed. And eager young missionaries began to scour the globe with little
more than a King James Bible and God's Holy Spirit.
But these activities did not go unnoticed by Satan. He
who had successfully counterfeited God's church, ministers and powers
certainly could not be expected to let God's Bible roam the world unchallenged.
Through agents such as Brook Foss Westcott and Fenton John Anthony Hort,
he published his own translation in 1884. (The New Testament had been
published in 1881.) Though there had been sporatic personal translations
between 1611 and 1884, this new translation, called the Revised Version,
was the first ever to be designed from its outset to replace God's Authorized
Bible. It failed to replace God's Bible, but the arguments of its adherents
were the first shots fired in a nearly 400 year battle for the hearts
and minds of God's people concerning the authority and fidelity of Scripture.
In 1901 another round was fired in the form of the American
Revised Version, later called the American Standard Version. (An intentional
misnomer since it never became the "standard" for anything.)
This version, other than being the darling of critical American scholarship
met a dismal end when, twenty-three years later, it was so totally rejected
by God's people that its copyright had to be sold. (Does this sound
like God's blessing?)
The ASV was further revised and republished in 1954 as
the Revised Standard Version. This sequence of events has repeated itself
innumerable times, resulting in the New American Standard Version of
1960, the New Scofield Version of 1967, the New International Version
of 1978, and the New King James Version of 1979 to name a few.
The process has never changed. Every new version that
has been launched has been, without exception, a product of Satan's
Alexandrian philosophy which rejects the premise of a perfect Bible.
Furthermore, they have been copied, on the most part, from the corrupt
Alexandrian manuscript. (Although a few have been translated from pure
Antiochian manuscripts after they were tainted by the Alexandrian philosophy.)
THIS then was Satan's battle in print,
BUT by no means was it his exclusive onslaught. He
used a standard military "two-pronged" attack.
While popularizing his Alexandrian manuscripts via the
press, he began to promote his Alexandrian philosophy in and through
Christian Bible colleges.
Soon sincere, naive, young, Bible students attending FUNDAMENTAL
Bible colleges began to hear the infallibility of the Bible challenged
in their classrooms. In chapel services the Bible's perfection was much
touted. But then, the very same speakers, would debase,
degrade, and even mock the English Bible, always assuring their students
that they were not a "liberal" or "modernist" because
they believed that the Bible was infallible in "the originals".
That non-existent, unobtainable, mystical entity which ALL apostates
shield their unbelief behind.
Soon stalwartness gave in to acceptance and fidelity to
a perfect bible became fidelity to one's "Alma Mater". Young
graduates, disheartened and disarmed by their education, found themselves
in pulpits across America parroting the professor's shameful criticism
of the Word of God. They readily accepted new versions hot off the Alexandrian
presses.
Then, when some Christian approached them claiming to
believe the Bible (one you could hold in your HAND,
not a lost relic from bygone days) was word perfect
(a belief they had once held before their education
stole it from them) they felt threatened. They try to dispel this "fanatic,"
this "cultist". Finally they look this faith filled Christian
in the eye and piously ask, "Don't you feel that the devil is using
this Bible version issue to divide and hinder the cause of Christ?"
"Undoubtedly," comes back the answer "But
I'm certainly glad it's not MY CROWD that he's using."
Who's side are YOU on?
Additional Note:
Here's something that you need to think about. If we King
James Bible believers have our way, a Preacher would stand in a pulpit
to read Scripture and everyone else in the church would read from the
same Bible. Isn't that UNITY?
But if the Bible-correctors have their way everyone would
read from a different bible. That's confusion. And who
is the author of confusion? (I Cor. 14:33)
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