Category: textual criticism

The King Immortal and His Words Eternal

Monday, August 31, 2015

“The words of the LORD are pure words; as silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times. Thou shalt keep them, O LORD, thou shalt preserve them from this generation for ever” (Psalm 12:6,7 KJV).

Dear friends, we know the King immortal by reading His eternal words. Yea, He is the greatest Person ever known, and He speaks the greatest words ever heard!

From Satan’s finagling Eve to question and deny God’s Word (Genesis 3:1-5) all the way up to our present-day with nearly 200 modern English versions (disparities) all allegedly “Holy Bibles,” there is a very subtle and wicked plan to prevent mankind from knowing God’s eternal words. Despite all the “illuminating” manuscript discoveries and new “helpful” translations, we are not getting closer to the truth. Though the average “scholar” will disagree, the fact is that we are getting further from the original manuscripts. During the past few centuries, there has been an increase—not a decrease—in Bible ignorance.

Take today’s Scripture, for example. Did you know modern English versions attack it by watering it down? As it sits in our King James Bible, David describes how God will “keep them” and “preserve them.” The “them” of verse 7 is the noun of verse 6—“the words of the LORD.” This is one of the clearest passages on the doctrine of Bible preservation. Demonstrating their utter incompetence and downright unbelief, the translators of nearly all modern English versions replace “them” with “us” twice. So, the “revised” reading says God will guard believing Israel from her oppressors and He will preserve believing Israel from her enemies. Why this textual change? Because their underlying manuscripts are not those of our King James! They are using a different Hebrew (and Greek) Old Testament text (and a different Greek New Testament).

Beloved, faith leads us to believe the Bible’s testimony of itself. God’s Word is “pure” and “preserved.” We can present our King James Bible for examination and it is vindicated. We can scrutinize the modern versions. They thoroughly condemn themselves. If we claim to believe the Bible is perfect, but we cannot produce a perfect copy, then that, friends, is as worthless as believing nothing to start with. Think on it! 🙂

Cracknels

Thursday, July 30, 2015

“And take with thee ten loaves, and cracknels, and a cruse of honey, and go to him: he shall tell thee what shall become of the child” (1 Kings 14:3 KJV).

Just what in the world are “cracknels?”

As you know, our King James Bible is belittled for its “archaic language.” Modern Bible translators and publishers, greatly endeavoring to recommend and $ell their product, remind us that our “old” King James is “irrelevant,” “obsolete,” and “hard-to-understand.” If we really want to learn what God has to say, they claim we need an “updated” Bible. If we want a “richer” Word of God, we must appeal to them with their “advanced” scholarship and “new” manuscript readings. The rank and file Bible reader (consumer) repeats these “scholarly words of wisdom,” and discourages other Christians from using the “old-fashioned” King James Bible. Yes, Christians launch an attack against the Bible!!!

The English language is a very rich pool of words, but, unfortunately, our vocabulary has become very limited in recent decades. There are countless words today that we English speakers no longer use. Elegant speech and majestic writing is largely “archaic.” People want to “dumb down” the Bible, having it speak the “language of the street.” Such mentality popularizes and $ells “contemporary Bible paraphrases.”

What does “cracknels” mean? We do not need a Hebrew dictionary or Bible commentary, which would probably contain the anti-KJV comment, “‘Cracknels’ is a poor translation!” Firstly, we can use some context clues. “Cracknels” is used in conjunction with “ten loaves [of bread]” and “a cruse of honey.” Perhaps “cracknels” are a grain-related food item? Secondly, we can find a decent English dictionary—for example, The Oxford English Dictionary or Webster’s 1828 English Dictionary—and… horror of horrors!!!!… learn a new word. “Cracknel” is “a light, crisp, savory biscuit.” It can also be “small pieces of crackling.” Incidentally, here in southern Louisiana, we Cajuns are known for “cracklins,” or fried pork skins.

When teaching the King James Bible, one does not need to remove the “archaic” words (that generates doubt concerning the Bible text). He should leave the archaic words in the text and then define the word for his students. Fellow Bible teachers, that is how we expand our vocabulary and generate faith in the Bible!

Our 175th Bible Q&A: “Is Acts 16:31 a sufficient Gospel message?”

Ancient False Witnesses and Modern-Day Doubters

Monday, July 20, 2015

“Now the chief priests, and elders, and all the council, sought false witness against Jesus, to put him to death; But found none: yea, though many false witnesses came, yet found they none. At the last came two false witnesses,…” (Matthew 26:59,60 KJV).

As two false witnesses challenged the living Word of God, so two false manuscript witnesses attack the written Word of God!

The following question was asked on “Christian” television: “I’m afraid to believe what the Bible says because of all the changes that people have made to it over the years. Is it really God’s Word? The Bible says, ‘Blessed are those who believe and don’t see,’ but what if that’s not even true? … How can I strengthen my faith to believe in God’s Word?” [How to strengthen your faith in God’s Word? Doubt the “Bible scholars” and believe your King James Bible!]

Unlike most church leaders, the preacher answering the question admitted that there are differences in Bible translations because there are varying readings in Bible manuscripts. Yet, like most church leaders, he encouraged the questioner to use various Bible study tools, to track those translation changes, and then “make her own judgment.” Imagine! He said she could decide what words and verses were inspired of God and which were not. Reminiscent of cults, she could be her own authority. If she did not believe a certain part of the Bible was “really Scripture,” she had the preacher’s permission to omit it!

When lost people—those who lack the indwelling Holy Spirit—dictate to us Christians how to handle Bible manuscripts, and to embrace two error-filled Roman Catholic manuscripts (Codex Vaticanus and Codex Sinaiticus) as having closer readings to the original autographs, we adopt a lost person’s mindset about the Bible. This poor lady doubted her Bible because people who doubted the Bible taught her. Her questioning the Bible as God’s Word demonstrates that Satan has extensively damaged her soul. The on-air preacher who provided little helpful insight into the matter, many like him lead our churches, Bible colleges, and seminaries the world over. No wonder no one believes the Bible! They are encouraged not to! Beware, dear friends, of “unbelieving Bible scholarship!”

Knowing the Holy Bible

Monday, July 13, 2015

“For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost” (2 Peter 1:21 KJV).

Yea, “But there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction” (2:1).

A “grace” Bible teacher once told me that the Holy Spirit had taught him through 26 different Bible versions! (Just like the Holy Spirit uses 4,200 world religions and 43,000 denominations to teach people, no?!) It is insanity, dear friend, utter insanity! Such is the place to which “Bible scholarship” leads! (Matthew 15:14)

Most people spend their whole lives searching for God’s will. They look in their circumstances, they follow scholarship and teaching bodies in religion, they pray, asking for or seeking any divine enlightenment. Yes, they may and often do mean well, but they are looking in all the wrong places. That includes false Bible versions, false Bible teachers, false prophets, et cetera.

Everything that God ever wants us to know, He wrote it down in a Book and preserved it through history so that we could have it today in our language. What was once written in Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek, is now available to much of the world in English. It is the Authorized Version, or the King James Bible. Just as Jesus Christ, the living Word of God, had enemies, so the written Word of God has counterfeits. Many people actively seek to pervert God’s precious Word: “many corrupt the word of God” (2 Corinthians 2:17). Paul mentioned a counterfeit Bible manuscript with his signature forged on it in 2 Thessalonians 2:2. How much more counterfeits 2,000 years later!

Thankfully, God has preserved His written Word through a multiplicity of copies. Most Bible manuscripts support the readings in the King James Bible and do not support modern English versions. It is not about archaic English or contemporary English. What matters are the manuscripts translated—Roman Catholic text (modern versions) or the Protestant text (King James Bible)? In eternity, we shall find out just how serious the Bible versions issue is!

You may click here for more information about Bible versions: https://333wordsofgrace.wordpress.com/bible-timeline-other-study-aids/.

Our latest Bible Q&A: “Were there five crosses on Calvary’s hill?”

If Thou Be

Thursday, June 4, 2015

“Then the devil taketh him up into the holy city, and setteth him on a pinnacle of the temple, And saith unto him, If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down: for it is written, He shall give his angels charge concerning thee: and in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone” (Matthew 4:5,6 KJV).

If Satan knew Jesus was God, why did Satan question Him, “If thou be the Son of God…?”

The very first words out of Satan’s lips recorded in Scripture are documented forever in Genesis 3:1: “Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?” What did Satan attack first and foremost? It was God’s Word! Satan questioned God’s Word, causing Eve to doubt it. Interestingly, people have been doing that ever since as well, ever trying to “reconstruct” the “original Bible” with all their perverted manuscripts, “‘older’ and ‘better’ variant readings,” and copyrighted modern English versions. After over a century of attempts, they still have not gotten it right. Until the Lord comes and destroys them all, they will fabricate, market, and $ell many new English Bible translations!

In today’s Scripture, we see Satan “up to his old tricks.” The Devil is tempting Jesus Christ, desperately trying to cause Jesus to doubt that He is the Son of God. “If thou be the Son of God….” Days earlier, God the Father from heaven had declared at Jesus’ baptism, “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased” (Matthew 3:17). Satan, knowing what God the Father said, wanted Jesus to forget those precious divine words (as with poor Eve). The Devil knew he could destroy Jesus Christ once He had divorced His mind from Father God’s Word to Him. Without cognizance of His identity, Jesus was sure to fail, and Satan would win. Praise God that Jesus replied to Satan, “It is written again, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God” (Matthew 4:7). In other words, “Satan, I am the Lord! I am the Son of God! You do not deceive Me!” (Above all, Jesus Christ triumphed where Eve failed millennia earlier!)

The Lively Oracles

Wednesday, April 15, 2015

“This is he, that was in the church in the wilderness with the angel which spake to him in the mount Sina, and with our fathers: who received the lively oracles to give unto us” (Acts 7:38 KJV).

To mess with the “lively oracles” is to deal with the “living God!”

The expression “the lively oracles” appears only once in our King James Bible. Stephen used it in today’s Scripture in his sermon to Israel’s national leadership. In that context, Stephen affirmed that Jesus Christ was the Prophet whom Moses predicted back some 1,500 years prior in Deuteronomy 18:15-18. That same Jesus Christ was with the angel that spoke to Moses in Mount Sinai, when Moses received the Ten Commandments from God (cf. Galatians 3:19).

While the Ten Commandments were written on cold, dead stone, they were the very words of God Himself: “And the tables were the work of God, and the writing was the writing of God, graven upon the tables” (Exodus 32:16).

Those words were “lively oracles” because they were the words, not just the thoughts, of the living God. As Jesus declared, “It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life” (John 6:63). “For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart” (Hebrews 4:12). The word “quick” in older English means “living and life-giving” (“quick” in Hebrews 4:12 is the same Greek word, zao, translated “lively” in today’s Scripture).

God’s Word is not only living, it can impart life to its hearers and readers. Hence, Jesus’ spoken words raised Lazarus and others from the dead. His inspired words, the Gospel message we trusted, raised us out of spiritual death and gave us new life and a home in heaven. The same powerful words that God Himself wrote centuries ago, we have them preserved today in our language (the King James Bible). May we never let “scholarship” kill our faith in the living words of the living God! 🙂

Our latest Bible Q&A: “What does ‘kicking against the pricks’ mean?”

The Middle Verse of the KJB

Wednesday, February 4, 2015

“It is better to trust in the LORD than to put confidence in man” (Psalm 118:8 KJV).

What, or Who, is literally at the very heart of the King James Bible?

The King James Bible has 31,101 verses. Verse number 15,551—the middle verse—is today’s Scripture: “It is better to trust in the LORD than to put confidence in man.” If you notice, there are 14 words in this verse, and the middle words are “the LORD” (six words preceding and succeeding). Modern versions, because they remove dozens of verses from the Bible text, do not have today’s Scripture as their middle verse. Their middle verse does not urge us to put our trust in the LORD and avoid trusting man. Nay, the modern version translators want us to trust their judgment, that they have improved God’s Word (when they have done any but!).

If you listen to the average Bible teacher or preacher, read the average Bible commentary, or use the average study Bible, you will be advised to doubt the readings in the King James Bible. Scholarship, driven by the minds of lost people, always has a “better translation” than the one the Holy Spirit already chose. There is a constant push to make the King James Bible “more scholarly,” more agreeable to theologians and textual critics. Dear friends, if we say that we are not interested in opinions, but only interested in what the Bible says, then it is silly to offer opinions about what the Bible should say instead, and it is even more foolish to accept opinions about what the Bible should say instead.

Today’s Scripture is one example of the fact that we should leave the King James Bible’s text alone. We do not need to “correct” it with “new” manuscripts that its translators rejected centuries ago as false. We do not need to remove any of its passages, phrases, words, or letters just to suit the pet doctrines of degreed religionists. We should not put our confidence in man, but in “the LORD.” Our King James Bible is an amazing Book, so let us trust in “the LORD” and His Word to us English-speaking people. There literally is nothing better! 🙂

Instant Christians #7

Monday, January 12, 2015

“Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine” (2 Timothy 4:2 KJV).

In this day and age of “instant this and instant that,” we need more “instant” Christians!

Travelling out-of-state, I once had a very interesting conversation with an Evangelical seminarian-pastor who had a testimony of salvation in Christ. Meeting privately with this brother, I lovingly explained to him that the Greek New Testament he was preaching from was unreliable. Then, I showed him the error in his book, hoping he had an ear to hear and a heart to believe. Although I expected his reaction, I will never forget it. He blurted out to justify the error in his Bible, “We do not have what [Saint] Mark wrote anyway!”

Dear friends, he was no “cultic kook” but a “Bible-believing, Jesus-Christ-loving” preacher who would never, ever, ever even think of saying in his pulpit that today’s Bible is not—yes NOT—identical to the apostles’ Bible! (This heretical view of “textual criticism” drives the endless search for another manuscript reading “closer to the originals,” so another translation “more scholarly” [?] than its predecessors can be publi$hed.) Had this assembly and its deacons known their Bible, they would have asked this pastor the right questions before choosing him… to lead them “into the [doctrinal] ditch” (Matthew 15:14)! Friends, if most preachers spoke their true beliefs about Bible versions, they would agree with this wayward brother. Seminary has polluted them concerning manuscript evidence and Bible versions. Bible critics are the very people leading most “Christian” churches!

Had the Body of Christ studied, known, and appreciated/believed their 400-year-old King James Bible, they would have never purchased a century’s worth of 200 (pathetic, corrupt) modern English versions. They would have known that Satan questions God’s Word and robs mankind of its clarity at every opportunity (Genesis 3:1-5). Had the pastors educated their people in God’s English Bible, and warned them of counterfeits (2 Thessalonians 2:2; 2 Peter 1:18–2:3), Bible publishing companies would have gone bankrupt, no one buying their worthless modern-speech perversions predicated on equally-godless manuscripts. Very few want to hear such strong language, but it is true nonetheless (2 Timothy 4:3,4).

Oh, how we NEED “instant” Christians….

Instant Christians #6

Sunday, January 11, 2015

“Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine” (2 Timothy 4:2 KJV).

In this day and age of “instant this and instant that,” we need more “instant” Christians!

The charge in today’s Scripture is amplified by the next two verses: “[3] For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; [4] And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables.” False teaching masquerading as “Christianity” is not isolated to the last few hundred years or even several decades—these two verses are a clear description of the professing church during the last 20 centuries.

God the Holy Ghost never spoke about a great revival just before the close of our Dispensation of Grace. Inversely, He predicted a great apostasy, a willful rejection of sound Bible doctrine. The professing church has not tolerated sound Bible doctrine. Contrariwise, it has hoarded more and more and more false teachers, “feel-good” men-pleasers, proclaimers of nice-sounding clichés destitute of spiritual truth. Preferring worthless works-religion, denonominational theology, and pagan error, they are covering their ears as God’s ambassadors boldly preach the message of His grace and Jesus Christ according to the revelation of the mystery! Barring God’s precious words from their assemblies, they embrace “fables”—superstition, entertainment, religious tales that literally amount to nothing.

False teaching has increased since Bible days because: (1) new denominations and seminaries with unique statements of faith and ecclesiastical creeds, have arisen; (2) new means to disseminate error (advances in printing, telephones, satellite television, internet, smartphones, and so on); (3) new world religions for “Christian” groups to borrow from when forming their belief systems; (4) new corrupt Bible manuscripts have been drafted, popularized, and translated hundreds of times over; and (5) new billions of people to be converted to these wayward groups, who can then proselytize others, the cycle repeating indefinitely.

Timothy, like all church leaders, was urged in today’s Scripture, that he slow down (not prevent) doctrinal error from spreading by studying and standing for God’s Word rightly divided. To do the same in our local assemblies, we must be “instant” Christians….

A Book That Will Teach

Saturday, January 3, 2015

“Which things also we speak, not in the words which man’s wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth; comparing spiritual things with spiritual” (1 Corinthians 2:13 KJV).

Today’s Scripture tells us who alone we can trust to teach us God’s truth!

Once, I heard a minister give his self-proclaimed “prophetic” message about top headlines that would appear in the coming year. While he reassured his audience that he received this information directly from “the Lord” (?), he gave a disclaimer: “I do not know, but at the end of this year, we will see if what I say came to pass.” Unlike the inner impressions and hunches of this “Christian” preacher, the Holy Bible is infallible, and we can trust its information completely.

Long, long ago, God Almighty wrote a Book, and He preserved it through history through a multiplicity of manuscript copies, so that it could eventually be translated into English, so we could read it even today! (Of course, Satan, the master counterfeiter that he is, most certainly had his own manuscripts—they still circulate today as corrupt Bible translations.) God promised to preserve His words forever (Psalm 12:6,7; Isaiah 30:8; Matthew 24:35; 1 Peter 1:25). Consequently, every person will stand before Him one day to give account as to what he or she did with that Bible. Did we reject it in favor of counterfeits? Did we re-translate it to fit our denominational beliefs? Did we apply it to life by faith? Did we even read it at all?

As English-speaking people, we understand—or, at least, we should understand—that we can trust the 400-year-old King James Bible. Sadly, even in many church circles, we are often cautioned not to trust God’s preserved Word. Unfortunately, footnotes, study notes, and seminarians usually attempt to claim that authority by offering “better” readings or “better” manuscripts. Beloved, we can do without unbelieving textual critics and their “scholarship.” God does not need lost people to explain His Word to His children; He never did and He never will (1 Corinthians 2:14). Never forget that!

The Holy Spirit will teach us the King James Bible if we “read” (Ephesians 3:4), “study” (2 Timothy 2:15), and “consider” it (2 Timothy 2:7)!