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What is the reason for all these different versions?

Part three of a study on the King James Bible

By Keith Wallace

When showing the errors in the modern versions to people, I have been asked several times "Why would they do this?"  And, in fact, I asked this same question when I was first learning of the King James issue.  So that is what I will try to answer in this section.  Why would people want to take verses out of the Bible and change other verses around so that they mean something totally different?

The first thing I would like to do is take a couple of quotes from one of the world's leading experts on the King James Bible, Dr. Samuel Gipp.  He has a list of two rules that I think are appropriate here.

"Rule #1 It is always to be remembered that the Bible is a spiritual book which God exerted supernatural force to conceive, and it is reasonable to assume that He could exert that same supernatural force to preserve.  Rule #2 Satan desires to be worshipped.  He has the ability to counterfeit God's actions and definitely will be involved actively in attempting to destroy God's Word and/or our confidence in that Word while seeking to replace it with his own 'version.'" (Gipp, Gipp's Understandable History of the Bible, pp. 22, 24).

The second rule that Gipp listed is primarly the rule that we are concerned with at this time.  It is of the utmost importance to realize that there is an enemy out there.  The popular belief today is that there is no "opposing, evil force" that hates God and His children.  But the problem is that these people are nothing more than Bible illiterates, saved and lost alike.  The Bible very clearly indicates the existence of Satan (Gen 3, Job 1, Isa 14, Matt 4, Mark 1, Luke 4) and his desire to "devour" (1 Peter 5:8) Christians.  Isaiah 14:12-14 How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! how art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations!  For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north:  I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High.  Very clearly God shows us here through His inspiration that Satan (Lucifer) desires to be God.  And he is indeed the god of this world (2 Cor 4:4).  He desires nothing more than to be worshipped and will do everything in his power to take away the worship of God and bring it upon himself.  He knows that the Bible is a Christian's only weapon against him (Eph 6:17).  If you had an enemy who only had one weapon against you, wouldn't you try to get that weapon out of his hands?  Of course you would.

Gipp states "It would not be foolish, but insane to believe that Satan would adopt a "hands off" attitude concerning the Bible.  The single most important thing you can do to your enemy is to destroy his ability to communicate clearly with his troops.  Are we to believe that the devil would choose not to try to hamper God's communication with His saints?  If the devil can achieve...confusion among God's people, he can pick us off one-by-one while we run around trying to find out what our orders are. But!  If all Christians simply believe that the Bible is perfect and follow it, the devil is in big trouble!  Therefore, it is plain to see that causing confusion among God's people concerning the word of God would be one of the devil's highest priorities.  To leave the Bible unmolested would be foolish on his part."  (Gipp's Understandable History of the Bible, pp. 30, 31).

So how has Satan tried to take our sword away from us?  Through multiple different ways.  He's no idiot and he knows that he must work very hard on an issue such as this.  This is nothing new either.  Satan's attack on God's words began in Gen 3.  But for the sake of this study we'll focus on his attacks since the time of Christ.

During the first 60-70 years of Christianity after the death and resurrection of Christ, the books of the New Testament were penned.  The Holy Spirit spoke the words of God through men such as Peter, John, Matthew, Paul and so on.  It wasn't long, though, before Satan's all out attacks on the New Testament scriptures were in full force.  Around the year 300AD the establishment known as the Roman Catholic Church began.  Constantine was the Emporer at the time and subsequently was the first pope of Catholocism (it was NOT Peter).  What Constantine did was to take Christianity and Roman Paganism and combine the two into one compromise of religion that would, he hoped, hold the Roman Empire together.  And what was created is what the Bible calls "the Whore of Babylon."  Of course this new religion, calling itself Christianity, needed to use the Bible to fool people into thinking it really was a Christian religion, but the Bible of the time would not allow for the "traditions" and practices of the newly established religion.  So changes were made to the texts of the Bible.  This is the point at which a split in the New Testament manuscripts occur.  The Catholic manuscripts are the line called "Alexandrian" since they originated in Alexandria, Egypt.  The pure and uncorrupted manuscripts still existed and are referred to as the "Antiochian" manuscripts since they are closely associated with Antioch, Syria.  (See Chapter 8 of Gipp's The Answer Book for more detail on the two lines of manuscripts.)  

The point here is that the Catholic church is behind the corruptions of the Bible manuscripts.  Many people who claim to be Christians today don't really see this as being a problem.  That's because they have been brainwashed by public schools, television and the news media (all forms) into thinking that the Catholic church really is just another form of Christianity when the TRUTH is that this is a lie!  The Catholic church is nothing more than a modern day form of Baal Worship (see The Two Babylons by Alexander Hislop for proof).  Satan did an excellent job of creating his imitation church and through this imitation church he was able to create his imitation manuscripts, which have effectively taken the Christian's only weapon against Satan right out of their hands.

So without getting ahead of ourselves here let me lead you into the next section by saying that all versions of the Bible in existence today come from this Catholic (Alexandrian) line of manuscripts, except one.  The King James Bible is the ONLY Bible that comes from the uncorrupted Antioch line of manuscripts.  The NIV, NASV, RSV, TLB, NEB, NWT and all the rest come from corrupted Catholic manuscripts.  So if you have one of these versions, then you have a book that is approved of by the pope.  Does that concern you?  If it doesn't, then you may need to check up on your salvation or maybe just do some reading about the history of Christianity.  Maybe you can read about the time of the Reformation and what the Catholic church was doing to the real Christians.  That's a good starting point.  OK, now you're ready for section 4.

Back to the King James Bible Information Page

Section 1. What's the big deal about having a perfect Bible anyway?

Section 2. What's wrong with the other versions?

Section 3. What is the reason for all these different versions?

Section 4. Don't all the older and better manuscripts support the new versions?

Section 5. Isn't it a little presumptuous of us to think God would give the world only one perfect Bible in English?

Section 6. Conclusion.