Re: Which Bible version shall I use
The Critical Apparatus: The Footnotes in the newer Bible versions:
Another method by which the newer Bible versions contradict the King James Version is by the use of 'footnotes' and 'margin notes.' These are the little referenced comments on the bottom of the page in the newer Bible versions that state that a verse or word is "not in the majority of oldest manuscripts..." or "Some manuscripts say...". This is what is called a 'Critical Apparatus'.
For instance, many newer Bible versions are taken from the Nestles text, which then employs a Critical Apparatus in the margin at the bottom of the page. This Nestles text refers to 'the majority of texts." But there is a problem with their 'majority of texts," for it is not a majority of all the Texts, but rather a majority of selected Texts. The Critical Apparatus employed by the NIV and NASB is actually a collation of only 7% of all extant Cursive manuscripts, and only .002% of the Lectionaries! This is hardly a majority of the texts.
The Greek New Testament Text of the NASB came from the 21stedition of the Nestles Text (40 years old); the NIV's Greek New Testament Text came from the 23rdedition of the Nestles Text. These two editions ( 21st & 23rd Editions ) of the Nestles text are different from each other. The corrupt Nestles Text hasn't stopped changing.
A valuable cache of 96 New Testament Manuscripts were discovered. These are called the Papyri, they were copied in the A.D. 180's & A.D. 220's, and discovered in the 1950's. They agree with the Text that the King James Version Bible used for it's New Testament - the Textus Receptus (Received text). They are valuable because those copied in A.D. 180 were copied for originals a mere 90 years after John wrote the book of revelation! (A.D. 94).
So what did the Scholars of the Nestles text then do? They released the 27th edition of the Nestles text which included revisions back to the King James Bible readings in over 500 places! You might be thinking that that is an awful lot of DIFFERENT editions for something they have been calling all along the superior text. And they are by no means finished altering their own Text, nor did it bring the Nestles Text out of corruption, but simply documents that the King James Bible was right all the time. Stick to your King James Bible (KJV). A Look at the Old Testament Text of the Bible:
The Old Testament Hebrew text of the newer Bible versions (ben Asher text) has also undergone some tampering . The Old Testament Hebrew text used in the King James version Bible is the reliable ben Chayyim text. Let's look back into the history of the Hebrew Scriptures of the Old Testament. God, by His Holy Spirit, directly moved the writers of the Holy Scriptures to write down the words of the Lord God. 2 Pet 1:20-21
20 Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation.
21 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. (KJV)
These prophecies, histories, and instructions became the Holy Scriptures. In the Old Testament we have 39 separate books (Genesis-Malachi). In the days of old, these Scriptures were hand copied from one Manuscript to another as time wore out the original copies. Those who were responsible for this faithful coping of the Holy Scriptures were called the Scribes. They were of the Levitical priesthood (the tribe of Levi, one of the twelve tribes of Israel).
After the Babylonian captivity, the Sopherim, under Ezra and Nehemiah,were charged with setting the Sacred Text in order. We read of this in [Neh 8:8]. See also [Ezra 7:6 & 11]. Their work lasted 110 years, from Nehemiah to Simon the first (410-300 B.C.).
Once the Sacred Scriptural Text was set by the Sopherim, it was entrusted to the Massorites for safe-keeping. This was in accordance with God's will. The Massorites had the duty to safeguard and hand down the Scriptures through time as older copies wore out and new ones were copied.
To insure they would always have 'true to the letter' copies of the Holy Scriptures of God, the Massorites developed a failsafe method of preserving the Text, this was called the Massorah. Briefly stated, the Massorah was written in the margins of the Holy Scriptures that among other things, counted the number of times an individual letter appeared on a page of the Scriptures. Also, it revealed what the exact letter (and word, and sentence) on the dead center of the page should be, in this manner a Scribe could check his copied page and determine if he had missed even a single letter or doubled a letter or word. This was inspired by Almighty God and it insured that the Sacred texts would be error-free. So far so good.This Massorah itself is not part of the Holy Scriptures, it was simply written in the margins of the Scrolls (Scriptures were in scroll form then). The Massorah was useful to the copyist in a time when every 'book' was hand copied. In about A.D. 1450, with the advent of the mechanical printing press, the Massoretic notes were not copied onto the pages. As well, our modern Bibles make no mention of them. The Massoretic notes also included other written phenomenon within the Scriptures, a sort of Bible code if you would (nothing like the false Bible Code book that came out in 1998!), but real acrostics built into the original texts and faithfully handed down by the Scribes. Thus, the Massoretic notes are advantageous to the deeper student of God's Word.
The Massoretic notes were not on all pages of all Manuscripts, but rather, each Manuscript has several 'pages' containing the notes. A comparison from ancient Old Testament Scrolls containing the notes in several countries revealed them to be identical, thus establishing the validity of the safeguard to the texts.
DR. Ginsburg, a renowned Hebrew Scholar, in the late 19th century gathered all known Massoretic notes from a vast majority of different Manuscripts . Thus, for the first time there was a complete Old Testament with the Massoretic notes.
The text of the Old Testament used by the translators of the 1611 King James Bible is true and accurate when compared to the Massorah.
In other words, while the 1611KJV translators did not have the Massorah, the manuscripts that they translated from (called: 'The Massoretic Text prepared by Jacob Ben Chayyim' or, 'Ben Chayyim Massoretic Text') were preserved through time by the Massorah. We have copies of both the Massorah and the "Massoretic text" used for the Old Testament of our King James Version, and they agree. The Massoretic Text prepared by Jacob Ben Chayyim was also used by Rudolph Kittle for the first two editions of his Biblia Hebraica (Hebrew Bible) in 1906 and 1912.
"Beware of the Scribes" [Luke 20:46].
However, in the tenth century A.D. satan again reared his ugly head and placed his unholy hand on the Scriptures of God. Prior to the tenth century A.D. the Hebrew text of our Old Testament was faithfully passed forward by the Massorites. But there was a rift among the Massorites and the family of ben Asher gained ascendancy among the Scribes. Their text (the ben Asher Text) no longer utilized the Massorah and they subtly corrupted the hebrew Text as well. The oldest ben Asher Text type in existence today is the corrupted Leningrad Manuscript B19a (A.D. 1008). It is from this one corrupt text that all the newer Bible versions take their Old Testament.
The true text was recovered and published in the first Rabinic Bible (Hebrew Bible) by Jacob ben Chayyim (the ben Chayyim text) in A.D. 1524-25. This good and true text (ben Chayyim text) was utilized in most every subsequent Hebrew Bible as well as the Old Testament of the King James Bible of 1611 (KJV). This text (ben Chayyim) agrees with the Massorah. The corrupt Leningrad Manuscript B19a does not agree with the ancient safeguard to the Scriptures - the Massorah. So once again, now in the Old Testament as well as the New Testament, we have in the 'good old reliable' King James Bible, borne out of the bloodbath of the inqusitions and the couter-reformation, the true Word of Almighty God! In your King James Bible you can be fully confident that you have before you the Words of the Everliving Lord God, our Creator and Heavenly Father and our Lord Jesus Christ, faithfully transmitted to the Prophets and Apostles by the Holy Spirit of God.
The Old Testament of the newer Bible versions is from the corrupt Stuttgart edition of the Biblia Hebraica, based on the third edition of the Biblia Hebraica. This brings us to a man named Rudolph Kittel. Kittel is an 'interesting character' who among other dishonors was tried in the Nazi War Crime Tribunals after World War II. Ironically, Kittel, an anti-Semite, helped prepare the Text for the Hebrew Bible (Biblia Hebracia). I believe that Kittle began with good intent, but then if you follow his biography, you see that something happened to him in the 1930's that caused him to become spiritually corrupt. He became active in the Nazi party and wrote many bizarre works for Adolf Hitler.
In the Jewish Encyclopedia, the "The Encyclopedia Judaica; 1971, it is written of Rudolf Kittle: Kittel has "anti-Semitic tendencies," was a believer in "Hellenistic Mystery religions" (occult religion out of Alexandria Egypt).
This certainly not a man that should be tampering with the Hebrew Old Testament Scriptures! Yet all newer Bible versions utilize Kittle's work in their Old Testaments.
Do not let this shake your faith in the Bible - God forbid! But do let it be a warning that the only fully reliable English Bible is the King James version Bible (KJV). Stick with the original English Bible, stick with the trusted Bible, stay with the The Authorized King James Version Bible (KJV)!!!
NOTE: Sadly, in 1937, Paul Kahle published a third edition of Rudolph Kittle's Biblia Hebraica and used a different text - the Ben Asher texts from the Leningrad Manuscript B19a. Most if not all newer versions of the Bible use this 'newer text' of Ben Asher.
But who was Rudolph Kittle? Time will not allow us now to go into the notorious life and times of Rudolph Kittle and his involvement in Nazism during World War II, but after his trials for Nazi war crimes, and at the very end of his (Kittle's) life, he confessed that the years of his editorship of the Theological Dictionary of the New Testament and his propaganda 'ministry' for Adolf Hitler:"...was based upon the most bitter deception of my life."Quoted from: -- Gerhard Kittle, Meine Verteidigung (Tubingen Library Archives, November-December, 1946),p.67.
Those so-called archaic "Ye, Thee, thou, Thy, and Thine's" in the King James Bible:
Many will tell you that the King James Bible is hard to understand because of words like "Ye, Thy, Thine...", but in reality, those 'archaic' words actually make the King James Bible easier to understand when you grasp the significance of their usage. And this goes for both the Old and the New Testaments of the King James Bible. Let me explain.
In our modern English language we do not have a distinction between the second-person ('you') pronouns and adjectives relating to number. But the language of the King James Bible utilizes words that automatically tell you if the subject spoken of is in the singular or plural (one or more than one).
Only in the King James Bible can you read the word "Ye" and know that more than one person is being spoken of, while "Thy" means that one person is being spoken of or to. This helps in understanding many 'confusing' Scriptures.
In your King James version Bible, and ONLY in the King James Bible, the following applies:
* An easy way to remember is that the ones starting with "T" are singular, and the ones starting with "Y" are plural.Matt 5:33-34
33 Again, ye have heard that it hath been said by them of old time, Thou shalt not forswear thyself, but shalt perform unto the Lord thine oaths:
34 But I say unto you, Swear not at all; neither by heaven; for it is God's throne: (KJV)
Jer 25:28
28 And it shall be, if they refuse to take the cup at thine hand to drink, then shalt thou say unto them, Thus saith the LORD of hosts; Ye shall certainly drink. (KJV)
Josh 7:13
13 Up, sanctify the people, and say, Sanctify yourselves against to morrow: for thus saith the LORD God of Israel, There is an accursed thing in the midst of thee, O Israel: thou canst not stand before thine enemies, until ye take away the accursed thing from among you. (KJV)
So once again, we see that the King James Bible is the superior Bible for UNDERSTANDING the true Word of God. In the newer versions of the Bible you can not go by the above table of Plural and Singular Pronouns and Adjectives because they have changed many of the "Thy's" into "you's" and vise-versa, to satisfy the Derivative Copyright Law$. Pathetic and shameless is it not?
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