KJV Only: The Persona Of Truth
27-11-2022
Pr Edi Giudetti
Many are comfortless in the world today. They look around them and nothing seems to make any sense. Sadly, this is also the case for most Christians today, most Christians seem also both confused and comfortless.
For all that is going on in the world, there seems to be no source for them to take comfort in as a single reference point for the truth.
Today, we are continuing our series on the Bible, our series that defends why it is we trust the Authorized Version of the Bible, to be The Bible. This is not a new view, in fact, the belief that the King James Version of the Bible is the perfect word of God for English-speaking people has been the predominant view for most of the last four hundred years. It is only since the mid-20th century that many hearts have been turned toward the confusion of today.
We will see today that Jesus came to bear witness to the truth, he is the full persona of truth and his Character is now put into question by what has transpired from the 20th century to this day, a day we need TRUTH more than ever.
The Manifestation of Truth
John 18:37
37 Pilate therefore said unto him, Art thou a king then? Jesus answered, Thou sayest that I am a king. To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth. Every one that is of the truth heareth my voice.
Here we have the testimony of Jesus Christ as he stands before the governor Pontius Pilate in Jerusalem. He was brought there by the very people he came to save, by the veery people who had contained and preserved within their own scriptures, all things related to the promised coming of their Messiah, their Christ.
This is whom Jacob spoke of when he was dying as he testified to the tribe of Judah, that
Genesis 49:10
10 The sceptre shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until Shiloh come; and unto him shall the gathering of the people be.
This Shiloh is Christ. The sceptre was the legal right of capital punishment to which Judah had the adjudication of the exercise of the law. In 63 BC the Roman general Pompey captured the City of Jerusalem and for almost sixty years the Jews were permitted self-governance until shortly after the death of King Herod around 4BC.
A Roman procurator/proxy named Caponius was installed around 6AD and the legal power of the Sanhedrin was restricted with the adjudication of all capital crimes removed. For the first time in their history, the Scepter had departed from Judah.[1]
Shiloh was about 10 years of age.
Now, at the age of about 33 years, he stands before another representative of Rome, being brought there by his own people for permission to put him to death, and he testifies to the reason he was born;
Thou sayest that I am a king. To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth. Everyone that is of the truth heareth my voice.
The pagan world has no concept of truth, it never did. Today, just like in the days of Christ, the only way truth can be seen to exist is if there was an absolute standard for truth, God and his word.
The Word of God was seen to come from God, but now that the western world has largely rejected God, and the Church of God has also largely rejected the Bible, there seems to also be no more standard for truth, in this post, postmodern world where people come up with their OWN so-called truth.
Pilot understands this same reality, and so he answers Jesus in the next verse;
John 18:38–40
38 Pilate saith unto him, What is truth? And when he had said this, he went out again unto the Jews, and saith unto them, I find in him no fault at all. 39 But ye have a custom, that I should release unto you one at the passover: will ye therefore that I release unto you the King of the Jews? 40 Then cried they all again, saying, Not this man, but Barabbas. Now Barabbas was a robber.
Jesus is the very manifestation of truth, and we know just as the scriptures teach “that no lie is of the truth” (1 Jn 2:21) and it seems to me that before we can come to an understanding of the issue surrounding the Bible as the very source of truth and our comfort, we must have some hint of understanding WHO IS ITS REPRESENTATIVE!!
If we are going to claim that a multiple array of Bible versions all conflicting one with another, all saying something different, all adding, removing, changing words at will, and yet claim this is an ordained representation of Jesus, then either we have a distorted view of Christ, or we need to explain how such confusion represents him.
The Dark Ages was a historic time when the Roman Catholic Church locked up the Bible in the Latin language that was no longer spoken by the people. In order to know what the source of truth said, you NEEDED the Roman Catholic Church, the result was a subjugated people virtually enslaved to the ‘ex-cathedra’ decrees of a man seen as infallible, the Popes of the times.
Light sprang into the world for a short time when the words of God were translated into the languages of the people, and the true Renaissance of awakened minds began to flourish and prosper, freedom travelled the western world and the people were blessed.
Today, we have already entered another dark age, where the word of God is hidden in a sea of obscurity, like a needle in a haystack, we have returned to hear the truth again ONLY from men and not the book itself.
But is this TRUE?
Turn to
John 17:14–20
14 I have given them thy word; and the world hath hated them, because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. 15 I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that thou shouldest keep them from the evil. 16 They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. 17 Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth. 18 As thou hast sent me into the world, even so have I also sent them into the world. 19 And for their sakes I sanctify myself, that they also might be sanctified through the truth. 20 Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word;
Jesus, in praying to the father, says he has given his disciples his word (v14), the world hates them as a result, but there it is. Further, he prays God would “Sanctify them through thy truth; thy word is truth” (v17), the ONLY way we can grow into the image of Christ, to be changed, sanctified, is through the truth, his word is truth.
But notice verse 20, as this prayer is not only for his disiples; 20 Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word;
But Pilot, while beholding the very manifestation of truth before him, doubts its existance. How much different is Pilot from those multitudes of Christians today who hold the Bible (KJV) in their own hands, and question the same? How is it that Pastors are doing likewise, holding their Bible and also questioning “what is truth”?
In 1956 A book was published called The King James Version Defended by Edward F Hills, it was truly one of the first brilliant scholarly works on the issue of Bible versions since “The Revision Revised by Dean” John Burgon some 70 years earlier.
Edward Hills begins his analysis on the issue, not on manuscript evidence, but on the nature and character of God. Why? Because it is GODS VERY CHARACTER THAT IS IN QUESTION! In his introduction he writes;
If the doctrine of the divine inspiration of the Old and New Testament Scriptures is a true doctrine, the doctrine of the providential preservation of the Scriptures must also be a true doctrine. It must be that down through the centuries God has exercised a special, providential control over the copying of the Scriptures and the preservation and use of the copies, so that trustworthy representatives of the original text have been available to God’s people in every age.
God must have done this, for if He gave the Scriptures to His Church by inspiration as the perfect and final revelation of His will, then it is obvious that He would not allow this revelation to disappear or undergo any alteration of its fundamental character.[2]
Beloved if God had inspired his word perfectly, it stands to reason he has preserved it perfectly in every age of history.
A term I came up with many years ago is this, and it may be worth jotting down as a help.
Inspiration Assumes Preservation.
Preservation Presumes Possession.
The Witness of Truth
John 18:37
37 Pilate therefore said unto him, Art thou a king then? Jesus answered, Thou sayest that I am a king. To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth. Every one that is of the truth heareth my voice.
One of the most striking features of the Bible is how far God goes to permit himself to be tested and checked for faithfulness. God gives historic reference points all through the Bible so that people may check him at his words. There is a multitude of scientific research points that have been later verified again and again.
Geographical markers testify to the truth of his words. There are people, place names, events and even natural disasters spoken of in the Bible that God has set there so that we may verify the truth of his words.
When men have denied his truth, a little time goes by and sure enough, it has proven true, time and again.
The Bible itself is a miraculous book. It was not the work of one man, but of many. It was not a work attended to in one lifetime, but many, it was not even originally written in one language, but several, nor was it written in one place.
The Bible is a volume of 66 books, penned by around 40 different penmen from backgrounds as diverse as fishermen and farmers, doctors and lawyers, herdsmen and royalty. It was written over a period of 1600 years, penned we are told in three different languages, written on three different continents and yet it tells of ONE UNIFIED STORY without contradiction.
No other book on earth can make such claims. Not only so, but it is the ONLY book in the world that claims to have God as its author throughout.
Jesus came JUST AS HE WAS WRITTEN OF hundreds of years earlier. He came in JUST THE MANNER his coming was written of in almost three hundred specific prophecies in the Old Testament. Jesus came to bear witness to the truth and he did so perfectly.
What are we now to say in the matter of his words? Should we not be expecting them to testify to the same character of Christ? Do they really not bear witness to the TRUTH? Are not his words a testament to who he is? Is he not, A MAN OF HIS WORD? What you think of his words, is the true reflection of what you think of HIM.
THE REVISION
In 1881 was published a volume called The Revised Version of the Bible. It was supposed to be an enhancement of the King James Bible, with some supposed errors corrected, and then republished.
There were rules governing the method of production, and those rules were imposed upon the translators of the Revised Version committee by the Southern House of Convocation, ONE of those rules was as follows;
- They were not to make ANY alterations to the Greek Text underlying the King James Bible.
According to Dean John Burgon in The Revision Revised, he wrote;
The “fundamental Resolutions adopted by the Convocation of Canterbury” (3rd and 5th May, 1870), five in number, contain no authorization whatever for making changes in the Greek Text. They have reference only to the work of revising “ the Authorized Version :”[3]
It was recorded by the translators of the 1881 revision themselves that they fully agreed with the rule stating;
“We may be satisfied with the attempt to correct plain and clear errors : but there, it is our duty to stop .”[4]
Now this makes sense, because IF the KJV has errors in it, the only way you can KNOW it contains errors is you KNOW where the errors are AND you know the corrections, correct?
Well, not only did they not hold to this duty, but they secretly created a COMPLETELY NEW GREEK TEXT NEVER BEFORE SEEN.
So many were the resulting alterations in the English Bible that in a comment by the learned Bishop Wordsworth of Lincoln, we find;
“I fear we must say in candour that in the Revised Version we meet in every page with changes… which seem almost to be made for the sake of change .”[5]
You and I have been continually told in this modern day that the changes of the Bible are insignificant, that they don’t affect ANY doctrines and that, even though we have such a multitude of false witnesses, it is DIVISIVE to make a fuss to claim that only ONE version can be true. Beloved, even atheists recognize this is a logical error, they would agree that if the Bible is the very perfect word of God, there can ONLY be ONE VERSION.
Theologians have given unbelievers JUST CAUSE to reject to the Bible BECAUSE OF ALL THEIR manipulations, and I think Satan had his hands all over it.
According to this Bishop Wordsworth, he wondered how the Church of England could accept a version of the Bible so needlessly altered.
Two pages later in this address, he wrote;
[The question arises,]— “ Whether the Church of England…, sanctioned a Revision of her Authorized Version under the express condition , which she most wisely imposed, that no Changes should be made in it except what were absolutely necessary ,—could consistently accept a Version in which 36,000 changes have been made; not a fiftieth of which can be shown to be needed, or even desirable . ” — Bishop Wordsworth.
Now, beloved that is the testimony of a man who was there at the very time the Authorized Version of the Bible, ie, the King James Bible was to be “replaced” with a so-called revision.
36,000 changes out of approximately 180,000 words in the New Testament, that is 20% of your New Testament had been changed, yet we are to believe that it’s all still the same, that there is NO real difference between these witnesses!
If that is the difference with just ONE REVISED VERSION 141 YEARS AGO, what are the differences in the multitude of versions that have come about since?
EACH AND EVERY new version requires their own DERIVATIVE COPYRIGHT PROTECTION, how much therefore do modern versions of the Bible reflect the nature of Christ, who changes not?
God is Immutable, HE changes not, yet we are to somehow reconcile the annual mutability of his words as a faithful reflection of him as The WORD?
Just one example only.
The Strong’s Concordance claims the total number of actual words in The King James Bible is 790,915. A similar concordance for the original New International Version claims that it contains only a total of 726,109 words a deficiency of 64,809 words.
Beloved, I write about 5,000 words for each sermon each week, this would equate to about 13 sermons of words shorter in the NIV compared to the KJV, really?
Turn in your Bibles to;
Matthew 24:35
35 Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away.
Mark 13:31
31 Heaven and earth shall pass away: but my words shall not pass away.
Luke 21:33
33 Heaven and earth shall pass away: but my words shall not pass away.
If this is the witness of Jesus, what are we to say of the multitude of changes of all these conflicting versions of the Bible?
We are also witnesses of Christ in the world and to the world.
Can I ask you, do you think YOUR own view of the Bible ALSO reflects your TRUE view of Christ?
Do you think that it is your TRUE view of Christ that is what is manifested THROUGH you in your day-to-day witness of him?
In other words, if you don’t REALLY believe you have EVERY WORD OF GOD and don’t REALLY BELIEVE EVERY WORD IS True and absolute, won’t that affect your belief that you should read it???
And if you won’t read it, how are you going to be changed?
And if you don’t change toward the true image of Christ, how are you REPRESENTING HIM TO THE WORLD?
Romans 12:2
And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.
The People of Truth
John 18:37
37 Pilate therefore said unto him, Art thou a king then? Jesus answered, Thou sayest that I am a king. To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth. Every one that is of the truth heareth my voice.
“Every one that is of the truth heareth my voice”, that is a fascinating statement made by Jesus.
He makes a similar statement earlier in John 10.
The Pharisees had asked him if he be the Christ, and this is his response in verse 25
John 10:25–27
25 Jesus answered them, I told you, and ye believed not: the works that I do in my Father’s name, they bear witness of me. 26 But ye believe not, because ye are not of my sheep, as I said unto you. 27 My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me:
Everyone who is of the truth hears his voice, his sheep hear his voice. His sheep, therefore, are they who are of the truth, and they who are NOT of the truth are NOT his sheep.
There should be in you all a love for the truth if you do indeed love Jesus. Those however who do not love the truth are in a desperate state;
2 Thessalonians 2:10–12
10 And with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish; because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved. 11 And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie: 12 That they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness.
Clearly learning the truth is a work in progress requiring great humility, just as it was for his disciples. There needed to be a SUBMISSION to the Scriptures first to understand the truth. And Jesus continually pointed them there.
We see this in Luke 24 when the resurrected Jesus was walking on the Emaus rd and met with some depressed disciples. They were upset for seeing who they thought it was who would redeem Israel, suffer on the cross and die.
Luke 24:25–27
25 Then he said unto them, O fools, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken: 26 Ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and to enter into his glory? 27 And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded unto them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself.
Like Apollos in Acts 18, they too had to have “expounded unto them the way of God more perfectly” (Acts 18:26).
The issue respecting the Bible should be reconciled the same way. And we need to learn to think about reality with the same logic.
ERRORS IN THE KJV…?
Consider if you will this ONE point that I alluded to earlier, and see if the point is simple enough to understand. If the King James Bible contains errors in it such as we are so often told, it would presume by that statement that the learned scholars KNOW exactly what those “errors” are and where they are. And, if it were not for those known and specific errors in the Bible, we would then all agree to have a perfect Bible, is that not also a fair reckoning?
So just to be clear, if the learned men of the English world, who all claim to know each and every error in our Authorized Version of the Bible, could just correct them, could we not all then agree to have a perfect Bible?
Was this not the original STATED intention behind the revision of 1881?
If that is so simply true, and we could have put a stop to the plethora of versions we suffer today in the English language, then why was it not done?
My argument is that it was never the intent.
The Bible is a big book, but the number of words is not infinite. My own writings have errors but once they are fixed then I am good to go; in the last 400 years surely the multitude of scholars that claim the KJV has errors could have just fixed them and “wualla”, a perfect Bible!
MANUSCRIPT EVIDENCE
The Bible teaches that witnesses that agree testify to the truth of a matter. (Deut 17:6, 19:15, Mt 18:6, 2 Cor 3:1, 1 Tim 5:19, Heb 10:28)
There are some 5,900 manuscripts witnesses in Greek, mostly portions only of the New Testament text as the more the books were read, the more they fell apart, so most were fragments, some dating from as early as 60AD. Added to this are the writings of the church fathers, the versions in other languages etc, and lectionaries, all of which can simply confirm what we have in the Authorized version of the Bible and testify to the accuracy of all the copies.
Several of the scholars (two in particular) of the Revision Committee of 1881, chose forty-five of the most corrupt manuscripts out of the total of Greek manuscripts extant. These are manuscripts that disagree completely with the other 5850 odd copies, and out of that, they worked mostly with 5 manuscripts to create an entirely new Greek Text never before seen or ever been in existence.
The 5 particular volumes are;
Codex Alexandrinus (A)
Codex Vaticanus (B)
Codex Sinaiticus (Aleph)
Codex Ephraemi (c)
Codex Bezae (D)
Each of these are Uncial Copies, that is, they are written all in capital letters, Cursives are those written as we normally write.
Each of these five documents differs tremendously from the traditional text, even differing just as greatly one from the other.
There is a multitude of references made by Dean John Burgon in his 1883 book The Revision Revised. And he cites of interest the differences ONLY in the four Gospel accounts not the entire New Testament, saying;
in the Gospels alone, b (Vaticanus) is found to omit at least 2877 words: to add, 536: to substitute, 935: to transpose, 2098: to modify, 1132 (in all 7578) alterations:—the corresponding figures for א (the Siniaticus manuscript) being severally 3455 omitted, 839 added, 1114 substituted, 2299 transposed, 1265 modified (in all 8972 alterations).
And be it remembered that the omissions, additions, substitutions, transpositions, and modifications, are by no means the same in both. It is in fact easier to find two consecutive verses in which these two MSS. differ the one from the other, than two consecutive verses in which they entirely agree .[6]
So different are these manuscripts one from the other that Dean John Burgon gives a humorous example as to how we might expect them to be employed in one of Shakespeare’s plays.
On page 15 he writes
Could ingenuity have devised severer satire than such a description of four professing transcripts of a book; and that book, the everlasting Gospel itself?…
What (we ask) would be thought of four such “ copies ” of Thucydides or of Shakspeare? Imagine it gravely proposed, by the aid of four such conflicting documents, to re-adjust the text of the funeral oration of Pericles, or to re-edit “Hamlet.” …Why, some of the poet’s most familiar lines would cease to be recognizable:
e.g. a (Alexandrinus) ,—“ Toby or not Toby; that is the question :” b (Vaticanus),—“ Tob or not, is the question :” א (Siniaticus),—“ To be a tub, or not to be a tub; the question is that :” c (Codex Ephraemi,)—“ The question is, to beat, or not to beat Toby? ”: d (codex Bezae),—“ The only question is this: to beat that Toby, or to be a tub? ”
That is the level of utter corruption that is in those manuscripts that have been used to change the so-called modern-day Bibles.
But rather than throw them out, they were used to give permission to Theologians to pick and choose what words they felt they could add or remove based on the “Evidence” they arbitrarily chose to employ.
In his very purpose of writing The Revision Revised, John Burgon and others sought to ensure they would go into great details and to provide as many specimens of proof stating on page 16;
“that א b d (Siniaticus/Vaticanus/Bezae) are three of the most scandalously corrupt copies extant :—exhibit the most shamefully mutilated texts which are anywhere to be met with:—have become, by whatever process… the depositories of the largest amount of fabricated readings , ancient blunders , and intentional perversions of Truth ,—which are discoverable in any known copies of the Word of God .
He states elsewhere
“ In the end, … the “Revision” of 1881 must come to be universally regarded as—what it most certainly is,— the most astonishing, as well as the most calamitous literary blunder of the Age”[7]
Tragically, however, the opposite had occurred.
Though the Revised Version of the Bible died a quiet death, those people who were NOT of the truth, continued to work to whisper again and again (hath God said) until finally we get to today and, the vast majority of pastors, preachers, teachers and congregants come to almost universal agreement that, perhaps “God didn’t really say!”.
Now we can take of whatever fruit we feel is good for food, and … pleasant to the eyes, and … desired to make one wise [8]
Now what?
The Perceiver Of Truth
To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth. Every one that is of the truth heareth my voice.
Those who are of the truth should “Perceive the Truth” of the matter. There is a REASON Paul warned Timothy of how the last days will look.
Turn to;
2 Timothy 3:1–4
1 This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come. 2 For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, 3 Without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, 4 Traitors, heady, highminded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God;
Remember, this is a prophecy of the state of men WITHIN the Church, this was always in the world, Paul is writing to Timothy as a Pastor. What is it that creates such false witnesses of Christ? The Church is meant to re-present Jesus and his character, but here we have them represent the world and its character.
Could it not be seen that they no longer have a love for the truth?
Could it not be seen that they no longer believe the witness of truth?
Go forward to chapter 4
2 Timothy 4:3–4
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.
They will not endure sound doctrine, this clearly began before the creation of the Revised Version of the Bible and simply snowballed from there.
The Dark Ages of the Roman Catholic Church lasted over one thousand years, then light came into the world and we had rolling revivals that are today recorded in many books. The twentieth century had seen very few, not even the Jesus Movement of the 1970’s could be truly called a “revival”, many simply saw it as another counter-cultural movement.
When Jesus doubted he would find faith in the earth when he returned (Lk 18:8), or when he spoke of a time that iniquity will so abound that the love of many will wax cold (Mt 24:12), or Paul speaking of the rejection of God so great that it leads to the reprobation of minds we are witnessing today in Romans 1:28.
The Roman Catholic Church hid the Bible in a foreign language for over 100 years, today it is hidden in obscurity.
It was Luther’s Bible in 1534 that brought light to the German people and began the great reformation.
It was the Liesvelt Bible in 1545 that brought light to the Dutch
It was the Reina-Valera in 1602 that brought the light to the Spanish
It was the Diodati in 1607 of Italy that brought light to the Italians.
It was the Authorised Version, the King James Bible, that brought light to the English world.
Little wonder the world came out of the dark.
You have that same light in your hands beloved, do not neglect it.
READ IT at least until he comes.
Maranatha.
[1] The Jerusalem Talmud, Sanhedrin, folio 24. See also Josephus, Antiquities, 20:9
[2] The King James Version Defended. Edward F Hills p.vi
[3] Burgon, John William. The Revision Revised P399 . Kindle Edition.
[4] Chronicle of Convocation , Feb. 1870, p. 83.
[5] Address to Lincoln Diocesan Conference p.25
[6] Burgon, John William. The Revision Revised . P12
[7] Burgon, John William. The Revision Revised . P xv
[8] Gen 3:6.
0 Comments