Where Did the King James Bible Come From?

Adapted from LET'S WEIGH THE EVIDENCE by Barry Burton. Concerned that the whole issue of "Which Bible?" was confusing members of his church, Burton wrote this easy-to-read summary of the research of many gifted men in the field of Bible translation. Here is just a small portion of this very readable book.

There Are Two Kinds of Manuscripts:

Accurate Copies

These manuscripts represent the manuscripts from which the "Textus Receptus" or Received Text was taken.

They are the majority of Greek manuscripts which agree with each other and have been accepted by Bible believing Christians down through the centuries. It is from these manuscripts that the King James Bible was translated in 1611.

Corrupted Copies

These manuscripts represent the corrupted copies of the Bible, also known as the Alexandrian manuscripts. These manuscripts, many times, do not even agree with each other. The Vaticanus and Sinaiticus manuscripts are part of this group. These are the manuscripts on which Westcott and Hort and the modern versions rely so heavily.

There are 5,309 surviving Greek manuscripts that contain all or part of the New Testament. These manuscripts agree together 95% of the time. The other 5% account for the differences between the King James and the modern versions.

The modern versions had to use the Textus Receptus, since it contains the majority of the surviving Greek manuscripts. The problem is that, when the Textus Receptus disagreed with the Vaticanus or the Sinaiticus, they preferred these corrupted manuscripts over the Textus Receptus.

That accounts for the 5% corruption in the modern versions. Even these two manuscripts agree with the Textus Receptus much of the time. When they do not agree, it is because Marcion (120-160 AD) or Origin (184-254 AD) or whoever, corrupted them.

Now, the fact has been established that the modern versions are different than the King James Bible (see LET'S WEIGH THE EVIDENCE for

numerous, verse by verse examples). But, we still need to answer the question: Why are they different?

There are at least 5,309 surviving Greek manuscripts which contain all or part of the New Testament. Plus, there are translations into different languages which date back to within 100 years of the disciples. For example, the Peshitta is a Syrian translation from the 2nd century.

These manuscripts agree with each other about 95% of the time. The problem is, how does one determine what is right in the 5% of the places where the manuscripts do not agree?

Argument One

(Modern versions) "The Bible is just like any other book. It is not liable to Satanic attack. In order to find out what the original copy probably said, you just find the oldest copies available and use them.

"We don't have the exact word of God now anyway, so a few disagreements will not matter."

Argument Two

(King James Bible) "The Bible is not ‘just like any other book.' Satan hates it because it is the Word of God. Satan has been trying to destroy it ever since the Garden of Eden.

"However, God has preserved His Word for us. He preserved the Old Testament through the Levites as priests and He has preserved the New Testament through the body of believers through the witness of the Holy Spirit."

The vast majority of Greek manuscripts agree together. They have been passed down through the centuries by true Bible-believing Christians.

In 1516 Erasmus compiled, edited, and printed the Greek "Textus Receptus" (received text). This is the text that the Protestants of the Reformation knew to be the Word of God (inerrant and infallible). The King James Bible was translated from the "Textus Receptus."

The debate continues:

Argument One

(Modern versions) The oldest surviving manuscripts must be the most reliable. Therefore, when determining what manuscripts to depend on, the Vaticanus (350 AD) and the Sinaiticus (about 350 AD) should be accepted as correct (even if 998 other manuscripts disagree with them).

Argument Two

(King James) The oldest manuscripts (the Vaticanus and Sinaiticus) are not reliable at all! But wait, the Vaticanus and Sinaiticus disagree with each other over 3,000 times in the gospels alone!

Facts About the Vaticanus

It was written on fine vellum (tanned animal skins) and remains in excellent condition. It was found in the Vatican Library in 1481 AD. In spite of being in excellent condition, it omits:

Genesis 1:1 through Genesis 46:28 Psalms 106-138 Matthew 16:2-3 The Pauline Pastoral Epistles Hebrews 9:14-13:25 Revelation

These parts were probably left out on purpose.

Besides all that, in the gospels alone it leaves out 237 words, 452 clauses and 748 whole sentences, which hundreds of later copies agree together as having the same words in the same places, the same clauses in the same places and the same sentences in the same places.

The Vaticanus was available to the translators of the King James Bible, but they didn't use it because they knew it is unreliable. The Vaticanus also contains the Apocrypha.

Facts About the Sinaiticus

The Sinaiticus is a manuscript that was found in 1844 in a trash pile in St. Catherine's Monastery near Mt. Sinai, by a man named Mr. Tischendorf. It

contains nearly all of the New Testament plus it adds the "Shepherd of Hermes" and the "Epistle of Barnabas" to the New Testament.

The Sinaiticus is extremely unreliable, proven by examining the manuscript itself. John Burgeon spent years examining every available manuscript of the New Testament. He writes about the Sinaiticus:

"On many occasions 10, 20, 30, 40 words are dropped through very carelessness.

Letters, words or even whole sentences are frequently written twice over, or begun and immediately canceled; while that gross blunder, whereby a clause is omitted because it happens to end in the same words as the clause preceding, occurs no less that 115 times in the New Testament."

That's not all!

On nearly every page of the manuscript there are corrections and revisions, done by 10 different people. Some of these corrections were made about the same time that it was copied, but most of them were made in the 6th or 7th century.

Phillip Mauro was a brilliant lawyer who was admitted to the bar of the Supreme Court in April 1892. He wrote a book called "Which Version" in the early 1900's. He writes concerning the Sinaiticus:

"From these facts, therefore, we deduce: first that the impurity of the Codex Sinaiticus, in every part of it, was fully recognized by those who were best acquainted with it, and that from the very beginning until the time when it was finally cast aside as worthless for any practical purpose."

The Vaticanus and Sinaiticus manuscripts are the oldest, but they are not the best manuscripts!!!

That's where the modern translators went wrong! They foolishly accepted the Vaticanus and Sinaiticus simply because they were old.

They did not attempt to find out why they were so vastly different from the Greek text that real Christians have known to be the infallible Word of God.

When the modern versions say in the footnotes, "Some of the oldest mss. do not contain vv. 9-20," or "This verse not found in the most ancient authorities,"

they are taking their information from the corrupt and unreliable Vaticanus and Sinaiticus manuscripts!

Don't fall for the "oldest are the best" line! The oldest are not the best! For example, the Vaticanus and Sinaiticus both leave out the last 12 verses of Mark, concerning the resurrection of Christ.

But, there is not one other manuscript, either uncial or cursive, that leave out this passage. There are 18 other uncial (capital letter) manuscripts that have the passage in and at least 600 cursives (small letter) manuscripts that all contain these verses.

The evidence is at least 618 to 2 against the Vaticanus and Sinaiticus. Yet, look in your modern version.

The New American Standard Bible puts all these verses (Mark 16:9-20) in brackets, saying that these verses probably were not in the original writings. The other versions use brackets or footnotes.

That's ridiculous!!! In a court of law, if you had 618 witnesses that saw something happen, and you had two witnesses that said they did not see it happen, would you accept the testimony of the 618 or the testimony of the 2?

You see, it is foolish for any translator to accept a manuscript simply because of age, without checking to find out where it came from and if it was reliable or not.

A manuscript is a hand-copied document. This was the method used for

writing and duplicating existing literature prior to the invention of printing.

There are over 5,300 (5,309 to be exact) existing manuscripts of the Scriptures.

Some of these manuscripts contain a large portion of scripture, while other are

fragments.

Let us first consider certain Greek texts from which all New Testament

translations are derived:

1. the Majority Texts (Textus Receptus), and

2. the Minority Texts (primarily the Westcott and Hort Greek Text, based

primarily on the Codex Sinaiticus and the Codex Vaticanus).

For obvious reasons, the Textus Receptus is also referred to as the "Majority

Text" since the majority (95% or more) of existing manuscripts support this

reading. These extant manuscripts were brought together by various editors

such as Lucian (AD 250-312), Erasmus, Stephanus, Beza, and the Elzevir

brothers. The most notable editor of all was Desiderius Erasmus (1466-1536)

one of the greatest scholars the world has ever known. When the early

Protestant Reformers of the 16th and 17th centuries decided to translate the

scriptures directly from Greek into the languages of Europe, they

selected Textus Receptus as their foundation Greek document.

The NASB, the NIV, the Jehovah's Witness bible ("New World Translation"),

and most modern translations and paraphrases use the Westcott and

Hort Greek Text, which is supported by only a small portion (5% or less) of

existing manuscripts, including Codex Vaticanus, Codex Sinaiticus,

Alexandrian Codex, Parisian Codex, and Codex Bezae.

For obvious reasons, this text is referred to as the "Minority Texts." Westcott

and Hort relied heavily on the Vaticanus andSinaiticus for their Greek Text,

which is particularly odd, considering the fact that these two codices As

stated above, there are more than 5,300 manuscripts in existence. These

manuscripts are divided into several different formats:

1. Papyrus fragments -- papyrus was relatively inexpensive compared to

vellum (animal skins), and therefore was widely used. However, it was

not very durable and copies would wear out rather rapidly through

usage. The size of these papyrus fragments range from a few verses to

large portions of an entire book.

2. Unical -- these are copies that were written in capital letters.

3. Cursive -- those written in small hand.

Of these 5,300+ existing manuscripts, over 95% are in agreement with, and

form the basis for the Textus Receptus, which is the text which the King James

translators used. Strange as it may seem, Westcott and Hort threw out the

preponderance of manuscript evidence and opted rather to go with the

Minority Texts! Hence we have inherited an ongoing struggle among New

Testament critics, accompanied by havoc and confusion in churches caused

by the introduction of these conflicting New Testament Greek texts. Since

1881, most subsequent versions have followed the Minority Texts.

Study the information in the following table. Although this data was

compiled in 1967, recent archeological discoveries will not significantly effect

the results. This data illustrates why the Textus Receptus is referred to as the

"Majority Text."

Type

of Manuscript

Total # of this

type manuscript

Number that

support WH*

Number that

support TR**

Papyrus 88 13 (15%) 75 (85%)

Unical 267 9 (3%) 258 (97%)

Cursive 2764 23 (1%) 2741 (99%)

Lectionary*** 2143 0 2143 (100%)

* WH indicates Westcott-Hort Greek Text (Minority Text)

** TR indicates Textus Receptus (Majority Text)

*** A lectionary is a book that contains a collection of scripture readings

The table gives the approximate number and percent of each type of Greek

manuscript that supports the Westcott and Hort Greek Text, as well as the

number and percent of each class that supports the Textus Receptus Greek

text. These approximations are taken from the careful research of Dr. Jack

Moorman in his book Forever Settled. [From: THE FOUR-FOLD

SUPERIORITY OF THE KING JAMES VERSION By Dr. D.A. Waite]

There are a few other old manuscripts, even including fragmentary Greek

papyri, whose textual character seems to conform more to the Codex

Sinaiticus and Codex Vaticanus than to the Textus Receptus. However, these

all have been traced (by liberal and conservative scholars alike) to a probable

source in Alexandria, Egypt, in the 2nd or 3rd century. The most influential

man among the "intellectual" community of Alexandria was the

learned Origen, and it is believed by many that he was largely instrumental in

developing the so-called "Alexandrian" text of the New Testament (of which

the Vatican and Sinai manuscripts are representative), in contrast to the

"Byzantine" text, from which the Textus Receptus has largely come.

With all his immense learning and zeal, however, Origen was a heretic. Like

modern theistic evolutionists, he felt constrained to harmonize Christianity

with pagan philosophy, especially that of Plato and the Stoics. This led him

into excessive allegorization of Scripture, especially Genesis, and into

denigrating the actual historical records of the Bible, even that of the bodily

resurrection of Christ, as well as the literal creation of the world.

Whether or not Origen and his associates were first responsible for the

differences in the Alexandrian text from the Byzantine, the fact remains that

significant differences do exist, and that practically all modern English

translations have been heavily influenced (via Westcott and Hort, etc.) in

favor of the former, whereas the King James translation has its basis primarily

in the latter.

The only place where these error laden, unreliable manuscripts excel is in the

quality of the materials used on them. They have good bindings and fine

animal skin pages. Their physical appearance, contrary to their worthless

texts, are really rather attractive. But then we have all heard the saying, "You

can't judge a book by its cover." The covers are beautiful but their texts are

reprehensible.

And yet in spite of these well-known corruptions, they are the basis for many

new versions such as the NIV and the NASB, rendering these

versions critically flawed and unreliable. I will give many, many examples of

these errors and omissions when I deal with the altered verses. Many of the

differences between the manuscripts involve significant watering down of

even such basic doctrines as Biblical inerrancy and the perfect divine/human

nature of Christ.

IMPORTANT NOTE: Please remember that, while the modern versions of

the Bible do water down the truth and are not the BEST translations, they

certainly do not completely eliminate these key doctrines, so it is still

possible to discern these doctrines and to find the true gospel and way of

salvation in many of the new texts or translations. My wife, for instance, was

saved while reading the Good News Bible, which is a paraphrase based on the

Minority Texts, which were corrupted. So you see, God uses even the flawed

translations to accomplish His purposes and decrees.

contradict each other over 3,000 times in the gospels alone.

Think about it . . . can you really imagine the Lord of Lords, the Holy One of Israel

hiding Codex Vaticanus away for over 1,000 years in the Vatican Library till 1481? Or

better yet, can you imagine Him prompting the monks of St Catherine's Monastery to

dump Codex Sinaiticus into a waste basket?

Remember, the early Christians REJECTED these manuscripts. So, they went into secret

libaries…and there they lay…until they were later dug up as "ancient manuscripts."

So here's what likely happened: the corrupt Alexandrian text (also called the "Egyptian" or

"Hesychian" type text) found it's way into Constantine's bible (viaOrigen and Eusebius), one of

which was the Vatican manuscript and another of which was the Sinai manuscript, but they

were rejected and "thrown in the closet" by Christians of that day. However, after hundreds of

years, they eventually were revived via the Westcott and Hort Greek Text, and finally crept into

the new "Bible" versions in your local "Christian" bookstore.

The Devil is sneaky, isn't he??

Therefore, when you hear or read of someone "correcting" the King James

Bible with "older" or "more authoritative" manuscripts, you are simply

hearing someone trying to use a corrupted, pagan, gnostic,

ecumenical, Roman Catholic text to overthrow the God-honored text of the

Protestant Reformation and the great revivals.

(also known as Codex Aleph)

Codex Sinaiticus was discovered by Constantin von Tischendorf, a German evolutionist

theologian, at St. Catherine’s Monastery at Mount Sinai. He discovered the first part in

1844 and the second part in 1859.

Following is the story of how Tischendorf found the Codex Sinaiticus:

"In the year 1844, whilst travelling under the patronage of Frederick Augustus King of

Saxony, in quest of manuscripts, Tischendorf reached the Convent of St. Catherine, on

Mount Sinai. Here, observing some old-looking documents in a basketful of papers

ready for lighting the stove, he picked them out, and discovered that they were forty-

three vellum leaves of the Septuagint Version. Some enemies of the defense of the King

James Bible have claimed that the manuscripts were not found in a "waste basket," but

they were. That is exactly how Tischendorf described it. "I perceived a large and wide

basket full of old parchments; and the librarian told me that two heaps like this had been already

committed to the flames. What was my surprise to find amid this heap of papers..." (Narrative

of the Discovery of the Sinaitic Manuscript, p. 23). John Burgon, who was alive when

Tischendorf discovered the Codex Sinaiticus and also personally visited St. Catherine's

to research ancient manuscripts, testified that the manuscripts "got deposited in the waste-

paper basket of the Convent." (The Revision Revised, 1883, pp. 319, 342)

So, it certainly appears to me that the Orthodox monks evidently had long

since decided that the numerous omissions and alterations in the manuscript

had rendered it useless and had stored it away in some closet where it had

remained unused for centuries. Yet Tischendorf promoted it widely and

vigorously as representing a more accurate text than the thousands of

manuscriptssupporting the Textus Receptus. Furthermore, he assumed that it

came from about the 4th century, but he never found any actual proof that it

dated earlier than the 12th century.

Consider these facts and oddities relating to the Codex Sinaiticus:

1. The Sinaiticus was written by three different scribes and was corrected

later by several others. (This was the conclusion of an extensive

investigation by H.J.M. Milne and T.C. Skeat of the British Museum,

which was published in Scribes and Correctors of Codex Sinaiticus,

London, 1938.) Tischendorf counted 14,800 corrections in this

manuscript (David Brown, The Great Uncials, 2000). Dr. F.H.A.

Scrivener, who published A Full Collation of the Codex Sinaiticus in

1864 testified: "The Codex is covered with alterations of an obviously

correctional character—brought in by at least ten different revisers, some of

them systematically spread over every page, others occasional, or limited to

separate portions of the manuscript, many of these being contemporaneous with

the first writer, but for the greater part belonging to the sixth or seventh

century." Thus, it is evident that scribes in bygone centuries

did not consider the Sinaiticus to represent a pure text . Why it should

be so revered by modern textual critics is a mystery.

2. A great amount of carelessness is exhibited in the copying and

correction. "Codex Sinaiticus 'abounds with errors of the eye and pen to an

extent not indeed unparalleled, but happily rather unusual in documents of

first-rate importance.' On many occasions 10, 20, 30, 40 words are

dropped through very carelessness. Letters and words, even whole

sentences, are frequently written twice over, or begun and immediately

cancelled; while that gross blunder, whereby a clause is omitted because it

happens to end in the same words as the clause preceding, occurs no less than

115 times in the New Testament." (John Burgon, The Revision Revised)It

is clear that the scribes who copied the Codex Sinaiticus

were not faithful men of God who treated the Scriptures with utmost

reverence. The total number of words omitted in the Sinaiticus in the

Gospels alone is 3,455 compared with the Greek Received Text (Burgon,

p. 75).

3. Mark 16:9-20 is omitted in the Codex Sinaiticus, but it was originally

there and has been erased.

4. Codex Sinaiticus includes the apocryphal books (Esdras, Tobit, Judith, I

and IV Maccabees, Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus) plus two heretical writings,

the Epistle of Barnabas and the Shepherd of Hermas. The apocryphal

Epistle of Barnabas is filled with heresies and fanciful allegorizing,

claiming, for example, that Abraham knew Greek and baptism is

necessary for salvation. The Shepherd of Hermas is a gnostic writing

that presents the heresy that the "Christ Spirit" came upon Jesus at his

baptism.

5. Lastly, Codex Sinaiticus (along with Codex Vaticanus), exhibits

clear gnostic influence. In John 1:18 "the only begotten Son" is changed to

"the only begotten God," thus perpetuating the ancient Arian heresy that

disassociates the Son Jesus Christ with God Himself by breaking the

clear connection between "God" of John 1:1 with "the Son" of John 1:18.

We know that God wasnot begotten; it was the Son who was begotten

in the incarnation.

Codex Vaticanus is considered to be the most authoritative of the Minority

Texts, although it is responsible for over 36,000 changesthat appear today in

the new versions.

This manuscript was "found" in 1481 in the Vatican library in Rome, where it is

currently held, and from whence it received its name. It is written on expensive vellum,

a fine parchment originally from the skin of calf or antelope. Some authorities claim that

it was one of a batch of 50 Bibles ordered from Egypt by the Roman

Emperor Constantine; hence its beautiful appearance and the expensive skins which

were used for its pages. But alas! this manuscript, like its corrupt Egyptian

partner Codex Sinaiticus (Aleph) is also riddled with omissions, insertions and

amendments.

The corrupt and unreliable nature of Codex B is best summed up by one who has

thoroughly examined them, John W Burgon: "The impurity of the text exhibited by these

codices is not a question of opinion but fact...In the Gospels alone, Codex B(Vatican) leaves

out words or whole clauses no less than 1,491 times. It bears traces of careless

transcriptions on every page…"

According to The Westminster Dictionary of the Bible, "It should be noted . . . that there is

no prominent Biblical (manuscripts) in which there occur such gross cases of misspelling, faulty

grammar, and omission, as in (Codex) B."

Consider these facts and oddities relating to the Codex Vaticanus:

1. It was corrected by revisers in the 8th, 10th, and 15th centuries (W.

Eugene Scott, Codex Vaticanus, 1996).

2. The entire manuscript has been mutilated...every letter has been run

over with a pen, making exact identification of many of the characters

impossible. Dr. David Brown observes: "I question the 'great witness'

value of any manuscript that has been overwritten, doctored, changed and

added to for more than 10 centuries." (The Great Unicals).

3. In the Gospels it leaves out 749 entire sentences and 452 clauses, plus

237 other words, all of which are found in hundreds of other Greek

manuscripts. The total number of words omitted in Codex B in the

Gospels alone is 2,877 as compared with the majority of manuscripts

(Burgon, The Revision Revised, p. 75).

4. Vaticanus omits Mark 16:9-20, but a blank space is left for that section of

Scripture. The following testimony is by John Burgon, who examined

Vaticanus personally: “To say that in the Vatican Codex (B), which is

unquestionably the oldest we possess, St. Mark’s Gospel ends abruptly at the

eighth verse of the sixteenth chapter, and that the customary subscription (Kata

Mapkon) follows, is true; but it is far from being the whole truth. It requires to

be stated in addition that the scribe, whose plan is found to have been to begin

every fresh book of the Bible at the top of the next ensuing column to that which

contained the concluding words of the preceding book, has at the close of St.

Mark’s Gospel deviated from his else invariable practice. HE HAS LEFT IN

THIS PLACE ONE COLUMN ENTIRELY VACANT. IT IS THE ONLY

VACANT COLUMN IN THE WHOLE MANUSCRIPT -- A BLANK

SPACE ABUNDANTLY SUFFICIENT TO CONTAIN THE TWELVE

VERSES WHICH HE NEVERTHELESS WITHHELD. WHY DID HE

LEAVE THAT COLUMN VACANT? What can have induced the scribe on

this solitary occasion to depart from his established rule? The phenomenon (I

believe I was the first to call distinct attention to it) is in the highest degree

significant, and admits only one interpretation. The older manuscript from

which Codex B was copied must have infallibly contained the twelve verses in

dispute. The copyist was instructed to leave them out -- and he obeyed; but he

prudently left a blank space in memoriam rei. Never was a blank more

intelligible! Never was silence more eloquent! By this simple expedient,

strange to relate, the Vatican Codex is made to refute itself even while it seems

to be bearing testimony against the concluding verses of St. Mark’s Gospel, by

withholding them; for it forbids the inference which, under ordinary

circumstances, must have been drawn from that omission. It does more. By

leaving room for the verses it omits, it brings into prominent notice at the end

of fifteen centuries and a half, a more ancient witness than itself.”

(Burgon, The Last Twelve Verses of the Gospel of St. Mark Vindicated,

1871, pp. 86-87)

5. Similar to Codex Sinaiticus, Codex Vaticanus identifies itself as a

product of gnostic corruption in John 1:18, where “the only begotten Son”

is changed to “the only begotten God,” thus perpetuating the ancient

Arian heresy that disassociates the Son of God Jesus Christ from God

Himself by claiming that the Word was not the same as the Son. John’s

Gospel identifies the Son directly with the Word (John 1:1, 18), but by

changing "Son" to "God" in verse 18, this direct association is broken.

6. Linguistic scholars have observed that Codex Vaticanus is reminiscent

of classical and Platonic Greek, not Koine Greek of the New Testament

(see Adolf Deissman's Light of the Ancient East). Nestle admitted that

he had to change his Greek text (when using Vaticanus and Sinaiticus)

to make it "appear" like Koine Greek.

7. Codex Vaticanus contains the false Roman Catholic apocryphal books

such as Judith, Tobias, and Baruch, while it omits the pastoral epistles (I

Timothy through Titus), the Book of Revelation, and it cuts off the Book

of Hebrews at Hebrews 9:14 (a veryconvenient stopping point for the

Catholic Church, since God forbids their priesthood in Hebrews 10 and

exposes the mass as totally useless as well!).

Brooke Foss Westcott (an Anglican bishop and professor at Cambridge

University) and Fenton John Anthony Hort (also an ordained priest and

professor at Cambridge) produced a Greek New Testament in 1881 based on

the findings of Tischendorf. This Greek New Testament was the basis for the

Revised Version of that same year. They also developed a theory of textual

criticism which underlay their Greek New Testament and several other Greek

New Testaments since (including the Nestle-Aland text).

Greek New Testaments such as these produced most of the modern English

translations of the Bible we have today.

On one side, their supporters have heralded them as great men of God,

having greatly advanced the search for the original Greek text. On the other

side, their opponents have leveled charges of heresy, infidelity, apostasy, and

many others, claiming that they are guilty of wreaking great damage on the

true text of Scripture.

I have no desire to sling mud nor a desire to hide facts. I just want to share the

truth about these men. So, put on your seatbelt, and get ready for a quick ride

through the beliefs of Westcott and Hort. . .

In order to give you an idea of what they REALLY believed and what

their REAL intentions were when creating their Greek New Testament, I will

let the men speak for themselves. I will tell you nothing. I will merely let

these two men speak for themselves. The rest of this page will be only

quotations. If this makes you angry, don't be angry with me...I'm just giving

you the words of Westcott and Hort...

TELLING QUOTATIONS FROM WESTCOTT AND HORT

Concerning the Deity of Christ:

"He never speaks of Himself directly as God, but the aim of His revelation

was to lead men to see God in Him." (Westcott, The Gospel According to St.

John, p. 297).

"(John) does not expressly affirm the identification of the Word with Jesus

Christ." (Westcott, Ibid., p. 16).

Concerning the Scriptures:

"I reject the infallibility of Holy Scriptures overwhelmingly." (Westcott, The

Life and Letters of Brook Foss Westcott, Vol. I, p.207).

"Our Bible as well as our Faith is a mere compromise." (Westcott, On the

Canon of the New Testament, p. vii).

"Evangelicals seem to me perverted. . .There are, I fear, still more serious

differences between us on the subject of authority,especially the authority of

the Bible." (Hort, The Life and Letters of Fenton John Anthony Hort, Vol. I,

p.400)

Concerning Hell:

"(Hell is) not the place of punishment of the guilty, (it is) the common abode

of departed spirits. (Westcott, Historic Faith, pp.77-78).

"We have no sure knowledge of future punishment, and the word eternal

has a far higher meaning." (Hort, Life and Letters, Vol. I, p.149).

Concerning Creation:

"No one now, I suppose, holds that the first three chapters of Genesis, for

example, give a literal history. I could never understand how anyone reading

them with open eyes could think they did." (Westcott, cited from Which

Bible?, p. 191).

"But the book which has most engaged me is Darwin. Whatever may be

thought of it, it is a book that one is proud to be contemporary with..... My

feeling is strong that the theory is unanswerable." (Hort, cited from Which

Bible?, p. 189)

Concerning the Atonement:

"I think I mentioned to you before Campbell's book on the Atonement, which

is invaluable as far as it goes; but unluckily he knows nothing except

Protestant theology." (Hort, Life and Letters, Vol. I, p. 322)

"The popular doctrine of substitution is an immoral and material

counterfeit...nothing can be more unscriptural than the the limiting of

Christ's bearing our sins and sufferings to His death ; but indeed that is only

one aspect of an almost universal heresy." (Hort to Westcott, Life and Letters,

Vol. I, p. 430)

"I confess I have no repugnance to the primitive doctrine of a ransom paid to

Satan. I can see no other possible form in which the doctrine of a ransom is at

all tenable; anything is better than the doctrine of a ransom to the father."

(Hort, The First Epistle of St. Peter 1:1-2:17, p. 77).

Concerning Man:

"It is of course true that we can only know God through human forms, but

then I think the whole Bible echoes the language of Genesis 1:27 and so

assures us that human forms are divine forms." (Hort to Westcott, August 14,

1860)

"Protestants (must) unlearn the crazy horror of the idea of Priesthood."

(Hort, Life and Letters, Volume II, pp. 49-51)

Concerning Roman Catholicism:

"I wish I could see to what forgotten truth Mariolatry (the worship of the

Virgin Mary) bears witness." (Westcott, Ibid. )

"I have been persuaded for many years that Mary-Worship and Jesus-

Worship have very much in common ." (Hort, Life and Letters, Volume II, pp.

49-51)

"The pure Romanish view seems to be nearer, and more likely to lead to the

truth than the Evangelical." (Hort, Life and Letters, Vol. I, p. 77)

"I agree with you in thinking it a pity that Maurice verbally repudiates

purgatory . . . the idea of purgation, cleansing by fire, seems to me

inseparable from what the Bible teaches us of the Divine chastisements."

(Hort, Life and Letters, Vol. II, pp. 336,337)

Concerning the Cumulative Effect of Multiple Changes to the Manuscripts:

"It is quite impossible to judge the value of what appear to be trifling

alterations merely by reading them one after another. Taken together, they

have often important bearings which few would think of at first. . . The

difference between a picture, say of Raffaelle, and a feeble copy of it is

made up of a number of trivial differences. . . We have successfully resisted

being warned off dangerous ground, where the needs of revision required

that it should not be shirked. . . It is, one can hardly doubt, the beginning of a

new period in Church history. So far the angry objectors have reason for their

astonishment." (Hort, Life and Letters, Vol.I, pp. 138,139)

-------------------------------------------------------------

It is one thing to have doctrinal differences on baby-sprinkling and perhaps

a few other interpretations. It is quite another to be a Darwinian theologian

who rejects the authority of scriptures, Biblical salvation, the reality of hell,

substitutionary atonement, makes Christ a created being to be worshipped

with Mary his mother, and to openly admit that your "trifling alterations"

with the Greek Text have begun a "new period in Church history"!! Yet,

these were the views of both Westcott and Hort!! This is UNBELIEVABLE!!

No less significant is the fact that both men were involved with the occult

and were members of spiritist societies (the Hermes Club and the Ghostly

Guild), and both men supposedly "talked" to Spirits of the dead.

Adamantius Origen (A.D. 184-254), was born in Alexandria, Egypt, and was

one of the most famous "church fathers," was instrumental in editing

manuscripts upon which the NIV, NASB, and all modern versions, are based.

He attended the School of Alexandria, which was a theological school and

was established in the 2nd century after Christ. This school mixed Greek

philosophy or Gnostic beliefs (secret mystical occult knowledge) with Biblical

teaching.

Origen taught many non-Christian doctrines (see below). He stated that he

would not hand down Christian teachings, pure and unmixed, but

rather clothed with the precepts of pagan philosophy. Adam Clarke says

Origen was the first "Christian" teacher of purgatory. A pupil of the Gnostic

star worshipper Clement of Alexandria, Origin lightly esteemed the Bible's

historical basis. "The Scriptures," Origen maintained, "are of little use to those

who understand them as they are written." He is known for the Old

Testament six-column Bible called the "Hexapla" in which each column had a

different version of the Bible. Origen was well known for his labor to produce

a "so-called" correct text of the Greek New Testament. He was known for

spiritualizing or turning biblical events into allegories.

Origen greatly influenced Eusebius (260-340), who produced 50 copies of an

"ecumenical" Bible (at the behest of EmperorConstantine). Although

Constantine is remembered for establishing Sunday worship and the

"Christian" (Catholic) Church as the state religion, his action in choosing

Eusebius' rendition of Origen's Bible was perhaps more important, since ALL

MODERN VERSIONS are based on the Codex Vaticanus and the Codex

Sinaiticus, which are of the Eusebio-Origen type. Many authorities believe

they were actually 2 of the 50 Constantine Bibles.

Some of Origen's Beliefs:

Origen believed that man was divine.

He believed in the pre-existence of souls

He taught that everyone, including the Devil, would eventually be saved.

He described the Trinity as a "hierarchy," not as an equality of Father, Son, and

Spirit.

He believed in baptismal regeneration.

He believed in purgatory.

He taught that the Holy Spirit was the first creature made by God.

He believed Christ was created.

He taught transmigration (this is the belief that at death the soul passes into

another body).

He denied a literal interpretation of the Genesis creation, taught that it was a

"myth" and taught that there was no actual person named "Adam."

He taught that Christ "became" God at His baptism.

He taught, based on Matthew 19, that a true man of God should be castrated,

which he did to himself.

He denied the physical resurrection of believers.

Jack Moorman author of the book Forever Settled writes: "He (Origen) is

considered by many to be the most profound mind in the history of the church. But in

fact it may be said that he had a greater corrupting influence on the early church

and on the Bible itself than any man."

According to Les Garrett in his book Which Bible Can We Trust?, "Origen,

being the textual critic, is supposed to have corrected numerous portions of the sacred

manuscripts. Evidence to the contrary shows that he changed them to agree

with his human philosophy of mystical and allegorical ideas. Thus, through

deceptive scholarship of this kind, certain manuscripts became corrupt."

The Textus Receptus is the text that has been used for 2,000 years by

Christians. This is also the text that agrees with more than 95% of the Bible

Manuscripts in Koine (common) Greek. It is known by other names, such as

the Traditional Text, Majority Text, Byzantine Text, or Syrian Text.

In his essay Texual Criticism, Dr. Thomas Cassidy writes: "The Traditional text

of the New Testament has existed from the time of Christ right down to the present. It

has had many different names down through the years, such as Byzantine Text,

Eastern Text, Received Text, Textus Receptus, Majority Text, and others. Although

no complete Bible manuscripts have survived which would allow us to date the

Traditional text to the first century, there is a strong witness to the early existence

and use of the Traditional text by the early church in its lectionaries."

A few facts showing the respected historical position of the Textus Receptus

are in order. Its prominence and respect did not begin in 1611 with the KJV

translators. They merely recognized (as others before them had), that the

Textus Receptus was God's preserved word in the original New Testament

language.

Consider the following:

Prior to the 20th century, all English Bibles since Tyndale's first New Testament

(1526) were based on the Textus Receptus. This includes: Miles Coverdale's Bible

(1535), Matthew's Bible (1500-1555), The Great Bible (1539), The Geneva Version

(1560), The Bishops' Bible (1568), and the King James Version (1611). [STORY OF

OUR ENGLISH BIBLE, by W. Scott]

Ancient Versions followed the reading of the Textus Receptus. These versions

include: The Peshitta Version (AD 150), The Italic Bible (AD 157), The

Waldensian (AD 120 & onwards), The Gallic Bible (Southern France) (AD177),

The Gothic Bible (AD 330-350), The Old Syriac Bible (AD 400), The Armenian

Bible (AD 400 There are 1244 copies of this version still in existence.), The

Palestinian Syriac (AD 450), The French Bible of Oliveton (AD 1535), The Czech

Bible (AD 1602), The Italian Bible of Diodati (AD 1606), The Greek Orthodox

Bible (Used from Apostolic times to the present day by the Greek Orthodox

Church). [Bible Versions, D.B. Loughran]

In his excellent book, Truth Triumphant: The Church in the Wilderness,

Benjamin Wilkinson writes, "The Protestant denominations are built upon that

manuscript of the Greek New Testament sometimes called Textus Receptus, or

the Received Text. It is that Greek New Testament from which the writings of the

apostles in Greek have been translated into English, German, Dutch and other

languages. During the dark ages the Received Text was practically unknown outside

the Greek Church. It was restored to Christendom by the labours of that great

scholar Erasmus. It is altogether too little known that the real editor of the

Received Text was Lucian. None of Lucian's enemies fails to credit him with this

work. Neither Lucian nor Erasmus, but rather the apostles, wrote the Greek New

Testament. However, Lucian's day was an age of apostasy when a flood of

depravations was systematically attempting to devastate both the Bible manuscripts

and Bible theology. Origen, of the Alexandrian college, made his editions and

commentaries of the Bible a secure retreat for all errors, and deformed them with

philosophical speculations introducing casuistry and lying. Lucian's unrivalled

success in verifying, safeguarding, and transmitting those divine writings left a

heritage for which all generations should be thankful."

Why did the early churches of the 2 nd and 3rd centuries and all the

Protestant Reformers of the

15th, 16th and 17th centuries choose Textus Receptus in preference to the

Minority Texts?

The answer is because of the following:

Textus Receptus is based on the vast majority (over 95%) of the 5,300+

Greek manuscripts in existence. That is why it is also called

the Majority Text.

Textus Receptus is not mutilated with deletions, additions and

amendments, as is the Minority Text.

Textus Receptus agrees with the earliest versions of the

Bible: Peshitta (AD150) Old Latin Vulgate (AD157), the Italic

Bible(AD157) etc. These Bibles were produced some 200

years before the Minority Texts (like Vatican and Sinai) favored by

theRoman Catholic Church.

Textus Receptus agrees wih the vast majority of the 86,000+ citations

from scripture by the early church fathers.

Textus Receptus is untainted with Egyptian philosophy and unbelief.

Textus Receptus strongly upholds the fundamental doctrines of the

Christian faith: the creation account in Genesis, the divinity of Jesus

Christ, the virgin birth, the Saviour's miracles, his bodily resurrection,

his literal return and the cleansing power of his blood!

Textus Receptus was (and still is) the enemy of the Roman Catholic

Church. This is an important fact to bear in mind.

Constantine von Tischendorf discovered the Codex Sinaiticus at St.

Catherine’s Monastery (Mount Sinai). It is significant to remember that it was

the premise of Tischendorf that the Textus Receptus, which had been used by

the Christian Church for 1850years (in his day), was to be REJECTED,

because (according to him) it were erroneous & false texts.

He never proved or demonstrated the errors in the Textus Receptus ... this was simply

what he had been taught by his university professors. At the time, Tischendorf was at

the apex of German textual criticism, and had (unfortunately) accepted the premise

which his God-hating professors had taught him: namely that the Bible is fake, the

texts of the Bible are fake and we can never really know what was in the original

letters of the Bible. The fact that most of these professors wereenemies of the

Bible and hated God has often overlooked.

Having accepted the premises of his professors, Tischendorf decided to find the "real"

Bible on his own.

Following in the tradition of "textual criticism," he began substituting other

Greek Texts for the traditional Textus Receptus. Tischendorf believed that the

Church had been deceived for over 1,800 years.

Sadly, he did not accept that the Bible was the inspired word of God. As a

matter of fact, I have never seen any evidencethat Tischendorf

even claimed to have been a Christian.