Posted on 08/07/2003 8:34:50 AM PDT by fishtank
It's the keys, man! The keys! (and the bound and loose stuff a course!) And you know it's only in matters of faith and morals, not personal opinions, right???
Anyhow, good article, thanks for posting it.
A friend once told me that it was the Roman Catholic Church that preserved the Bible, and gave us the current Bibles we use today. He stated "who knows what was actually supposed to be in the Bible as we don’t know what is hidden away in their vaults". This question really intrigued me, and made me wonder myself. I had to do a little research but I pieced together the following (from various web sites, everything from the Vatican web site to several different denominational web sites). This turns out to be a multi-piece answer:
Prior to the King James Bible of 1611, there was not a “Bible” as we know it. There were the Antiochian manuscripts, which consisted of some 5000 Greek, Hebrew and Old Latin manuscripts. In addition to this, there is the Codex Vaticanus (aka Vatican Manuscript). This codex matches (somewhat) with two other sources known as Codex Sinaiticus and Codex Alexandrinus.
The Codex Vaticanus, Codex Sinaiticus and Codex Alexandrinus are known as the Minority Texts and originated from Alexandra, Egypt. The 5000+ Antiochian Manuscripts are known as the Majority texts, originating from Antioch, Syria.
The two most prominent of these, Vaticanus, which is sole property of the Roman Catholic Church, and Sinaiticus, are both known to be overwhelmed with errors. It is said that Sinaiticus has been corrected and altered by as many as ten different writers. In Vaticanus is found the evidence of very sloppy workmanship. Time and again words and whole phrases are repeated twice in succession or completely omitted, while the entire manuscript has had the text mutilated by some person or persons who ran over every letter with a pen making exact identification of many of the characters impossible.
Both manuscripts contain uninspired, anti-scriptural books which are not found in any Bible today.
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.
All Bibles today use these three (yes, three!) Minority Manuscripts. The only exception is the Authorized King James Bible, which uses the 5000 greek Antiochian manuscripts Majority texts.
I myself have a personal affection for the King James Bible, so of course I will have a bias, but all my sources agree, if you want to read a Bible that is not influenced by the Vatican, then the King James Bible is it. The only reason the Apocrypha are included in the original 1611 edition is because Martin Luther (who had died a hundred plus years earlier) had voiced that while these were not inspired scripture, they were of good historical reading (later printings eventually removed the Apocrypha from the King James, though you can still order them with it included). The Vatican itself was so against the King James Bible, that in 1605, they attempted to have King James killed (one of Guy Fawkes objectives), hoping to stop the research and printing of the Bible, even hoping to put the Pope or a puppet of the Popes on the English throne.
Sorry, but that's simply not true. The Geneva Bible pre-dated the KJV by 50 years, which by the way was also translated from the Majority Texts.
Hey! Wait a sec! I thought Catholics forbid people to read the Bible until the Protestants did their own translation??? Now I find out that no Bible existed before 1611??? What's up with that?
I can't figure out how the books contained in the Bible were codified by the Council of Carthage in 397 AD when the Bible didn't exist??? What were people using before 1611?
The Geneva Bible, of course.
At "real" seminaries, the history of the development of the Bible is taught.
I don't use the KJV because I find that there are too many archiac words not in use today and it distracts from my understanding of a passage. I don't mind the "thys and thous. I mostly use the New King James version.
When I do research, I use the internet. I go to BibleGateway.com and look at several versions, always including the King James.
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