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An Academic Argument
If you need a more academic argument to be convinced, than just Scripture and common sense, a few quotes from respected Greek and Hebrew scholars should suffice. Here are what some respected (by saved and unsaved alike) men have to say of the two books from which every other version except the King James are translated. These comments are concerned with the integrity of the books and how carefully they were treated and translated. First, the Codex (meaning book) Sinaiticus (the one found in the garbage can):
"The codex is covered with such 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 be separated portions of the MS [a short way to write manuscript], many of these being contemporaneous [done at the same time] with the first writer, but for the greater part belonging to the sixth or seventh century." - Dr. Scrivener
"[the Siniaticus] shows the works of ten different correctors down through the centuries." - Dr. Martin
"The carelessness that reigns over that manuscript is visible to all who examine it." - Dr. Burgon
Now to the Codex Vaticanus (the one on the shelf of the pope's library):
"[The Vaticanus] exhibits numerous places where the scribe has written the same word or phrase twice in succession." - Dr. Martin
"From one end to the other the whole manuscript has been traveled over by the pen of some...scribe of about the tenth century." - Dr. J. Smythe
"The impurity of the text exhibited by these codices [books] is not a question of opinion but fact...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 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 than 115 times in the N.T. [New Testament]."
As one can see from the above quotes the Minority Text was not carefully copied or even read by anyone for hundreds of years. The men who wrote it used sloppy techniques and changed words whenever they felt like it. Should one be so cavalier with changing God's Word?
If the Minority Text was not a copy of the true Word of God, where did these manuscripts come from? From changes made to the manuscripts from which we get our King James Bible. Dr. Samuel Gipp documents this fact well in his book, An Understandable History of the Bible. He states:
"Once a pure copy of the Universal Text [Texus Receptus] had been carried down into Egypt it was recopied. During the process of this recopying, it was revised by men who did not revere it as truly the Word of God. These men saw nothing wrong with putting the Book in subjection to their opinion instead of their opinion being in subjection to the Book."
Dr. Gipp further documents that this revision of the real copy of God's Word was made between 200 and 450 A.D. and was abandoned until 1881. The men changed words in the Bible to suit their opinions because they did not believe they were handling the Word of God. The translators of the KJV went about their task of translating recognizing they were translating the Word of life.
Those that translate their Bible from these manuscripts would have you to believe they stick to two main rules: 1) the oldest reading is best;, and 2) the majority reading is best. Those sound like great rules until you realize that in many cases they do not follow them at all. There are instances where they change and omit phrases and words that are found in the oldest and the majority of manuscripts and thus disobeying their own rules. This fact is well documented by Dr. Ruckman in his book, Manuscript Evidence and Satan's Masterpiece?
What about the different definitions in some lexicons and dictionaries? One must be very careful when reading a lexicon or a dictionary of Biblical languages. The tendency of some Christians is to believe everything they read. The first thing one must look at is who wrote the Lexicon or dictionary. Was it a person who did not believe in the virgin birth of Christ and because of that when you look up the Hebrew word for "virgin" in his dictionary, you read his opinion that the word should be translated "young maiden." There are quite a few men who have written lexicons and dictionaries and given their opinion about what a word should mean and they have let what they believe about the Bible affect how they determine a word should be translated. Are you willing to trust that God could preserve His Word and translate the word correctly, or will you believe someone's opinion who is far removed and extensively less versed in biblical languages than the King James translators?
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