The Bible Version
Issue

A Course on Bible Texts and Versions
and a Defense of the King James
Bible

By David Cloud

[1-58318-092-3]

Contents

Assignments .. 6
Introduction .. 9
Why We Hold to the King James Bible .. 30

  1. Because of the doctrine of divine preservation, which authenticates the
    Traditional Greek Text underlying the King James Bible ............ 30

  2. Because the theories supporting the Modern Greek Text are heretical
    .. 144

  3. Because the modern texts and versions are a product of end-time
    apostasy .. 190

  4. Because of the King James Bible's superior doctrine .. 251

  5. Because of its unmatched heritage .. 282

Textual Checklist .. 405
Suggested Resources .. 410

Assignments [p. 6]

Note to Teachers and Readers [p. 7]

1. This is an abbreviated edition of the first half of Faith vs. the Modern Bible versions,
which is a seminary level book.

2. The Review Questions and the tests....

p. 8: c. Another important resource --
See https://www.wayoflife.org/fbns/in-thefootsteps-bibletrans/

Introduction [p. 9]

1. There are many reasons why the Bible version issue must be faced.

a. ...BECAUSE IT IS FOUNDATIONAL (Ps. 138:2).

(1) ....   The Received Text is published today by the Trinitarian
Bible Society, the Dean Burgon Society, and others.

p. 12: a) Dr. David O. Fuller.
b) Alfred Martin, former V.-Pres. of Moody Bible Ins.
c) Dr. Donald Waite.

pp. 13b-14a: 2. Consider some basic misunderstandings...

pp. 14b-18: Eight Biblical Presuppositons for Approaching the Bible Version Issue
a. I believe in the sufficiency of Scripture (2 Tim. 3:16-17).
b. the soul liberty of the believer, (Acts 17:11; ).
c. the simplicity of sound doctrine (Mat. 11:25; ).
d. all things should be done unto edifying (Rom. 14:19; ).
e. the reality of the devil (1 Pet. 5:8).
f. the pre-eminence of faith (Heb. 11:6; Rom. 10:17; 14:23).
g. trembling before God's Word (Psa. 138:2; ).
h. the necessity of the Holy Spirit (1 Cor. 2:12-16; 1 Jn. 2:20, 27).

pp. 19-21a: 4. My personal testimony about the Bible Version Issue

The man that led me [DWC] to Jesus Christ in
the summer of 1973 gave me a King James Bible....

pp. 21b-24: 5. My research in this field
...library of materials....
...1,000 books & pamphlets....
...and 2,000 articles....
...done many weeks of research at libraries & museums such as....

A LEXICON ON THE BIBLE
TEXT-VERSION ISSUE

[26-29]

WHY WE HOLD TO THE KING JAMES
BIBLE

I. ...BECAUSE OF
THE DOCTRINE OF PRESERVATION.

Dr. Edward F. Hills' The King James Version Defended, ....

2. Consider what the Bible says about faith.

a. (Heb. 11:6) (Rom. 14:23).

b. (Rom. 10:17).

[30-32a]

p. 32b: A SURVEY OF THE DOCTRINE OF BIBLE PRESERVATION

Deuteronomy 31:24-26; 17:18; Romans 3:1-2

Psalm 12:6-7

Psalm 119:89, 152, 160

Proverbs 30:5-6

Isaiah 40:8

Isaiah 59:20-21

Matthew 4:4; Luke 4:4

Matthew 5:18

Matthew 24:35

Matthew 28:18-20; 1 Timothy 3:15; 6:14; 2 Timothy 2:2; 1 Peter 2:9

Acts 20:29-30; 2 Corinthians 11:3-4; 2 Peter 2:1-2; 1 John 2:18; 4:1-2

1 Corinthians 2:12-16; 1 John 2:27

Matthew 11:25; 1 Corinthians 1:26-29

2 Timothy 3:13; Luke 18:8; Matthew 7:14; Luke 12:32

p. 51: a. [typo should read] "...was preserved...."

1 Peter 1:23-25

Revelation 22:18-19
1. ...a dire warning....

THE DOCTRINE OF PRESERVATION AUTHENTICATES
THE...GREEK NEW TESTAMENT
UNDERLYING THE KING JAMES AND OTHER
REFORMATION BIBLES.
[p. 57]

A FOUNDATIONAL FACT

1. Generally speaking, the KJV Greek text was the text commonly used among God's
people through the centuries.

FIVE PERIODS OF CHURCH HISTORY...

THE APOSTOLIC PERIOD -- THE COMPLETION OF THE BIBLE [p. 60]

Dr. Thomas Strouse book

The Lord Hath Spoken: A Guide to Bibliology

1. The New Testament was written under divine inspiration.

2. The New Testament was completed and sealed (Jude 3; Rev. 22:18-19).

3. The New Testament was received.

4. The New Testament was carefully preserved and transmitted to the
next generations
(1 Tim. 6:13-14; Matt. 28:19-20; 2 Tim. 2:2).

5. The New Testament was multiplied and went into all the world (Acts 1:8;
12:24; 19:20; Rom. 10:18; 16:26; Col. 1:6, 23).

6. The New Testament faith and Scriptures were attacked even in the first
century.

7. The New Testament was defended by God's people (Acts 20:27-32; Rom.
16:17; Phil. 3:17; 2 Tim. 3:14-15; 4:2-4; 1 John 2:18-19; 4:1; 2 John 10-11; Jude 3-4).

p. 73: Frederick Nolan, F.H.A. Scrivener, John Burgon testimonies to the severe attack upon the Bible:

p. 90: 5. The...school at ANTIOCH.

THE 4TH TO 10TH CENTURIES -- THE TRADITIONAL TEXT WINS THE
BATTLE
[p. 97]

1. The battle against the apostolic New Testament was fierce and
unrelenting, but the God who gave the Scripture kept it.

2. The persecutions by the Roman emperors...
a. The Gothic Bible (c. 350 A.D.)
b. The Slavonic Bible (c. 850 A.D.)

3. During this period of great my. activity the Alexandrian text was
rejected with great finality and buried in the sands of Egypt, so to speak,
and the Traditional text was multiplied.

THE DARK AGES (11TH TO THE 16TH CENTURY) -- THE PERSECUTION OF
THE BIBLE
[p. 105]

p. 110: b. The Waldenses (also called Vaudois or Albigenses) are an example of what
occurred....

p. 113: The English Bible was persecuted

pp. 114b-115a: (2) WILLIAM TYNDALE (1484-1536)

p. 115b: The Spanish Bible was persecuted

p. 118c: (4) The testimony of the Greek Byzantine Empire

b. The Ancient Versions support the Traditional Text. [p. 120]

THE REFORMATION -- THE PRINTING OF THE BIBLE [p. 126]

The fourth...period

1. God's promise of Preservation tells us that the Bible came out of the Dark Ages intact
(Psalm 100:5; Mat. 24:35; 28:19-20; 1 Pet. 1:25).

2. The Greek New Testament was first printed in 1516 and went through several
editions.

    (1) It is called the RECEIVED TEXT [Textus Receptus in Latin]
    (2) the MAJORITY TEXT
    (3) the TRADITIONAL TEXT (John Burgon's term)
    (4) the COMMON TEXT or KAPPA TEXT
    (5) the BYZANTINE TEXT
    (6) the ANTIOCHIAN TEXT or the SYRIAN TEXT (Hort's term)

p. 127: b. The Greek Received Text was first published by DESIDERIUS ERASMUS (1466-
1536).

p. 133: c. The Greek Received Text was revised by men who separated from Rome.

    (1) ROBERT STEPHANUS (also known as Estienne) published four
    editions of the Greek Received Text

    (2) THEODORE BEZA published ten editions

    (3) A family of Dutch printers named ELZEVIR published two editions

pp. 135b-137a: 3. The Greek Received text and the Hebrew Masoretic text were translated into the
major languages of the world between the 16th and 19th centuries.

II. WE HOLD TO THE KING JAMES BIBLE BECAUSE
THE THEORIES UNDERLYING THE MODERN GREEK
TEXT ARE HERETICAL
[p. 144]

p. 167: WHY WE REJECT MODERN TEXTUAL CRITICISM

Section Summary

  1. ...because its goal is unscriptural.
  2. ...because its theories are strange and unscriptural.
  3. ...because its rules are unsettled and constantly
    changing, and also because the rules are applied in different ways by individual critics.
  4. ...because its fruit has been increasing
    uncertainty and skepticism, a weakening of the authority of Scripture, and the
    promotion of the ecumenical movement.

III. WE HOLD TO THE KING JAMES BIBLE BECAUSE
THE MODERN TEXTS AND VERSIONS ARE A
PRODUCT OF END-TIME APOSTASY
[p. 190]

...warnings about the believer's association
with apostasy: Rom. 16:17-18; 2 Cor. 6:14; Col. 2:8; 1 Tim. 6:20; 2 Tim. 2:16-18; 3:5; 2
John 7-11; Rev. 18:4.

[DWC]... researched this issue at libraries such as....

THE ASSOCIATION BETWEEN APOSTASY AND MODERN
TEXTUAL CRITICISM STATED BY MEN OF GOD

The following are only a few examples of....
Many more...in...book For Love of the Bible: The Battle for the
King James Version and the Received Text from 1800 to Present
, from WOLL.

1. The Testimony of John Burgon and Edward Miller:

2. Robert L. Dabney

3. George Perkins Marsh

4. George Samson, President 1858-71, Columbian College

5. the Trinitarian Bible Society of London, England, which
was formed in 1831 in protest to the liberalism ... root within the
BFBS.

6. the Bible League of England, which was formed in
...1892
:

7. Zane Hod., who was Professor at Dallas Theo. Sem. from 1959-87.

8. Dr. Edward F. Hills, from Harvard University:

A LOOK AT THE APOSTATE CONDITIONS THAT EXISTED IN
EUROPE, ENGLAND, AND (...), AMERICA
WHEN MODERN TEXT. CRI. WAS BEING
FORMULATED

1. The time when modern textual criticism was devised was a time when
THEOLOGICAL LIBERALISM was blossoming.

a. Nominal Christianity....

b. Bibl. criticism had its origin among Romanists who were opposed to the
Prot. Reformation
and....

(1) Richard Simon [fhct] (1638-1712), a French Romanist priest.

(2) Jean Astruc (1684-1766), a French Romanist M.D. & theo.ian.

d. names in theo. modernism.

Johann Gott. Eichhorn (1752-1827) [Lut.an]

H.E.G. Pau. (1761-1851) of Germany, devised naturalistic
explanations for...

Frederick Schleiermacher [Lut.an] (1768-1834) of Halle, Germany, exalted experience
and feeling over...

Ferd. Chr. Baur (1792-1860), founder of the Tuebingen (Germany)
School of...criticism

David F. Strauss (1808-74)

John Stuart Mill (1806-73)

The Graf-Wellhausen theory was named for Julius Well. (1844-1918) &
Karl Hei. Graf (1815-69).

e. The Broad Church movement in the Church of England grew until it dominated
the scene by the end of the 19th century.

p. 200: (6) Many of the members of the English Revised Version translation committee
were within the Broad Church movement, including Westcott and Hort, R.C.
Trench, J.B. Lightfoot, Edward Henry Bickersteth, Benjamin Kennedy, A.P.

Stanley, Charles Ellicott, William Moulton, George Milligan, Robert Payne
Smith, William Humphrey, and Charles John Vaughan.

2. ...was a time when
HUMAN PHILOSOPHY was exalting itself against God's Word.

Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) ...human reason is....

Georg W.F. Hegel (1770-1831) led the German Idealist movement, ...
and holding to a type of pantheism.

In 1784 Ethan Allen published Reason the Only...

In 1795 Thomas Paine...with his book
The Age of Reason.

Soren Kierkegaard (1813-1855).

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) [Lut.an]

Robert Ingersoll attacked the Bible and mocked its miracles...and in
1879 published Some...of Moses.

3. ...was a time when
UNITARIANISM was making great gains.

pp. 204-205: (5) By 1831, only 22 years after its founding, the BFBS
was infected with Unitarianism.
  ....

As a result, the Trinitarian Bible Society was formed on Dec. 7,
1831, by men who were concerned about doctrinal purity.

(3) In 1805 Unitarians took control of Harvard College....

(4) Many of the early textual critics were Unitarians, including Dan. Mace, Johann Wettstein, Alex. Geddes,
Ed. Harwood, Geo. V. Smith, Ezra Abbot, Jos. Hen. Thayer, etc.

4. ...was a time when
EVOLUTION was developing.

a. Charles Darwin's (1809-1882)

b. Thomas Huxley (1825-1893) mocker

5. ...was an hour when
heretical Chr.ian CULTS were blossoming.

  1. MORMONISM (1830) [Joseph Smith]
  2. SEVEN.-DAY ADVENTISM (1844) [Ellen White]
  3. JEH. WIT.ES (1876) [Russellism]
  4. SPIRITUALISM (1848) [K. & Marg. Fox]
  5. 'CHRISTIAN SCIENCE' (1875) [Mary Baker Eddy]
  6. THEOSOPHY (1875) [H. P. Blavatsky]
  7. UNITY SCHOOL OF 'CHR.IANITY' (1889) [Chas. & M. Fillmore]

6. ...was a time when
ROMAN CAT.ISM was making new advances.

...THE APOSTASY OF SOME
OF THE INFLUENTIAL TEXTUAL CRITICS AND MODERN
VERSION TRANSLATORS.

pp. 214-218a: Johann Jakob Griesbach (1745-1812) [German Lutheran]

p. 215: 2. Johann Semler (1725-91) [modernist, Lutheran]

pp. 218b-219a: Friedrich Constantine Von Tischendorf (1815-1874) [Lutheran who turned pro-Romanist]

pp. 219b-221a: George Vance Smith (1816-1902) [Unitarian, ERV]

pp. 221b-227a: BROOKE FOSS WESTCOTT (1825-1901) and FENTON JOHN ANTHONY HORT
(1828-1892) [both ERV]
[CHM note: probably Jesuits.]

Philip Schaff (1819-1893) [German Reformed w/ Romanist tendencies, chairman of ASV]

Ezra Abbot [Unitarian, ASV]

Joseph Henry Thayer (1828-1901) [Unitarian, ASV]

Samuel Rolles Driver (1846-1914) [modernism, ERV OT]

Eberhard Nestle (1851-1913) [Greek CT]

Hermann Freiherr Von Soden (1852-1914) [Greek CT]

p. 233: United Bib. Soc.ies Gr. n. t. (1955-1966) [influenced by W&H,
its text was merged w/ Nestle-Aland in 1975]

Carlo Maria Martini (1927- ) [Jesuit priest, editor UBS Gr. n. t.]

Kurt Aland (1915-1994) [modernism, UBS]

Barbara Aland (1937- ) [modernism, editor UBS Gr. n. t.]

Matthew Black (1908-1995) [modernistic, editor UBS Gr. n. t.]

Johannes Karavidopoulos (c. 1944- ) [Greek Orthodox, liberalism, editor UBS Gr. n. t.]

Bruce Metzger (1914- ) [popular liberal, NRSV]

IV. WE HOLD TO THE KING JAMES BIBLE BECAUSE OF
ITS SUPERIOR DOCTRINE
[p. 251]

Section Summary

1. The allegation by mod. textual criticism that no doctrine is affected

2. The reply to this allegation
   [8 true points.]

3. Conclusion

Further reading on this topic: (1) D.A. Waite, Defending the King James Bible.
(2) Jack Moorman. (4) Everett Fowler.

V. WE HOLD TO THE KING JAMES BIBLE BECAUSE OF
ITS UNMATCHED HERITAGE (from the Wyc. of
1384 to the KJV of 1611)
[p. 282]

...and the Lollards and their
Persecution
[pp. 299-306a]

THE TYNDALE NEW TESTAMENT [p. 306b]

pp. 307-309a: Tyndale's Times

pp. 309b-310a: William Tyndale's Early Life

pp. 310b-313a: Tyndale's Education and Life's Goal

pp. 313b-314a: Tyndale's Doctrine

pp. 314b-315a: Tyndale's Life and Character

pp. 315b-321a: Tyndale's Translation Work

pp. 321b-322a: Tyndale's other Writings

pp. 322b-327a: Tyndale's Imprisonment and Death

pp. 327b-332: Tyndale's Influence

pp. 333-335a: THE COVERDALE BIBLE (1535)

pp. 335b-337a: THE MATTHEW'S BIBLE (1537)

pp. 337b-338a: THE GREAT BIBLE (1539)

pp. 338b-341a: THE GENEVA BIBLE (1557, 1560)

THE KING JAMES BIBLE (1611) [p. 341b]

The Proposal and Authorization

p. 342: e. ...was the Gunpowder Plot.

pp. 345b-346a: The Spiritual Climate for the Translation

p. 346b: The Literary Climate for the Translation

pp. 347-351a: The Scholarly Climate for the Translation

pp. 351b-355a: The Translation Process

pp. 355b-363a, 363b-366: The Translators

p. 367a: The Printing
https://www.drgenescott.org/stn27.htm

p. 367b: The Nature of the Translation

p. 375: Tyndale's Influence upon the KJV

pp. 379-380: The KJB's Worldwide Influence

pp. 381-382: 1. Was the King James Bible Authorized? [Yes]

pp. 399-400: i. There are many tools available to help people understand the KJV.
[CHM note: See tools.]

A Brief Textual Checklist [pp. 405-409]

A Basic Bible Version Library [pp. 410-416]

pp. 410, 411, 413: David Cloud [B]

pp. 410, 415: Jack Moorman [B]

p. 410: Donald A. Waite [B]

p. 411: Everett W. Fowler [B]

p. 412: Edward F. Hills

p. 413: John Burgon

p. 414: Dr. David Sorenson [B]

[B] = Baptist

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