Article by: Kenneth J. Ester
Is the King James Bible the Only Good Bible?
When the original manuscripts were written, they were undoubtedly the inerrant word of God. However, they did not have printing presses in the first century. When the books were completed, if someone wanted a copy, they had to get a hold of the original and hand it off to the scribes and have them re-write the entire book, word for word. Let me be clear here. The scribes were not inspired by the Holy Spirit.
The scribes took their jobs very serious, but they were still human. They made mistakes. On occasion they would even make changes intentionally, either switching one word out for another that fit their times or common phrases better, or sometimes they would add a sentences trying to clarify things better.
Far more often than not, if someone important wanted their own copy of a book, they could not get a hold of the original. In these cases, they would find another copy and make their copy from that copy. Any changes or mistakes in that copy were copied and compounded by the changes or mistakes that copyist made.
In 1611, when they translated the Bible into English, they had a near impossible task. Through the many manuscripts they had at their disposal, they had to contend with thousands of differences. With each difference, they had to use intelligence and wisdom to puzzle out what was correct. Then on top of that near impossible task, they had to translate the words from Greek, Hebrew and Latin as well as a few other languages, into English. Neither the scribes, nor the translators were under divine inspiration!
I have never read it myself, but to my understanding, which I believe is correct, the original version of the 1611 KJV Bible had a foreword from the translators stating that what they have put forth is not complete and is not perfect. It says that to truly get the perfect Word of God, we would need to continue to translate for many years to come as more information and more knowledge becomes available. So even the original translators admitted the KJV Bible was flawed.
Though it is not perfect, the translators did an absolutely amazing job and even today, over 400 years later, it is still one of the most accurate versions of the Bible we have. But it is not the best. There are flaws in the translation, as well with problems of using the English style of language from the 1600's which nobody uses today except in connection to the KJV Bible. There are words from that day that we do not even use anymore. There are words that have changed their definition completely. Though the KJV Bible is still a top version, and clearly the most popular version today, it is not the most accurate or trustworthy version.
There are many memes out there teaching how other versions take verses out. Usually these memes compare the KJV and the NIV Bible. Which is flawed right from the beginning because the NIV is not an accurate Bible word for word. It is meant to be a good Bible for reading (thought for thought) and not for studying. Those memes try to portray that the NIV removed the verses out of some dark desire to corrupt the Word of God. The truth is just the opposite.
Today we literally have thousands more manuscripts than they had in 1611. Many of them are much older. They have found that in the oldest manuscripts, those verses are not there. Scholars believe that the originals did not have those verses and at one point a scribe added them. So the problem is not that some versions took verses out of the Word of God. The problem is that the KJV keeps verses that were not in the original manuscripts.
Neither the KJV, NIV nor any other version is bad just because of those verses. The truth is, those verses do not change anything in what any version teaches. If you study from one or the other, you will still likely come to the same conclusions. In fact, you are more likely to be misled by the KJV than the NIV, simply because the KJV has not been updating itself to fix problems when they have been found.
Take 2 Thessalonians 2:2 for instance. In the KJV it uses the term "day of Christ". Nearly every other version today uses "day of the Lord", simply because they have found that all the oldest manuscripts we have today use that term and not "day of Christ". At one point a scribe must have decided that "day of Christ" fit the lingo of his time better and didn't think it would make any difference. The truth is, it is a very huge difference.
If you take the two terms and search for them in any Bible app, you find interesting results. The "day of Christ" always refers to the rapture or Second Coming. The "day of the Lord" however, always refers to God's anger or God's wrath.
With that understanding, and knowing the originals likely had "day of the Lord", 2 Thessalonians 2 is not saying that the Second Coming or Rapture is at hand. It is saying the day of God's wrath is at hand. If you read this article, you will see how great a difference that makes.
2 Thessalonians 2
The simple truth is, the original manuscripts were the inerrant Word of God. Today we only have the "True" word of God. We have it around 99.5% accurate but it is not perfect. What little there is wrong between versions, is not enough to lead anyone astray if they compare versions as they study. No one version is perfect and nobody should study only one version. To do so limits you to the same mistakes they have in them. By comparing them as well as using the Lexicon, it is possible to learn God's truth and not man's interpretation.
To be clear however, I am not saying there are no bad versions of the Bible and you can trust them all. There are indeed some bad versions. It is always best to stick to the most common and trusted versions. The KJV, NASB, ESV, NIV are all very trustworthy versions. But the KJV is not the only trustworthy version. It is not inerrant, and the other versions did not remove verses trying to corrupt God's Word. It is the KJV that has verses that most scholars believe were not in the originals.
Satanists Involvement?
Some push the belief that other versions had satanists involved in translating them and such nonsense. They claim these satanists are the ones trying to corrupt the Bible.
I have never seen or found any evidence on that. I have found several articles claiming it but not one of them have given any real evidence of it. The closest evidence I have found is that some of the versions of the Bible will use publishers to distribute their bibles. These publishers not being Christians themselves may have also published the Satanic Bible as well. These publishers are non-religious entities. They are not for or against the Satanists nor are they for or against Christianity. They see them as books to publish and make money off of. They are not going to make changes to the books without the authors knowledge, for if they did that and it was discovered? Every client that had any self respect would change publishers and that company would go under.
The scribes took their jobs very serious, but they were still human. They made mistakes. On occasion they would even make changes intentionally, either switching one word out for another that fit their times or common phrases better, or sometimes they would add a sentences trying to clarify things better.
Far more often than not, if someone important wanted their own copy of a book, they could not get a hold of the original. In these cases, they would find another copy and make their copy from that copy. Any changes or mistakes in that copy were copied and compounded by the changes or mistakes that copyist made.
In 1611, when they translated the Bible into English, they had a near impossible task. Through the many manuscripts they had at their disposal, they had to contend with thousands of differences. With each difference, they had to use intelligence and wisdom to puzzle out what was correct. Then on top of that near impossible task, they had to translate the words from Greek, Hebrew and Latin as well as a few other languages, into English. Neither the scribes, nor the translators were under divine inspiration!
I have never read it myself, but to my understanding, which I believe is correct, the original version of the 1611 KJV Bible had a foreword from the translators stating that what they have put forth is not complete and is not perfect. It says that to truly get the perfect Word of God, we would need to continue to translate for many years to come as more information and more knowledge becomes available. So even the original translators admitted the KJV Bible was flawed.
Though it is not perfect, the translators did an absolutely amazing job and even today, over 400 years later, it is still one of the most accurate versions of the Bible we have. But it is not the best. There are flaws in the translation, as well with problems of using the English style of language from the 1600's which nobody uses today except in connection to the KJV Bible. There are words from that day that we do not even use anymore. There are words that have changed their definition completely. Though the KJV Bible is still a top version, and clearly the most popular version today, it is not the most accurate or trustworthy version.
There are many memes out there teaching how other versions take verses out. Usually these memes compare the KJV and the NIV Bible. Which is flawed right from the beginning because the NIV is not an accurate Bible word for word. It is meant to be a good Bible for reading (thought for thought) and not for studying. Those memes try to portray that the NIV removed the verses out of some dark desire to corrupt the Word of God. The truth is just the opposite.
Today we literally have thousands more manuscripts than they had in 1611. Many of them are much older. They have found that in the oldest manuscripts, those verses are not there. Scholars believe that the originals did not have those verses and at one point a scribe added them. So the problem is not that some versions took verses out of the Word of God. The problem is that the KJV keeps verses that were not in the original manuscripts.
Neither the KJV, NIV nor any other version is bad just because of those verses. The truth is, those verses do not change anything in what any version teaches. If you study from one or the other, you will still likely come to the same conclusions. In fact, you are more likely to be misled by the KJV than the NIV, simply because the KJV has not been updating itself to fix problems when they have been found.
Take 2 Thessalonians 2:2 for instance. In the KJV it uses the term "day of Christ". Nearly every other version today uses "day of the Lord", simply because they have found that all the oldest manuscripts we have today use that term and not "day of Christ". At one point a scribe must have decided that "day of Christ" fit the lingo of his time better and didn't think it would make any difference. The truth is, it is a very huge difference.
If you take the two terms and search for them in any Bible app, you find interesting results. The "day of Christ" always refers to the rapture or Second Coming. The "day of the Lord" however, always refers to God's anger or God's wrath.
With that understanding, and knowing the originals likely had "day of the Lord", 2 Thessalonians 2 is not saying that the Second Coming or Rapture is at hand. It is saying the day of God's wrath is at hand. If you read this article, you will see how great a difference that makes.
2 Thessalonians 2
The simple truth is, the original manuscripts were the inerrant Word of God. Today we only have the "True" word of God. We have it around 99.5% accurate but it is not perfect. What little there is wrong between versions, is not enough to lead anyone astray if they compare versions as they study. No one version is perfect and nobody should study only one version. To do so limits you to the same mistakes they have in them. By comparing them as well as using the Lexicon, it is possible to learn God's truth and not man's interpretation.
To be clear however, I am not saying there are no bad versions of the Bible and you can trust them all. There are indeed some bad versions. It is always best to stick to the most common and trusted versions. The KJV, NASB, ESV, NIV are all very trustworthy versions. But the KJV is not the only trustworthy version. It is not inerrant, and the other versions did not remove verses trying to corrupt God's Word. It is the KJV that has verses that most scholars believe were not in the originals.
Satanists Involvement?
Some push the belief that other versions had satanists involved in translating them and such nonsense. They claim these satanists are the ones trying to corrupt the Bible.
I have never seen or found any evidence on that. I have found several articles claiming it but not one of them have given any real evidence of it. The closest evidence I have found is that some of the versions of the Bible will use publishers to distribute their bibles. These publishers not being Christians themselves may have also published the Satanic Bible as well. These publishers are non-religious entities. They are not for or against the Satanists nor are they for or against Christianity. They see them as books to publish and make money off of. They are not going to make changes to the books without the authors knowledge, for if they did that and it was discovered? Every client that had any self respect would change publishers and that company would go under.
