A Letter of Concern
By Prophet Jacob R. Blandford
I want to express my concerns
about something I’ve seen not only at your church but at almost all Christian
churches today. And this concern is
related to Bible versions. You may or
may not know but there are about 230 different versions of the Bible in
English. Most of them not agreeing with
one another or contradicting. I consider
that ridiculous and chaotic. “For God is not the author of confusion, but of peace, as in all churches of the
saints.” (1 Cor. 14:33) I don’t believe God is the author of all
those versions. The Holy Bible itself
predicted those who would pervert the word of God in Jeremiah 23:36; and
Paul spoke of those who corrupted it in 2 Corinthians 2:17. Such monkeying
around with God’s holy words is a disaster according to the end of the Bible,
Revelation 22:18-19: “For I testify unto
every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of
this book, If any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the
plagues that are written in this book: And if any man shall take away from the
words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the
book of life, and out of the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book.” I do however believe we still have “the holy scriptures” (Rom. 1:2; 2 Tim. 3:15) in English with the King James Bible. The KJV isn’t based on the same manuscripts
as the modern 20th century versions.
The King James is a product of the Protestant Reformation in England and is based of the Textus Receptus manuscripts, or the ‘Received Text’, or the
Majority Text. It is called the Majority
Text because there are thousands of mss extant which
consistently agree with one another. The
two ‘oddball’ mss are the Vaticanus (B) and Sinaiticus
(א), they are from Alexandria, Egypt in the 4th century, these two documents disagree with the Majority
text AND each other. Some philosophers
(see Col. 2:8) like Origen got a hold of the
Scriptures are changed what they didn’t like about them. Dean Burgon extensively
studied these two mss and found them to be vastly sloppy,
erroneous, and corrupt. However, because
these two manuscripts are old—scholars love them and practically idolize them. Vaticanus came from the Pope’s library in the
Vatican. Ms B
(Vaticanus) omits Genesis 1:1-46:28, Psalms 106-138, Matthew 16:2-3, Romans
16:24, the Pauline Pastoral Epistles, Hebrews 9:14-13:25, and all of the Book
of Revelation. Sinaiticus
came from a monastery on the Sinai
Peninsula. א adds ‘Shepherd of Hermes’ and
‘Epistle to Barnabus’ to the New Testament. I believe the word of God teaches that not
only the original autographs are inspired, but all God-preserved copies and
translations are also inspired. Satan,
ever since the Garden of Eden, has attacked the word of God: “Yea, hath God
said...?” (Genesis 3:1) When Jesus
Christ and the apostles read and quoted Scripture, they weren’t handling the
originals, but meticulous copies. Paul
said young Timothy had the inspired Holy Scriptures, “And that from a child thou hast known the holy
scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through
faith which is in Christ Jesus. All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for
instruction in righteousness” (2 Tim. 3:15-16). Because God has promised to preserve His
words (see Psalm 12:6-7), we don’t have to fear that they’ve been lost: however,
we ought to avoid that which has been corrupted. Mss B and א first plunged on the scene
with Westcott and Hort’s English Revised Version
(ERV). Those that have studied the lives
of these two men have found it difficult to believe they were actually
God-fearing, born-again evangelicals. The
U.S. counterpart of the ERV was the ASV which came out in 1901;
again the ASV was based on the authority of Laodicean apostate scholars’ two
new darling manuscripts Vaticanus and Sinaiticus. Because of the depraved nature of these two Alexandrian mss, the Jehovah’s Witnesses’ NWT
is based off of Westcott and Hort’s Greek text. The JW’s selected
this text because it agrees with Arian views of Christ. Yes, the documents attack the Deity of the
Lord Jesus Christ in John 1:18. Though B
and Aleph are relatively ‘new’ discoveries, their text is old, outdated, and
depraved. The 1611 translators had
access to the Alexandrian readings via the 1582 Jesuit Rheims bible and the
Latin Vulgate; however they rejected these readings and stayed with the
Majority Text and other good English Bibles such as the Tyndale,
Thomas Matthew, Great Bible, Geneva, and the Bishop’s Bible. Mr. John Bois, one of the 54 1611
translators, read the Hebrew Bible at the age of five. I’m against new versions of the Bible because
new versions of the Bible attack the fundamentals of the Christian faith. For example: “blood” is omitted from
Colossians 1:14—denying the blood atonement of Christ. “God” is removed from 1 Timothy 3:16—a massive denial of the deity of Jesus Christ. In Acts 27:23 we read about “the angel of God” (KJV) in the new
versions it’s “an angel of God”. The NIV gives the devil Christ’s “morning
star” title in Isaiah 14:12. In John
9:35, in the KJV, Jesus Christ refers to Himself as “the Son of God”; new
versions destroy His divinity with “the Son of man”. In Daniel 11:38 the 400 year old 1611 text
tells us the Antichrist will honor a God of “forces”, in the new versions it’s
“fortresses”—that doesn’t hurt Star Wars fans as much as the KJV. In Ephesians 3:9 Christ’s role in creation is
rejected by new versions: “by Jesus Christ” has been removed. In Galatians 3:1 “that ye should not obey the
truth” is removed in the NIV and others.
The NIV and NKJV replaced “Jesus” with “Joshua” in Acts 7:45 and Hebrews 4:8.
The NIV and NKJV deny the virgin birth in Acts 4:27, 30, they read “your
holy servant Jesus” while the KJV says “thy holy child Jesus”. When St. Stephen addresses the Sanhedrin in
Acts 7:30, he mentions “an angel of the Lord”; but in the NIV it’s simply “an
angel”. Jesus’ words “even the Son of
man which is in heaven” (John 3:13
KJV) are chopped off by the new versions.
Micah 5:2 tells us Jesus Christ is “from everlasting” in the King James,
but in the NIV His eternality is denied with “ancient times”. This is merely a SMALL sample of the corruptions
and falsifications, and downright blasphemy of modern Bibles. I could go on and on with approximately 500
corruptions of the King James Text that have been picked up on. I believe this issue is VERY important, but unfortunately
I also know this Church age ends in apostasy: “Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come,
except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the
son of perdition” (2 Thess. 2:3). There are lots of good books about the Bible
versions available if you’re interested in more information.