Republished June 9, 2009 (first published November 13, 2006) (David Cloud, Fundamental Baptist Information Service, P.O. Box 610368, Port Huron, MI 48061, 866-295-4143, fbns@wayoflife.org; for instructions about subscribing and unsubscribing or changing addresses, see the information paragraph at the end of the article) -

The evolutionist would have me put aside my biblical presuppositions when I study the natural record and the textual critic would have me put them aside when I study the manuscript record, but I will not put biblical presuppositions aside for any reason. As David W. Norris wisely observes: “We have a clear choice between one of two diverging pathways, the road of faith or the road of human reason and unbelief. Do we begin with the Word of God or do we begin with the word of men? This is the question and it has in the first instance little to do with texts, but with the faithfulness of our God. ... For it to be of any use, textual study must be grounded upon what the Bible already says about itself. If we do not begin with the Word of God, we shall never end with it!” (Norris, The Big Picture).

EIGHT BIBLICAL PRESUPPOSITIONS FOR APPROACHING THE BIBLE VERSION ISSUE

1. I BELIEVE IN THE SUFFICIENCY OF SCRIPTURE (2 Tim. 3:16-17).

The Bible contains everything that we need for faith and practice. It is able to make the believer “perfect, throughly furnished unto all good works.” Obviously, then, nothing else is necessary. I do not have to rely on priests or scholars or tradition or extra biblical sources.

2. I BELIEVE IN THE SOUL LIBERTY OF THE BELIEVER, meaning that each believer can know the truth for himself and is responsible to test everything by God’s Word (Acts 17:11; 1 Cor. 2:15-16; 1 Thess. 5:21).

Thus, it is evident that the child of God can make his own decision in the important matter of the Bible text-version issue. I do not ask my readers to depend on me and to follow my teaching; I ask them simply to prove all things and hold fast that which is good and to receive my teaching with all readiness of mind and to search the Scriptures daily whether these things are so.

December 4, 2008 (David Cloud, Fundamental Baptist Information Service, P.O. Box 610368, Port Huron, MI 48061, 866-295-4143, fbns@wayoflife.org; for instructions about subscribing and unsubscribing or changing addresses, see the information paragraph at the end of the article) -

TEXTUAL CRITICISM IS DRAWN FROM THE WELLS OF INFIDELITY

Updated October 30, 2008 (updated May 19, 2002; first published April 16, 1999) (David Cloud, Fundamental Baptist Information Service, P.O. Box 610368, Port Huron, MI 48061, 866-295-4143, fbns@wayoflife.org; for instructions about subscribing and unsubscribing or changing addresses, see the information paragraph at the end of the article) –

Through diligent and long research into the subject of Bible texts and versions, I have come to the conviction that modern textual criticism is infidelity. Most of the men who developed the theories of textual criticism in an attempt to overthrow that “tyrannous” Received Text (as some of them called it), were rationalists who denied the supernatural inspiration of Holy Scripture. Men like the Baptist A.T. Robertson and Presbyterian B.B. Warfield did not develop textual criticism, but merely rehashed and passed along that which they received from the rationalistic fathers in this field. The vast majority of the men who have written the influential works on textual criticism in the 19th and 20th centuries are rationalists. The Presbyterian leader Robert Dabney, who stood against theological modernism in the 1800s in America, warned that the evangelicals of his day had adopted textual criticism “from the mint of infidel rationalism.” The same is true today. The vast majority of the textual critics are Modernists or New Evangelicals at best (Fuller Theological Seminary, etc.). Some Bible-believing fundamentalists have adopted textual criticism, but they did not create it.

A wide variety of Bible-believing men from the past two centuries have made the same observation. Let me give some examples.

18TH- AND 19TH-CENTURY BRITISH BIBLE BELIEVERS UNDERSTOOD THE CONNECTION BETWEEN TEXTUAL CRITICISM AND MODERNISM

I will begin with men in 19th-century Britain. It was from these men that I first began to understand the rationalistic position of textual criticism. Several years ago, I dedicated myself for several months to researching the battle for the Bible in 19th-century Britain. Those men were much closer to the theological battles surrounding the origin of modern textual criticism. Large numbers of King James Bible defenders in 19th-century Britain understood the theological apostasy associated with the critical Greek texts. The fruit of my research into that era appeared in the book For Love of the Bible, which we published in 1995. The following is a brief summary, beginning at the start of the 19th century.

In 1819, HENRY JOHN TODD, chaplain to the king of England and keeper of the Archbishop of Canterbury’s records, published A Vindication of Our Authorized Translation and Translators of the Bible. This work was occasioned by the clamor of some that wanted to correct the Received Greek New Testament and the King James Bible by modern textual criticism. This clamoring gradually increased among a relatively small segment of influential scholars as the 19th century progressed and resulted, ultimately, in the Westcott-Hort Greek New Testament and the English Revised Version of 1881. Todd understood that modern textual criticism was intimately associated with theological heresy. I searched for a copy of Todd’s treatise for five years and finally located it in the British Library. Consider the following important excerpt:

“For when we see men of the most latitudinarian principles uniformly pressing forward this dangerous proposal; when we see the most unbounded panegyrics bestowed on those, who have converted the Mosaic history into allegory, and the New Testament into Socinianism; when we see these attempts studiously fostered, and applauded, by the advocates for this projected [Bible] revision; we must conjecture, that something more is meant than a correction of mistakes, or an improvement of diction. Those doctrines, the demolition of which we know to be, in late instances, the grand object of such innovators when they propose alterations in articles of faith, or correction of liturgical forms, are surely in still greater danger when attempted, by the same men, under the distant approaches of a revision of our English Bible (Todd, A Vindication of Our Authorized Translation and Translators of the Bible, 1819, pp. 79,80).

Todd and a vast number of other 18th- and 19th-century Christian scholars and preachers understood that the field of textual criticism was dominated by and was promoted by men who were infected with theological modernism. Twentieth-century textual criticism has merely built upon this skeptical foundation. James White, in his book The King James Only Controversy, claims this is the figment of a Ruckmanite’s imagination, but he can only say that by ignoring history. In the early part of the 19th century, the critical Greek text was successfully resisted precisely on the same basis upon which the King James Bible defender today resists the modern texts and versions, but by the end of that same century, it was accepted. Someone might ask, “Why did the Westcott-Hort text eventually prevail?” The answer is not hard to find. Theological rationalism spread like ivy. There is a saying about ivy that describes it growth stages: it sleeps; it creeps; it leaps. That is what happened with modernism. It was planted in the 18th century and slept for some time. It began to creep in the early 19th century; and from the middle to the end of the century, it was spreading like wildfire across the Christian landscape. By the end of the century, it was so well entrenched in high places of Christian scholarship in British Protestant and Baptist denominations that it was able to win the day. Not only were many scholars themselves afflicted with modernistic views of the Bible, but a vast number of others, not themselves modernistic in theology, were nonetheless too spiritually weak to resist modernism. Instead, they were willing to work hand-in-hand with the modernists, ignoring God’s warnings, “evil communications corrupt good manners” and “a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump.” We see this in the Baptist Union of Spurgeon’s day. He took his stand and left the Union in 1887, but most of the men who claimed to hold the same view of the Bible that Spurgeon held refused to discipline the Modernists or to separate from them. In practice, they were forerunners of the New Evangelicals of our century. Spurgeon described the wretched situation in 1887 England with these powerful words:

“Believers in Christ’s atonement are now in declared union with those who make light of it; believers in Holy Scripture are in confederacy with those who deny plenary inspiration; those who hold evangelical doctrine are in open alliance with those who call the fall a fable, who deny the personality of the Holy Ghost, who call justification by faith immoral, and hold that there is another probation after death. … Yes, we have before us the wretched spectacle of professedly orthodox Christians publicly avowing their union with those who deny the faith, and scarcely concealing their contempt for those who cannot be guilty of such gross disloyalty to Christ. To be very plain, we are unable to call these things Christian Unions, they begin to look like Confederacies in Evil” (Sword and Trowel, November 1887).

Spurgeon’s battles against modernism within the Baptist Union occurred at precisely the same time that the English Revised Version and the Westcott-Hort Greek Text was being prepared, and the same battle was being fought (and lost) in other denominations, including Anglicanism, Congregationalism, Presbyterianism, and Methodism. (An excellent overview of this is found in The Forgotten Spurgeon by Iain Murray, Edinburgh: Banner of Truth Trust, 2nd edition 1973). In other words, apostasy had effectively prepared the way for the modern text and versions. The men we describe in our book For Love of the Bible, who fought earnestly against the Westcott-Hort Greek text (and its predecessors) and the English Revised Version, understood these facts and were on the side of truth on those days.

The next example I will give is THE BIBLE LEAGUE of England. This organization was formed in 1892 to resist the tide of apostasy that was sweeping across the Protestant landscape in late 19th century Britain. In an article detailing the history of the Bible League, S.M. Houghton XE "Houghton, S.M." connects its origin with the “Downgrade Controversy” that C.H. Spurgeon fought in the 1880s and 1890s. Spurgeon’s death in 1892 galvanized the convictions of some in the battle against Rationalism. The Bible League was formed later that same year. The Bible League Quarterly XE "Bible League Quarterly" began to be published in 1912. They describe the spread of apostasy from the 1890s until now in these words:

“Spurgeon’s days saw apostasy as a trickle; by the time of the Bible League’s foundation [1892] it had become a stream; shortly it expanded to a river, and today it has become a veritable ocean of unbelief. For the most of men the ancient landmarks have disappeared from sight. Life upon earth has become a voyage on an uncharted ocean in a cockle-shell boat ‘tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine.’ Never before in human history has the ‘sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive’ (Eph. 4:14) been so greatly in evidence. ‘Evil men and seducers wax worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived’ (2 Tim. 3:13)” (S.M. Houghton XE "Houghton, S.M." , “The Bible League: Its Origin and Its Aims” 1971, Truth Unchanged, Unchanging, Abingdon: The Bible League, 1984).

Men associated with the Bible League understood that the stew of modern textual criticism was cooked up in this pot of end-time theological confusion.

“In the eighteenth century Religious Rationalism XE "Modernism" was begotten in Germany and began to spread in its Universities. It has influenced and debased the theological thought in almost the whole of Protestant Christendom. ... The Father of this new revolutionary attitude to the Word of the Lord and the Lord of the Word was J.S. Semler XE "Semler, J.S." (1725-91), Professor of Theology at Halle. One of his pupils, J.J. Griesbach XE "Griesbach, J.J." (1745-1812) was appointed Professor of the New Testament at Jena in 1775. ... It should not be surprising, nor should it be overlooked, that GRIESBACH, INFLUENCED FROM HIS UNDERGRADUATE DAYS BY THE RISING TIDE OF RATIONALISM SWEEPING OVER HIS COUNTRY, WAS A FOE OF ORTHODOX CHRISTIANITY. HE ABANDONED THE TEXTUS RECEPTUS XE "Received Text" , AND CONSTRUCTED A NEW GREEK NEW TESTAMENT TEXT” (emphasis added) (D.A. Thompson, The Controversy Concerning the Last Twelve Verses of the Gospel according to Mark, Surrey: The Bible Christian Unity Fellowship, pp. 39-40; reprint of four articles which appeared in The Bible League Quarterly, London, 1973).

The Bible League recognized that the Received Text XE "Received Text" was first rejected not by a Bible-believing evangelical, but by a Modernist, by a foe of orthodox Christianity! John P. Thackway (1950- ), who has been Editor of the Quarterly since 1993, told us that since its inception the Bible League “has stood for the TR XE "Received Text" and AV position, and from time to time since the Quarterly was first published in 1912 articles relative to this would have appeared.”

Next, we quote from the TRINITARIAN BIBLE SOCIETY (TBS) XE "Trinitarian Bible Society" , which has examined these matters carefully since its formation in 1831. In fact, the TBS was formed in the midst of a battle against theological rationalism. The founders of the TBS were originally in the British & Foreign Bible Society (which was founded in 1804). They protested the presence of Unitarians within the BFBS, and when the majority of BFBS members supported the Unitarians, men of strong conviction obeyed the Bible and separated themselves from the BFBS. They founded the TBS as an alternative Bible society for the publication and distribution of sound Scriptures. The Trinitarian Bible Society warns that modern textual criticism is founded upon Rationalism XE "Modernism" .

“Textual Criticism, the evaluation of the actual manuscripts in the ancient languages, the preparation of printed editions of the Hebrew and Greek Text, and the modern translations now being made in English and many other languages, are very largely conducted under the direction or influence of scholars who by their adoption of these erroneous theories have betrayed the unreliability of their judgment in these vital matters. WE MUST NOT PERMIT OUR JUDGMENT TO BE OVERAWED BY GREAT NAMES IN THE REALM OF BIBLICAL ‘SCHOLARSHIP’ WHEN IT IS SO CLEARLY EVIDENT THAT THE DISTINGUISHED SCHOLARS OF THE PRESENT CENTURY ARE MERELY REPRODUCING THE CASE PRESENTED BY RATIONALISTS DURING THE LAST TWO HUNDRED YEARS. Nor should we fail to recognise that scholarship of this kind has degenerated into a skeptical crusade against the Bible, tending to lower it to the level of an ordinary book of merely human composition” (Terance Brown, If the Foundations Be Destroyed, T.B.S Article No. 14, p. 13).

Bible believers of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries were busy rejoicing in, preaching, and obeying the Scriptures, and carrying the Scriptures to the ends of the earth through missionary endeavors. Contrariwise, the textual critics were entertaining unbelieving theories of rationalism XE "Modernism" . Flying in the face of the doctrine of preservation, they XE "Preservation, Bible" rejected the Traditional Text XE "Received Text" that had been handed down to them by Bible-believing Christians. Instead of busying themselves with obeying the Lord’s Great Commission to carry the Gospel to the every creature, they groped around in dark monasteries and papal libraries trying to rediscover the Scriptures which they supposed had been corrupted through the transmission of time. Their ears were attuned to the vain philosophies emanating from Germany, and they were wickedly applying secular principles of textual criticism to the Holy Scriptures.

That old British war-horse JOHN BURGON (1813-1888), who held several high degrees from Oxford University and who was one of the foremost biblical scholars of his day, understood this perfectly well. Three false movements were eating at Britain XE "England" ’s spiritual foundation in the nineteenth century--Darwinism XE "Darwinism" , Modernism XE "Modernism" , and Romanism—and XE "Roman Catholic" Burgon XE "Burgon, John" stood decidedly against all three. One of the hallmarks of Burgon’s ministry XE "Goulburn, Edward" was his exalted view of Holy Scripture. It was his love for the Bible that produced his fierce opposition toward every form of rationalism. Burgon gave Modernism absolutely no quarter. He refused to be quiet about it. He refused to treat it kindly. He refused to be patient with it. When articles began to be published at Oxford in 1860 casting doubt upon the inerrancy of Scripture, Burgon XE "Burgon, John" , who had been appointed the same year as Select Preacher of the University, presented a series of messages in defense of the verbal, plenary inspiration XE "Inspiration" of the Bible. I certainly am not sympathetic with much that Anglicanism stands for, and Burgon was an Anglican, but there is no doubt in my mind that this man loved the Bible and had a passion to defend it against its enemies.

An excerpt from Sermon II illustrates Burgon’s zeal for the supernatural inspiration of the Bible and against modern biblical criticism:

DESTROY MY CONFIDENCE IN THE BIBLE AS AN HISTORICAL RECORD, AND YOU DESTROY MY CONFIDENCE IN IT ALTOGETHER; FOR BY FAR THE LARGEST PART OF THE BIBLE IS AN HISTORICAL RECORD. If the Creation of Man,—the longevity of the Patriarchs,—the account of the Deluge;—if these be not true histories, what is to be said of the lives of Abraham, of Jacob, of Joseph, of Moses XE "Moses" , of Joshua, of David,—of our Saviour Christ Himself? ... Will you then reject one miracle and retain another? Impossible! You can make no reservation, even in favour of the Incarnation of our Lord,—the most adorable of all miracles, as it is the very keystone of our Christian hope. EITHER, WITH THE BEST AND WISEST OF ALL AGES, YOU MUST BELIEVE THE WHOLE OF HOLY SCRIPTURE; OR, WITH THE NARROW-MINDED INFIDEL, YOU MUST DISBELIEVE THE WHOLE. THERE IS NO MIDDLE COURSE OPEN TO YOU (Burgon, Sermon II, p. 46).

What exactly did Burgon believe about the Bible’s inspiration? Consider this statement from Sermon III:

I am asked whether I believe the words of the Bible to be inspired,—I answer, To be sure I do,—every one of them: and every syllable likewise. Do not you?—Where,—(if it be a fair question,)—Where do you, in your wisdom, stop? The book, you allow, is inspired. How about the chapters? How about the verses? Do you stop at the verses, and not go on to the words? ... No, Sirs! THE BIBLE (BE PERSUADED) IS THE VERY UTTERANCE OF THE ETERNAL;—AS MUCH GOD’S WORD, AS IF HIGH HEAVEN WERE OPEN, AND WE HEARD GOD SPEAKING TO US WITH HUMAN VOICE. Every book of it, is inspired alike; and is inspired entirely. ... THE BIBLE IS NONE OTHER THAN THE VOICE OF HIM THAT SITTETH UPON THE THRONE! EVERY BOOK OF IT,—EVERY CHAPTER OF IT,—EVERY VERSE OF IT,—EVERY WORD OF IT,—EVERY SYLLABLE OF IT,—(WHERE ARE WE TO STOP?)—EVERY LETTER OF IT—IS THE DIRECT UTTERANCE OF THE MOST HIGH! ... ‘Well spake the Holy Ghost, by the mouth of’ the many blessed Men who wrote it.—The Bible is none other than the Word of God: not some part of it, more, some part of it, less; but all alike, the utterance of Him who sitteth upon the Throne;—absolute,—faultless,—unerring,—supreme! (Sermon III, pp. 75,76,89).

Oxford University was the most exalted institution of higher learning in all of Britain XE "England" . What we see in the previous excerpts is one of the most brilliant scholars of the nineteenth century boldly testifying of his faith in an infallible Bible before the student body of this august university. We can be sure that such an uncompromising testimony has not been heard at that university in this entire century. Burgon XE "Burgon, John" ’s views did not prevail. His earnest pleas were ignored. The soul-destroying gloom of rationalism XE "Modernism" settled over Oxford as it has over much of Christianity. This is the apostasy of the last hours. Modern textual criticism has worked hand-in-hand with rationalistic apostasy since its inception.

Burgon dedicated his brilliant scholarship to the task of defeating heretical views of the Bible. He made several tours of European libraries, examining and collating New Testament manuscripts wherever he went. He visited the Vatican Library in 1860 to examine the Vaticanus XE "Vaticanus" . In 1862, he traveled to Mt. Sinai to inspect manuscripts at St. Catherine’s XE "St. Catherine’s" . Edward Hills XE "Hills, Edward F." notes the purpose of these travels: “Being driven by the desire to get to the bottom of the false statements being made by the reigning Critics of his day, Burgon devoted the last 30 years of his life to disprove them. Believing firmly that God had providentially preserved the true text of the New Testament, he set out to discover how the depraved and corrupt readings developed. This required him to travel widely” (E.F. Hills, “A Biographical Sketch of the Life of Burgon,” Unholy Hands on the Bible: Vol. 1, Jay Green, ed., p. xix).

John Burgon observed a close kinship between biblical criticism and textual criticism. These are sometimes called higher and lower criticism. He said:

“That which distinguishes Sacred Science from every other Science which can be named is that it is Divine, and has to do with a Book which is inspired; that is, whose true Author is God. ... It is chiefly from inattention to this circumstance that misconception prevails in that department of Sacred Science known as ‘Textual Criticism’” (Burgon XE "Burgon, John" and Miller, The Traditional Text XE "Received Text" , p. 9).

Burgon understood that modern textual criticism is not built upon a foundation of faith in the Bible as God’s supernatural, infallible Word. He was right. Burgon understood something about modern textual criticism that the defenders of the eclectic textual approach cannot see.

I realize that Burgon did not believe exactly in every detail what I believe about the KJV and its Received Text, but what he believed is vastly closer to the “King James Only” position than to the eclectic textual criticism position. John Burgon XE "Burgon, John" exalted the King James Bible above all other English versions, and he maintained that the Received Text XE "Received Text" was, apart from minor improvements he felt could be made, the preserved Word of God. In describing the King James Bible, Burgon spoke of “the living freshness, and elastic freedom, and HABITUAL FIDELITY of the Grand Old Version which we inherited from our Fathers, and which has sustained the spiritual life of the Church of England XE "Anglican" XE "England" , and of all English-speaking Christians, for 350 years” (Revision Revised, p. 225). He encouraged his readers to “cling the closer to THE PRICELESS TREASURE WHICH WAS BEQUEATHED TO THEM BY THE PIETY AND WISDOM OF THEIR FATHERS” (Revision Revised XE "Revision Revised" , p. 232).

In my book For Love of the Bible, I have given many other examples of men in 19th century Britain who understood the rationalistic nature of modern textual criticism.

BIBLE BELIEVERS IN NORTH AMERICA UNDERSTOOD THAT TEXTUAL CRITICISM IS CONNECTED WITH MODERNISM

Crossing the ocean to North America, we find that the same battle was raging. Rationalism was sweeping into seminaries and Bible colleges, and many staunch defenders of biblical inspiration saw an affinity between biblical criticism and textual criticism. ROBERT L. DABNEY (1820-1898) was a XE "Dabney, R.L." noted American Presbyterian scholar who boldly opposed modernistic views of the Bible XE "Received Text" in the nineteenth century. He also stood for the Received Text and understood the rationalistic background of modern textual criticism. Dabney warned that Evangelicals who accepted the modern text were adopting it “FROM THE MINT OF INFIDEL RATIONALISM XE "Modernism" ” (Dabney, “The Doctrinal Various Readings of the New Testament Greek,” Discussions Evangelical and Theological, pp. 361; this first appeared in the Southern Presbyterian Review, April 1871). I know for a fact that the Evangelicals of that day who were following textual criticism took great offense at Dabney’s charge, just like men like James Boice or James White do today when charged with adopting textual criticism from “the mint of infidel rationalism.” I praise the Lord for men like Dabney who are willing to take a stand for the truth even when it offends people. Dabney understood that the fathers of textual criticism lacked the common sense to be able to properly use the knowledge they were gaining.

“We call these the opinions now fashionable; for those who watch the course of this art are aware that there is as truly a fashion in it, infecting its votaries, as in ladies’ bonnets, medicines or cravats [neck scarves]. ... The minds for which criticism retains its fascination are usually of that peculiar and ‘crotchety’ type found among antiquarians. The intelligent reader is, therefore, not surprised to find, along with much labor and learning, a ‘plentiful lack’ of sober and convincing common sense. ... We shall find them continually varying, each one obnoxious to grave objections, and the question still unsettled. ... Their common traits may be said to be an almost contemptuous dismissal of the received text, as unworthy not only of confidence, but almost of notice” (emphasis added) (Dabney XE "Dabney, R.L." , pp. 350,52,54).

DR. EDWARD F. HILLS (1912-1981) XE "Hills, Edward F." , who had a Th.D. from Harvard in textual criticism, also recognized the rationalism XE "Modernism" and unbelief inherent in this system. Most modern versions are built upon this rationalistic foundation. In his books, Hills carefully documents the modernistic influences which led to the development of textual criticism, and he contrasts unbelieving textual scholarship with a Christ-honoring, Bible-believing approach. Consider the testimony of this brilliant, yet humble scholar:

“Has the text of the New Testament, like those of other ancient books, been damaged during its voyage over the seas of time? Ought the same methods of textual criticism to be applied to it that are applied to the texts of other ancient books? These are questions which the following pages will endeavor to answer. An earnest effort will be made to convince the Christian reader that this is a matter to which he must attend. FOR IN THE REALM OF NEW TESTAMENT TEXTUAL CRITICISM AS WELL AS IN OTHER FIELDS THE PRESUPPOSITIONS OF MODERN THOUGHT ARE HOSTILE TO THE HISTORIC CHRISTIAN FAITH AND WILL DESTROY IT IF THEIR FATAL OPERATION IS NOT CHECKED. If faithful Christians, therefore, would defend their sacred religion against this danger, THEY MUST FORSAKE THE FOUNDATIONS OF UNBELIEVING THOUGHT AND BUILD UPON THEIR FAITH, a faith that rests entirely on the solid rock of holy Scripture. And when they do this in the sphere of New Testament textual criticism, they will find themselves led back step by step (perhaps, at first, against their wills) to the text of the Protestant Reformation, namely, that form of New Testament text which underlies the King James Version and the other early Protestant translations” (Edward F. Hills XE "Hills, Edward F." , The King James Bible Defended, Introduction, 3rd ed., 1979, p. 1).

“... the Bible version which you use ... has already been decided for you by the workings of God’s special providence. IF YOU IGNORE THIS PROVIDENCE AND CHOOSE TO ADOPT ONE OF THESE MODERN VERSIONS, YOU WILL BE TAKING THE FIRST STEP IN THE LOGIC OF UNBELIEF. FOR THE ARGUMENTS WHICH YOU MUST USE TO JUSTIFY YOUR CHOICE ARE THE SAME ARGUMENTS WHICH UNBELIEVERS USE TO JUSTIFY THEIRS, THE SAME METHOD. If you adopt one of these modern versions, you must adopt the naturalistic New Testament textual criticism upon which it rests. This naturalistic textual criticism requires us to study the New Testament text in the same way in which we study the texts of secular books which have not been preserved by God’s special providence” (Hills XE "Hills, Edward F." , Believing Bible Study, Des Moines, Iowa: Christian Research Press, 1967, pp. 226,27).

Dr. Hills XE "Hills, Edward F." understood this subject at the highest scholarly position. He was trained in textual criticism at the doctoral level at the University of Chicago and at Harvard. I agree completely with Dr. Hills that modern textual criticism is founded upon unbelieving principles. Interestingly, the proponents of the modern versions largely ignore this. Dr. Hills understood something about modern textual criticism that they do not understand.

Former Dallas Seminary Professor ZANE HODGES explored this in a 1971 article entitled “Rationalism and Contemporary New Testament Textual Criticism.”

“The acceptance of the newer critical editions of the New Testament does not rest on factual data which can be objectively verified, but rather upon a prevailing consensus of critical thought. IT WILL BE THE PURPOSE OF THIS DISCUSSION TO SHOW THAT CONTEMPORARY CRITICAL TEXTS ARE, IN FACT, THE FRUIT OF A RATIONALISTIC XE "Modernism" APPROACH TO NEW TESTAMENT TEXTUAL CRITICISM. ... Modern textual criticism is psychologically ‘addicted’ to Westcott XE "Westcott-Hort" and Hort. Westcott and Hort, in turn, were rationalists in their approach to the textual problem in the New Testament and employed techniques within which rationalism and every other kind of bias are free to operate. The result of it all is a methodological quagmire where objective controls on the conclusions of critics are nearly nonexistent. It goes without saying that no Bible-believing Christian who is willing to extend the implications of his faith to textual matters can have the slightest grounds for confidence in contemporary critical texts” (Zane C. Hodges, “Rationalism and Contemporary New Testament Textual Criticism,” Bibliotheca Sacra, January 1971, pp. 27-35).

This is a strong statement. Hodges recognized the vast influence of Westcott and Hort and states that Westcott and Hort were rationalists in their approach to the Bible text. That is precisely what I believe. (Yes, I know that Hodges does not believe exactly like I do in regard to the KJV-Received Text, but what he believes is much closer to what I hold than to what the textual critics hold. At least he believes the Received Text needs only a relatively minor modification, and he is bold to condemn the popular theories of textual criticism as rationalistic and dangerous to the Christian faith.) The Majority Text viewpoint aside, Hodges sees something about modern textual criticism that the defenders of the eclectic textual approach cannot see.

In his 1951 doctoral dissertation to the faculty of the Graduate School of Dallas Theological Seminary, ALFRED MARTIN, then Vice President of Moody Bible Institute, noted the connection between apostasy and the critical text:

“At precisely the time when liberalism was carrying the field in the English churches the theory of Westcott XE "Westcott-Hort" and Hort received wide acclaim. These are not isolated facts. RECENT CONTRIBUTIONS ON THE SUBJECT--THAT IS, IN THE PRESENT CENTURY--FOLLOWING MAINLY THE WESTCOTT-HORT PRINCIPLES AND METHOD, HAVE BEEN MADE LARGELY BY MEN WHO DENY THE INSPIRATION XE "Inspiration" OF THE BIBLE” (emphasis added) (Alfred Martin XE "Martin, Alfred" , “A Critical Examination of the Westcott-Hort Textual Theory.” Th.D. Thesis, Dallas Theological Seminary, May 1951, p. 70).

I could quote a variety of other scholarly men making the same point (and I have done so in my book For Love of the Bible).

THE FATHERS OF TEXTUAL CRITICISM WERE INFECTED BY RATIONALISTIC THINKING

We will now take a brief look at some of the leading names in nineteenth-century textual criticism. These are the men who laid the foundation for the modern versions.

As we describe the early history of textual criticism, we will also observe that the science of modern textual criticism was largely rejected by Bible-believing Christians throughout the 17th and 18th centuries. Not only did Bible-believing people not accept the theories and texts produced by the early textual critics, they looked upon the same as heresy. One historian of textual criticism describes the early history of the same as “a period of strife between those who followed the so-called textus receptus blindly, and those who were determined to secure the most ancient witnesses they could and to trust them” (Alexander Souter, The Text and Canon of the New Testament, 1912, p. 100). Souter slanders the Received Text defenders by claiming they clung to it out of blindness and ignorance, but he does, in a backhanded manner, admit that a battle was waged by Bible-believing people against the critical textual theories throughout the 18th and 19th centuries.

RICHARD SIMON XE "Simon, Richard" (1638-1712), according to Bruce Metzger, laid “the scientific foundations of New Testament criticism” (Metzger, The Text of the New Testament, p. 155). Simon was a French Roman Catholic XE "Roman Catholic" who “disregarded the traditional and dogmatic presuppositions of his age” and “examined critically the text of the Bible as a piece of literature.” This means that Simon did not regard the Bible as the supernaturally inspired, divinely preserved Word of God, but as a mere book. From a biblical standpoint, this father of modern scientific textual criticism was an unbeliever and a heretic. Metzger shares Simon’s rationalism and unbelief (looking upon the Old Testament as a mixture of truth and myth, etc.), so it is not strange that he does not fear identifying this heretic as one of the fathers of modern textual criticism.

JOHN MILL XE "Mill, John" (1645-1707) is also commonly listed as one of the first modern textual critics. Though, for the most part, he did not attempt to correct the Received Text with his textual findings, he published a critical apparatus that listed thousands of variant readings from a wide variety of sources. Protestant and Baptist church leaders believed that Mill’s textual work was undermining the authority of the Scripture. Daniel Whitby XE "Whitby, Daniel" , pastor of St. Edmund’s, Salisbury, “argued that the authority of the holy Scriptures was in peril” (Metzger, The Text of the New Testament, p. 108). We believe old Whitby was correct. The authority of the Bible has been vastly undermined by modern textual criticism. It is not the gathering of textual data itself that imperils the Holy Scriptures, but the misuse of that data by textual critics who do not work from the principle of faith in divine preservation.

DANIEL MACE XE "Mace, Daniel" used Mills’ textual apparatus to produce a new Greek text with his own English translation. Metzger observes that “Mace’s edition was either vehemently attacked or quietly ignored.” Dr. Leonard Twells XE "Twells, Leonard" , pastor of St. Mary’s in Marlborough, condemned Mace’s work under the categories of a “corrupt text, false version, and fallacious notes” (Metzger, p. 111).

RICHARD BENTLEY XE "Bentley, Richard" (1662-1742) is another man commonly listed as one of the influential fathers of modern textual criticism. Though he planned a new edition of the Greek New Testament, it was not actually produced. What he did produce was a “canon of criticism that, in one form or other, has been approved by all textual critics since” (Metzger, The Text of the New Testament, p. 112). His goal, by the way, was not to attempt to publish a New Testament as it was given by the apostles but merely to “restore a Greek and Latin text to the state in which they were in the fourth century” (Souter, The Text of the New Testament, p. 98). One of Bentley’s principles of textual criticism was “the difficult is to be preferred to the easy reading.” This was based strictly upon a humanistic perspective of the biblical text, that “a scribe is more likely to make a difficult construction easier, than make more difficult what was already easy.” It does not take into account the fact that the Bible is the Word of God and has been subject, therefore, to processes different from that of other literature. Modern textual criticism completely ignores, for example, the Satanic attacks upon Scripture. How did Bentley know his principle is the proper method for discerning the preserved Word of God? He didn’t. Like many accepted principles of modern textual criticism, it is a mere theory. Since the original Old Testament and New Testament manuscripts do not exist, it is impossible to test the certainty of the textual theories. The only way the pure Scripture can be discerned is by the principle of faith in God’s promise of preservation.

Bentley was not a Bible scholar but a “classical scholar” who approached the Bible in the same manner that he approached ancient non-inspired writings, such as those of Horace. Souter observes that “the impulse [Bentley] gave to [his textual] studies was such, that but for him there would have been no Lachmann and no Hort.” Metzger admits that Bentley depended to a large degree upon his own “instinctive feeling as to what an author must have written” (Metzger, p. 182). This is called “conjectural emendation.” It describes an educated guess, and it is heresy. No scholar today can know by his intuitions and feelings what the preserved Word of God is. The house of modern textual criticism sits upon the sand. Even Metzger admits that Bentley’s bent for conjectural emendation led him to make many decisions that were “rash and indefensible.” We would describe practically the whole of modern textual criticism in those terms. Conjectural emendation did not die out with Bentley; Metzger admits that the 24th edition of Nestle’s Greek New Testament includes about 200 conjectures (p. 185).

JOHANN BENGEL XE "Bengel, Johann" (1687-1752) is another important link in the history of modern textual criticism. He adopted the principle of classifying manuscripts and “recognized that the witnesses to the text must not be counted but weighed” (Metzger, The Text of the New Testament, p. 112). In this manner, the textual critics have been able to ignore the overwhelming majority witness represented in the Received Text and to replace it with the minority witness of manuscripts such as the Sinaiticus and the Vaticanus. Though Bengel was orthodox in his Protestant faith and did not deny the infallibility of Scripture, the deity of Christ, etc., his textual work and principles were widely recognized as heretical by German churches and “he was treated as though he were an enemy of the holy Scriptures” (Metzger, p. 113). Modern version defenders look upon the Christians of old who fought against the early textual critics as ignorant people who were blindly holding onto tradition. We don’t accept this position. Bible-believers of that day understood that the principles of modern textual criticism deny biblical preservation. If the Bible has been preserved, it was preserved in the Received Text; and if it has been preserved, what are the textual critics doing? They are introducing corruption and heresy. I believe Bengel was wrong and those who treated him as an enemy of Holy Scripture were right.

JOHANN JAKOB WETTSTEIN XE "Wettstein, Johann" (1693-1754) was a textual scholar who collated manuscripts and published a Greek New Testament. When he first published a specimen of his textual criticism in 1718, he was charged with Arian and Socinian heresy (pertaining to the denial of the Trinity and the deity of Christ) and he was eventually expelled from the pastorate in Basle. After that, Wettstein taught philosophy and Hebrew at the Arminian college in Amsterdam, assuming the vacated seat of the modernistic Jean Leclerc XE "Leclerc, Jean" (Johannes Clericus XE "Clericus, Johannes" ), who “maintained that reason is an infallible guide in judging of all that man needs to know for salvation” (Schaff-Herzog). Leclerc suggested that Luke produced two editions of the book of Acts (Metzger, p. 163). Wettstein believed that all of the early Greek manuscripts have been contaminated by the Latin versions (Metzger, p. 114). It was obvious to most Bible believers of that day that the critical Greek text supported heretical doctrines, weakened the doctrine of Christ’s deity, and represented doctrinal corruptions introduced by heretics in the third and fourth centuries. Though rejected by Bible believers, Wettstein’s textual criticism was heartily approved by heretic. His critical notes were reprinted by the Christ-denying Modernist Johann Semler XE "Semler, J.S." in 1765.

JOHANN JAKOB GRIESBACH XE "Griesbach, J.J." (1745-1812) was one of the earliest fathers of modern textual criticism. Marvin R. Vincent says, “With Griesbach, really critical texts may be said to have begun” (A History of the Textual Criticism of the New Testament, 1899, p. 100). As noted earlier, Griesbach was a convinced student of one of the fathers of Modernism XE "Modernism" , JOHANN SALOMO SEMLER XE "Semler, J.S." (1725-91). Griesbach was influenced from his undergraduate days by the rising tide of Rationalism sweeping over Germany and “was a foe of orthodox Christianity” (D.A. Thompson, The Controversy Concerning the Last Twelve Verses of the Gospel According to Mark, p. 40). Both Semler and Griesbach rejected the deity of Jesus Christ and the supernatural infallibility of Holy Scripture. Semler was the father of the wicked accommodation theory, believing that Jesus Christ and the Apostles accommodated themselves to the prejudices, errors and superstitions of their time.

Bruce Metzger XE "Metzger, Bruce" makes a two-fold admission pertaining to Semler that sounds a loud warning to Bible believers (though Metzger does not mean it to be such). He says that Semler is “often regarded as the father of German rationalism” and at the same time “made noteworthy contributions to the science of textual criticism” (Metzger, The Text of the New Testament, p. 115). That there is a direct connection between German rationalism and modern textual criticism cannot be denied. Semler “was the leader of the reaction in Germany against the traditional views of the canon of Scripture” (Vincent, A History of the Textual Criticism of the New Testament, p. 92).

“It was said that Semler XE "Semler, J.S." ‘made use of his chair [as a professor at Halle] and his pen to undermine the very foundations of Christianity.’ According to Semler, the whole revelation must be brought to the bar of human reason and the cultured mind must relieve itself of any obligations to believe anything in the Bible that appears ‘unreasonable.’ Semler’s contribution to the destructive criticism of the Bible was his ‘accommodation theory,’ which declared that our Lord and His Apostles accommodated themselves to the prejudices, the errors and the superstitions of their time” (If the Foundations Be Destroyed. Trinitarian Bible Society XE "Trinitarian Bible Society" Article No. 14, p. 1).

Griesbach XE "Griesbach, J.J." was also associated with the Modernist W.M.L. de Wette and wrote the preface to de Wette’s Contributions to Old Testament Introduction (1806-07). In this work de Wette, another of the fathers of Old Testament criticism, denied the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch and claimed that the book of Deuteronomy was not written until the reign of king Josiah.

Semler, who looked upon the Bible as a man-made book, provided Griesbach with some of his textual theories. Semler, for example, was the father of the recension theory that claims the Received text is an editorial recension created centuries after the Apostles. Another Griesbach theory adopted from Semler claimed that textual readings favoring theological orthodoxy should be suspect (because they denied biblical preservation and falsely believed the orthodox readings were created by textual editors during the early centuries). In other words, according to this principle, if there is a reading in the Received Text that plainly teaches the Godhead of Christ or some other foundational doctrine of the New Testament faith, that reading should be held suspect in favor of a variant in some old manuscript that lessens or does away with the doctrine. This, my friends, is topsy-turvy thinking! Griesbach also held that “the shorter reading (under most circumstances) is to be preferred to the more verbose.” It is not therefore surprising that the critical edition of the Greek New Testament is much shorter than the Received Text. Griesbach was the first to declare Mark 16:9-20 spurious and to omit it from the 1796 edition of his Greek text.

These theories were adopted by Griesbach and later by Westcott and Hort, who said they venerated the name of Griesbach “above that of every other textual critic of the New Testament” (Introduction, The New Testament in the Original Greek, p. 185). Metzger reminds us that Westcott and Hort did not collate any manuscripts or provide a critical apparatus; rather they “refined the critical methodology developed by Griesbach, Lachmann, and others, and applied it rigorously” (Metzger, p. 129). Griesbach XE "Griesbach, J.J." was the first to begin abandoning the Received Text XE "Received Text" to construct a new Greek text that contained many of the novelties later popularized by Westcott XE "Westcott-Hort" and Hort.

Griesbach’s textual theories were boldly rejected by most Protestants and Baptists. Kenyon acknowledges that even textual scholars such as Matthaei, Birch, and Scholz continued to adhere to the Received Text and “repudiated the doctrine of Griesbach” (Kenyon, The Text of the Greek Bible, p. 177). An example is Frederick Nolan, who, in 1815, published An Inquiry into the Integrity of the Greek Vulgate or Received Text of the New Testament, in which the Greek manuscripts are newly classed, the integrity of the Authorised Text vindicated, and the various readings traced to their origin was published in 1815. As the title suggests, this 576-page volume was a defense of the text underlying the Authorized Version. Nolan XE "Nolan, Frederick" said, “... it shall be my object to vindicate those important passages of the Received Text which have been rejected from the Scripture Canon, on the principles of the German XE "Germany" method of classification” (p. 43). Among the several passages that he thus vindicated are 1 Timothy 3:16 XE "First Timothy 3.16" XE "Christ’s deity" XE "God was manifest in the flesh" and 1 John 5:7 XE "First John 5.7" . Nolan XE "Nolan, Frederick" defended the Received Text on the basis of faith and theological purity. He opposed the critics of his day who were disparaging the work of Erasmus, Stephanus, and Beza in a manner mimicked by today’s modern version proponents.

Though Bible-believing men of the early 19th century rejected Griesbach and his textual theories, he was well received by the Christ-denying Unitarians. This is stated plainly in A History of Unitarianism in Transylvania, England and America.

“[Thomas] Belsham was busily occupied in his own field in London. As minister at Essex Street he was looked to as practically the leader and mouthpiece of the Unitarians. Thus in his sermons he not only powerfully maintained the Unitarian XE "Unitarian" cause, and expounded its doctrines, but also discussed in the light of liberal principles certain questions of national policy, or measures debated in Parliament … But HIS PREDOMINANT INTEREST AT THIS PERIOD WAS IN THE PREPARATION OF A NEW VERSION OF THE NEW TESTAMENT, BASED UPON A GREEK TEXT EMBODYING THE RESULTS OF RECENT CRITICISM. A project for a work of this sort had been proposed by [Joseph] Priestley in 1789, and was well advanced toward completion, when an important part of the manuscript was destroyed in the Birmingham Riots in 1791. Later in the same year, WHEN THE UNITARIAN BOOK SOCIETY WAS FORMED, THE TRANSLATION OF THE NEW TESTAMENT WAS MADE ONE OF ITS MAIN OBJECTS. After some five years’ delay it was decided not to make an independent version, but to adopt the excellent one [this was the opinion of the Unitarian author of this history] of Archbishop William Newcome, Primate of Ireland, as a basis, CHIEFLY BECAUSE IT FOLLOWED GRIESBACH XE "Griesbach, J.J." ‘S TEXT, and to accompany it with an introduction and notes. The plan was taken up with ardor, and the work was published in 1808, in three sizes, and later in several editions; and it was at once reprinted in America (Boston, 1909), where Unitarianism was already incubating. IT INCLUDED A VALUABLE INTRODUCTION ON THE PROGRESS AND PRINCIPLES OF TEXTUAL CRITICISM, ANTICIPATING MANY JUDGMENTS LATER ADOPTED IN THE REVISED VERSION XE "English Revised Version" OF 1881; BUT DREW THE FIRE OF THE ORTHODOX BY OMITTING AS LATE INTERPOLATIONS SEVERAL PASSAGES TRADITIONALLY CITED AS PILLARS OF TRINITARIAN DOCTRINE. [Examples of these omissions were the removal of the word “God” in 1 Timothy 3:16 XE "God was manifest in the flesh" XE "First Timothy 3.16" XE "Christ’s deity" and the deletion of 1 John 5:7.] Belsham had taken the leading part in the editing of the work, and he regarded it with great satisfaction. It was widely circulated in Unitarian quarters; but in spite of its presenting a much more correct text, many strictures upon it were passed even by Unitarians, while to the orthodox its notes gave much offence, and by them it was generally scorned as a sectarian work, ‘The Unitarian New Testament,’ though it was never officially adopted even by the Unitarians” (Earl Morse Wilbur, A History of Unitarianism in Transylvania, England, and America, Cambridge: Harvard XE "Harvard Divinity School" University Press, 1952, pp. 338,339).

Griesbach was also loved by Modernists. For example, Joseph Buckminster “persuaded the officials at Harvard College in 1809 to publish an American edition of Griesbach’s critical Greek New Testament, because he saw its value in promoting text criticism, in his opinion, ‘a most powerful weapon to be used against the supporters of verbal inspiration’” (Theodore Letis, The Ecclesiastical Text, p. 2).

Modern version defenders today often claim that there are no doctrinal issues at stake in the textual variances, but the Unitarians and Modernists in the 19th century understood plainly that this is not the case. They understood very well that the theories of modern textual criticism produce a New Testament text that supports their heresies better than the Received Text. In my new book Myths about Modern Bible Versions (currently at the printer) I trace the intimate connection between Unitarianism and the critical Greek text. The theories of modern textual criticism and the rejection of the Received Text were fathered in this demonic atmosphere.

Thus, at the beginning of the 19th century, Bible-believing Christians rejected the critical text as heretical, but the Unitarians and Modernists joyfully received the critical Greek text because it supported their doctrinal heresies pertaining to the Trinity and Christ’s deity, and also because the textual variety weakened the authority of Scripture. By the end of the 19th century, though, apostasy had so leavened many of the denominations that the Westcott XE "Westcott-Hort" -Hort Greek, which was built upon the Griesbach XE "Griesbach, J.J." text and which contained the same type of doctrinal corruptions (in fact, the Westcott-Hort text was more radical and was farther removed from the Received Text), found wide acceptance. Those today who deny that the critical Greek text is less doctrinally sound than the Received Text XE "Received Text" , are flying in the face of the facts. The old Unitarians understood the doctrinal differences between the texts. They rejected the Received Text because they understood that it defeated their heresies. They made the translation of a new Bible based upon the critical text a top priority. For those who have ears to hear, this speaks volumes.

KARL LACHMANN (1793-1851) XE "Lachmann, Karl" , Professor of Classical and German Philology at Berlin, has been described as a German rationalist (Charles Turner, Why the King James Version: The Preservation XE "Preservation, Bible" of the Word of God through the Faithful Churches, p. 7). Yet to “Lachmann XE "Lachmann, Karl" belongs the distinction of entirely casting aside the Textus Receptus XE "Received Text" ...” (Vincent, A History of Textual Criticism, p. 110). He produced editions of the N.T. in Berlin in 1842 and 1850, which carried Griesbach XE "Griesbach, J.J." ’s ideas still further afield from the preserved Text. Lachmann did not believe it was possible to reproduce the original text of the New Testament (Metzger XE "Metzger, Bruce" , The Text of the New Testament, p. 124). His goal was merely to “secure the text in widest use in Jerome’s time, leaving it to emendation and conjecture to get behind that” (Alexander Souter, The Text and Canon of the New Testament, 1912, p. 101). Aland tells us that Lachmann’s battle cry was “Down with the late text of the Textus Receptus, and back to the text of the early fourth-century church” (Aland, The Text of the New Testament, p. 11).

Like some of the other fathers of textual criticism, Lachmann was not a theologian, but a philologist “who had distinguished himself by critical editions of Latin and German classics” (Vincent, p. 110). Like Bentley before him, Lachmann was not studying the New Testament as the supernaturally-inspired and divinely preserved Word of God but as a mere book. He was a profane man who treated the Bible like any other book and his textual research was a mere scholarly venture; yet, his work was taken seriously by textual critics because he was furthering their objective of undermining the authority of the Received Text. Lachmann XE "Lachmann, Karl" “began to apply to the N.T. Greek text the same rules that he had used in editing texts of the Greek classics, which had been radically altered over the years. ... Lachmann had set up a series of several presuppositions and rules which he used for arriving at the original text of the Greek classics ... He now began with these same presuppositions and rules to correct the N.T. which he also presupposed was hopelessly corrupted. He had made a glaring mistake. The loving and reverent care given to the copying and preservation XE "Preservation, Bible" of the Scriptures by faithful churches was not matched by a similar process in the copying of the Greek classics” (Turner, pp. 7,8).

Lachmann XE "Lachmann, Karl" discarded the Received Text XE "Received Text" in favor of what he considered the oldest and best text represented in the Vaticanus and a few other similarly corrupt manuscripts. Enemies of the Received Text often falsely claim that it is based upon only a handful of manuscripts that Erasmus happened to have in his possession. In reality, the Received Text represents the text found in the vast majority of Greek manuscripts and versions, and it is the critical text that is more frequently based on scanty manuscript authority. Burgon XE "Burgon, John" reminds us that “Lachmann’s text seldom rests on more than four Greek codices, very often on three, not infrequently on two, sometimes on only one” (Revision Revised XE "Revision Revised" , p. 21). In his scholarly arrogance, Lachmann was willing to overthrow centuries of godly discernment purified in the fires of persecution in favor of modern novelties.

FRIEDRICH CONSTANTINE VON TISCHENDORF (1815-1874) was a German textual critic who traveled extensively in search of ancient documents. Tischendorf XE "Tischendorf, Constantine" had “a distinct respect for the conclusions of Griesbach XE "Griesbach, J.J." and Lachmann XE "Lachmann, Karl" (Thompson, p. 42). He was instrumental in bringing to light two of the manuscripts most influential in modern Bible translation work—Codex Sinaiticus XE "Sinaiticus" and Codex Vaticanus XE "Vaticanus" . Tischendorf looked upon his task as “the struggle to regain the original form of the New Testament” (Metzger, The Text of the New Testament, p. 126). His error, like that of other 19th century textual critics, was in failing to recognize God’s promise of preservation XE "Preservation, Bible" . Had he believed the Bible’s own testimony, he would have known by faith that the New Testament did not need to be recovered because it was not lost! Tischendorf’s work was so loved by the Unitarians, that two of them, Caspar Gregory and Ezra Abbot XE "Abbot, Ezra" , reissued the eighth edition of Tischendorf’s New Testament with critical notes after his death.

SAMUEL PRIDEAUX TREGELLES XE "Tregelles, Samuel" (1813-1875) was influential in the field of textual criticism in England. Though he was not committed to the modernistic rationalism that was beginning to permeate the Christian world of that day, he adopted the theories of textual criticism from the rationalists that preceded him. His critical principles “paralleled to a remarkable degree those of Lachmann” (Metzger, p. 127). From his youth, he had a peculiar zeal to go beyond even Griesbach in rejecting the Received Text, which he refused to give “any prescriptive rights.” Thus, regardless of what he believed about biblical inspiration, he did not work from a position of faith in divine preservation. He accepted the rationalistic position that the pure Word of God needed to be recovered.

B.F. WESTCOTT (1825-1901) and F.J.A. HORT (1828-1892), Anglican XE "Anglican" professors at Cambridge University, were responsible for taking the principles of Griesbach, Lachmann, and other fathers of modern textual criticism and fashioning them into a package of theories for the overthrow of the Received Text, which they labeled “vile.” They produced such a Greek Testament and secretly introduced it to the committee that was charged with revising the English Bible in Britain in the late 1800s. The resulting English Revised New Testament of 1881 followed (not in every detail, but in large part) the Westcott-Hort Greek New Testament. (The committee had not been charged with revising the Greek text but only with updating the English, and when their work was published, they came under widespread condemnation for exceeding the authority of their appointment.)

That XE "Modernism" Westcott and Hort were infected with the rationalistic approach to the Bible shared by other fathers of textual criticism has been observed by many scholarly men of God.

Zane Hodges noted Westcott XE "Westcott-Hort" and Hort’s apostasy: “The charge of rationalism XE "Modernism" is easily substantiated for Westcott and Hort and may be demonstrated from direct statements found in their introduction to The New Testament in the Original Greek. To begin with, Westcott and Hort are clearly unwilling to commit themselves to the inerrancy of the original Scriptures” (Hodges, “Rationalism and Contemporary New Testament Textual Criticism,” Bibliotheca Sacra, January 1971).

A precise, accurate description of Westcott XE "Westcott-Hort" -Hort’s theological position is given by the late Presbyterian bishop D.A. Thompson, who looked carefully into these matters: “Neither of these scholars had been evangelical and as the influence of the German neology increased they moved slowly and discreetly with the times.”

Dr. Edward Hills understood the rationalistic platform from which Westcott and Hort worked:

[I]n 1881 B.F. Westcott XE "Westcott-Hort" (1825-1901) and F.J.A. Hort (1828-1892) published their celebrated Introduction in which they endeavored to settle the New Testament text on the basis of this new information. They propounded the theory that the original New Testament text has survived in almost perfect condition in these two manuscripts, especially in the Vaticanus XE "Vaticanus" . This theory attained almost immediately a tremendous popularity, being accepted everywhere both by liberals and conservatives. Liberals liked it because it represented the latest thing in the science of N.T. textual criticism. Conservatives liked it because it seemed to grant them that security for which they were seeking. But since this security had no foundation in faith, it has not proved lasting. FOR IN THE WORKING OUT OF THEIR THEORY, WESTCOTT AND HORT FOLLOWED AN ESSENTIALLY NATURALISTIC METHOD. INDEED, THEY PRIDED THEMSELVES ON TREATING THE TEXT OF THE N.T. AS THEY WOULD THAT OF ANY OTHER BOOK, MAKING LITTLE OR NOTHING OF INSPIRATION XE "Inspiration" AND PROVIDENCE. ‘For ourselves,’ Hort wrote, ‘we dare not introduce considerations which could not reasonably be applied to other texts, supposing them to have documentary attestation of equal amount, variety, and antiquity.’ … LIKE GRIESBACH XE "Griesbach, J.J." THEY RULED OUT IN ADVANCE ANY POSSIBILITY OF THE PROVIDENTIAL PRESERVATION XE "Preservation, Bible" OF THE NEW TESTAMENT TEXT THROUGH THE USAGE OF BELIEVERS (Edward F. Hills XE "Hills, Edward F." , The King James Version Defended, pp. 65,66).

While some Evangelicals and even some Fundamentalists have come to the defense of Westcott XE "Westcott-Hort" and Hort and have contended that they were theologically sound, these (perhaps) fail to understand the nature of Westcott-Hort’s theological apostasy. Like many Neo-orthodox and Modernistic theologians, Westcott and Hort did not so much deny the doctrines of the Word of God directly; they undermined these doctrines with clever doubt, with subtle questioning. Dr. D.A. Waite XE "Waite, D.A." , who has examined the writings of Westcott and Hort in great detail, testifies: “Westcott’s attack on the bodily resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ is not by any means a direct clash of out-and-and denial, but rather an adroit, skillful, oblique undermining of the bodily resurrection of Christ by means of a re-definition of terms” (Waite, Westcott’s Denial of Bodily Resurrection, The Bible for Today, 1983, p. 8). Dr. Waite XE "Waite, D.A." ’s views on this matter are not based on a cursory look at Westcott XE "Westcott-Hort" and Hort’s theology. He has examined the writings of these men probably as exhaustively as anyone speaking on the subject today. As a background for his book Heresies of Westcott & Hort, Waite studied 1,291 pages of the writings of these men. Further, Dr. Waite brings to the table a vast knowledge of issues related to apostasy. He has researched Modernism XE "Modernism" , New Evangelicalism XE "New Evangelicalism" , and other erroneous movements for many decades. See Dr. Waite XE "Waite, D.A." ’s The Theological Heresies of Westcott and Hort: As Seen in Their Own Writings (The Bible for Today, 900 Park Ave., Collingswood, NJ 08108).

The apostasy of Westcott XE "Westcott-Hort" and Hort is also evident in their attitude toward a Christ-denying Unitarian XE "Unitarian" who was invited to participate. George Vance Smith XE "Smith, George Vance" , minister of St. Saviour’s Gate Unitarian Chapel, York, had equal vote along with the other committee members, although he had plainly and publicly denied the deity of Jesus Christ XE "Christ’s deity" . After he participated in a communion service with the other revisers, a letter was published in The Times (July 11, 1870) in which he proudly declared that though he had received communion, he had refused to recite the Creed since he would not compromise his “principles” as one who denied the deity of Jesus Christ. A public outcry ensued, but Westcott and Hort and some of the other revisers threatened to resign if Smith was not allowed to participate! Unitarian XE "Unitarian" Smith later gloried in the fact that many changes made in the English Revision XE "English Revised Version" better reflected his own wicked views on Jesus Christ. He understood that the critical text and the modern versions support doctrinal heresy better than the Received Text XE "Received Text" .

The theories of modern textual criticism and the rejection of the Received Text were fathered in this rationalistic atmosphere.

THE INFLUENTIAL TEXTUAL CRITICS OF THE 20TH CENTURY ARE ALSO INFECTED BY THEOLOGICAL RATIONALISM

Nothing has changed in the 20th century. The field is still dominated by unbelievers who deny the supernatural infallibility of the Bible. Consider, for example, the editors of the United Bible Societies Greek New Testament. CARLO MARTINI, who joined the UBS Greek N.T. editorial committee in 1967, is the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Milan. He was a professor at the Pontifical Biblical Institute in Rome, which, in addition to Roman Catholic heresies, promotes the theory of evolution and the heretical documentary views of biblical inspiration, etc. He is past president of the Council of European Bishop’s Conferences. A Time magazine article reported that Martini brought together a syncretistic convocation of over 100 religious leaders from around the world to promote a new age, one-world religion. In addressing this meeting, Mikhail Gorbachev said, “We need to synthesize a new religion for thinking men that will universalize that religion for the world and lead us into a new age.” Martini is a radical ecumenist and syncretist who is striving to bring all denominations and religions into a “Catholic” unity. The Bible calls this “Mystery Babylon.”

EUGENE NIDA is the father of the heretical dynamic equivalency XE "Dynamic Equivalency" theory of Bible translation. He believes God’s revelation in the Bible “involved limitations” and “is not absolute” and that the words of the Bible “are in a sense nothing in and of themselves” (Nida, Message and Mission, 1960, pp. 222-228). He does not believe the Bible is written “in a Holy Ghost language.” He believes the record of Jacob wrestling with the Angel was not a literal event. He denies the substitutionary blood atonement of Christ (Nida, Theory and Practice, 1969, p. 53). He denies that Christ died to satisfy God’s justice. He believes the blood of the cross was merely symbolic of Christ’s death and is never used in the Bible “in the sense of propitiation.”

BRUCE METZGER believed Moses did not write the Pentateuch, Deuteronomy was not written until 700 years before Christ, the Old Testament is a mixture of “myth, legend, and history,” the record of the worldwide flood of Noah’s day is exaggerated, the book of Job is a folktale, the miracle accounts about Elijah and Elisha contain “legendary elements,” Isaiah was written by Isaiah plus two or three unknown men who wrote centuries later, the record of Jonah is a “legend,” Daniel does not contain supernatural prophecy, Paul did not write the Pastoral Epistles, Peter did not write 2 Peter, etc. All of these unbelieving lies can be found in the notes to the Reader’s Digest Condensed Bible, which were written by Metzger, and in the New Oxford Annotated Bible, of which Metzger is a co-editor.

KURT ALAND denied the verbal inspiration of the Bible and wanted to see all denominations united into one “body” by the acceptance of a new ecumenical canon of Scripture which would take into account the Catholic apocryphal books (The Problem of the New Testament Canon, pp. 6,7,30-33).

MATTHEW BLACK XE "Black, Matthew" is another modernistic editor of the United Bible Societies’ Greek New Testament. Black co-edited an edition of Peake’s Commentary in 1982. Peake’s was originally published in 1919 and boldly opposed fundamentalist doctrine. The editors openly reject the doctrine of the infallible inspiration and preservation of Holy Scripture. Note the following excerpt: “It is well known that the primitive Christian Gospel was initially transmitted by word of mouth and that this oral tradition resulted in variant reporting of word and deed. It is equally true that when the Christian record was committed to writing it continued to be the subject of verbal variation, involuntary and intentional, at the hands of scribes and editors” (Peake’s Commentary on the Bible, p. 633). Peake’s Commentary also casts doubt upon Trinitarian baptism: “This mission is described in the language of the church and most commentators doubt that the Trinitarian formula was original at this point in Matthew’s Gospel, since the NT elsewhere does not know of such a formula and describes baptism as being performed in the name of the Lord Jesus (e.g. Acts 2:38, 8:16, etc.).”

(In my book The Modern Bible Hall of Shame, I have given lengthy quotes from the writings of these and many other men who are influential in textual criticism and the modern translations in this century, including George Vance Smith, Philip Schaff, Ezra Abbot, Joseph Thayer, Caspar Rene Gregory, Walter Bowie, Edgar Goodspeed, James Moffatt, C.H. Dodd, Eugene Nida, Robert Bratcher, William Barclay, F.F. Bruce, Fredric Kenyon, Ernest Colwell, Frederick Conybeare, Samuel Driver, Gerhard Kittel, Kirsopp Lake, J.B. Phillips, Henry Wheeler Robinson, and Hermann von Soden.)

It is true that some theologically orthodox men have adopted the theories of modern textual criticism, but they did not develop them. When a man goes to an Evangelical or Fundamentalist seminary and studies textual criticism, what textbooks does he normally use? He will use books by Bruce Metzger, Frederic Kenyon, Kurt Aland, F.F. Bruce, etc. I have visited Bible colleges and seminaries all over the country and these are the books that are commonly sold in the bookstores. All of these men, and the overwhelming majority of the other men who have developed the theories of modern textual criticism, are rationalists who deny the infallibility of the Scriptures, who hold the heretical documentary views of the Old Testament, etc. Evangelicals and Baptists who have promoted textual criticism did not develop it themselves, but merely received it from the hands of the Griesbachs, Kenyons, Metzgers, and Alands, and have passed it along as the most up-to-date scientific thought. This does not really surprise me. Sadly, most men, even preachers, do not carefully and prayerfully analyze what they are taught in a Bible institution. And most theologically educated men today would prefer to remain ignorant of the Received Text-KJV position than bear the reproach of being in that “obscurantist” camp.

This reminds us that most colleges and seminaries do not teach anything about the defense of the Received Text (apart from a false caricature of it). Thus most men who graduate from these institutions, while assuming they know both sides of the textual debate, only know one side. Most Bible college and seminary graduates today have never read the works of John Burgon, Edward Miller, Edward Hills, Terance Brown, Donald Waite, or other scholarly defenders of the King James Bible and its Received Text. Dozens of men have shared their testimony with me that they were not exposed to both sides of the issue of Bible texts and versions during their Bible training. Only later did they come into appreciation of a sound defense of the KJV-TR when they studied the aforementioned men (and many others) for themselves instead of depending upon the caricatures of them provided by their Bible college or seminary teachers.

[Distributed by Way of Life Literature's Fundamental Baptist Information Service, an e-mail listing for Fundamental Baptists and other fundamentalist, Bible-believing Christians. OUR GOAL IN THIS PARTICULAR ASPECT OF OUR MINISTRY IS NOT DEVOTIONAL BUT IS TO PROVIDE INFORMATION TO ASSIST PREACHERS IN THE PROTECTION OF THE CHURCHES IN THIS APOSTATE HOUR. This material is sent only to those who personally subscribe to the list. If somehow you have subscribed unintentionally, following are the instructions for removal. The Fundamental Baptist Information Service mailing list is automated. To SUBSCRIBE or to UNSUBSCRIBE or to CHANGE ADDRESSES or to RE-SUBSCRIBE UNDER A NEW ADDRESS, go to http://www.wayoflife.org/fbis/subscribe.html. If you have any trouble with this, please let us know. And please be patient with us. We do not ignore any unsubscribe request, but we cannot always get to your request immediately as each person involved with maintaining the Way of Life web site does this only on a very part time basis and is busy with many other major activities, such as pastoring and missionary work. We take up a quarterly offering to fund this ministry, and those who use the materials are expected to participate (Galatians 6:6) if they can. Some of the articles are from O Timothy magazine, which is in its 25th year of publication. Way of Life publishes many helpful books. The catalog is located at the web site: http://wayoflife.org/catalog/catalog.htm Way of Life Literature, P.O. Box 610368, Port Huron, MI 48061. 866-295-4143, fbns@wayoflife.org. We do not solicit funds from those who do not agree with our preaching and who are not helped by these publications, but from those who are. OFFERINGS can be made at http://www.wayoflife.org/fbns/offering.html. PAYPAL offerings can be made to https://www.paypal.com/xclick/business=dcloud%40wayoflife.org]

MODERN TEXTUAL CRITICISM’S ROLE IN THE BREAKDOWN OF MORALITY

October 23, 2008 (David Cloud, Fundamental Baptist Information Service, P.O. Box 610368, Port Huron, MI 48061, 866-295-4143, fbns@wayoflife.org; for instructions about subscribing and unsubscribing or changing addresses, see the information paragraph at the end of the article) -

In our book For Love of the Bible we document the defense of the King James Bible and the opposition to modern textual criticism for the past 200 years.

One of the men that defended the KJV in the late nineteenth century was George Sayles Bishop, the pastor of the First Reformed Church of Orange, New Jersey. A brilliant preacher and a mighty defender of the Protestant faith, he fought valiantly against the Higher Criticism that was permeating Christianity in his day. Like John Burgon XE "Burgon, John" and many others, Dr. Bishop plainly understood the intimate association between Higher Criticism and Textual Criticism.

In a discourse preached on June 7, 1885, “The Principle and Tendency of the Revision XE "English Revised Version" Examined,” Bishop issued a devastating charge against the Westcott-Hort critical Greek text and the new English version that was founded thereupon (the English Revised Version).

In this address he observed that most Christians did not understand the true character of modern textual criticism and its role in the revision of the English Bible. He warned that textual criticism appeals to scholarly pride. He considered the principles of modern textual criticism to be “twaddle.” He refused to accept the witness the Vaticanus manuscript because of Rome’s utter apostasy.

Bishop stated that the objective of the prominent Unitarian and Modernistic textual critics was to undermine the divine inspiration of Scripture and to weaken the doctrine of Hell, and he observed that if this objective succeeded, it would result in the complete moral breakdown of society. He understood that modern textual criticism’s tendency to break down the authority of God’s Word has devastating consequences.

Events have proven Bishop correct in every point.

Consider the following excerpts from this 120-year-old sermon, which is as relevant today as when it was first preached:

“I have set before myself a simple straight-forward task—to translate into the language of the common people and in lines of clear, logical light the principles involved in the new version of the Bible and just in what direction it tends. This thing is needed. Nothing at the present time is more needed nor so needed, for I am convinced that the principle at the root of the revision movement has not been fairly understood, not even by many of the revisers themselves, who, charmed by the siren-like voices addressed to their scholarly feeling, have yielded themselves to give way, in unconscious unanimous movement, along with the wave on which the ship of inspiration XE "Inspiration" floats with easy and accelerating motion, toward rebound and crash upon the rocks” (p. 60).

“That a few changes might be made in both Testaments, for the better, no man pretends to deny; but that all the learned twaddle about ‘intrinsic and transcriptional probability,’ ‘conflation,’ ‘neutral texts,’ ‘the unique position of B’ (the Vatican manuscript) ... that all this theory is false and moonshine and, when applied to God’s Word, worse than that; I firmly believe” (p. 61).

“Because I am a minister of Christ ... BECAUSE MY BUSINESS IS TO PREACH AND TO DEFEND THIS BOOK, I CANNOT AND WILL NOT KEEP SILENCE. ‘If the foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do?’” (p. 62).

“THE REVISED VERSION XE "English Revised Version" OF THE NEW TESTAMENT IS BASED UPON A NEW, UNCALLED FOR, AND UNSOUND GREEK XE "Greek" TEXT—that mainly of Drs. Westcott and Hort XE "Westcott-Hort" , which was printed simultaneously with the revision and never before had seen light and which is the most unreliable text perhaps ever printed—one English critic says, ‘the foulest and most vicious in existence’” (p. 66).

“I WILL OPPOSE B THE VATICAN MS. FIRST, FOREMOST, ALTOGETHER, SIMPLY BECAUSE IT IS THE VATICAN MS., BECAUSE I HAVE TO RECEIVE IT FROM ROME, BECAUSE I WILL HAVE NO BIBLE FROM ROME, NO HELP FROM ROME AND NO COMPLICITY WITH ROME; BECAUSE I BELIEVE ROME TO BE AN APOSTATE. A worshipper of Bread for God; a remover of the sovereign mediatorship of Christ; a destroyer of the true gospel, she teaches a system which, if any man believes or follows as she teaches it, he will infallibly be lost—he must be. ... I will not take my Bible—not the bulk of it—from her apostate, foul, deceitful, cruel hands. ‘Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes’—I fear the Latins bearing presents in their hands” (p. 69).

“I have been confirmed in what had before been A GROWING CONVICTION—THAT THE REVISION MOVEMENT, DATING FROM THE FINDING OF TISCHENDORF’S [Aleph], unconsciously to most, but consciously to the Unitarian XE "Unitarian" —to the Messrs. Vance Smith XE "Smith, G. Vance" , Robertson Smith XE "Smith, W. Robertson" , etc.—liberal members of the New Testament Company, was RUNNING STEADILY IN ONE DIRECTION THROUGH THREE POINTS: 1ST. TO WEAKEN AND DESTROY THE BINDING FORCE OF INSPIRATION IN THE VERY WORDS. 2d. To weaken and destroy the five Points of Grace founded on ‘Free Will a Slave.’ 3d. To weaken and destroy the old-fashioned notion of Hell as a place and a state of immediate, everlasting and utterly indescribable torment into which impenitent men go at once the moment they die” (p. 74).

“The Revised Version XE "English Revised Version" weakens and removes the deity of Christ in many places—one I mention in particular. 1 Timothy 3:16 XE "First Timothy 3.16" XE "Christ’s deity" XE "God was manifest in the flesh" , ‘Great is the mystery of godliness, God was manifest in the flesh.’ The Revised Version [as do all modern versions] leaves out Theos, God ... Dr. Scrivener XE "Scrivener, F.H.A." , the foremost English critic, says it is Theos. ... That conviction of Dr. Scrivener is my conviction and on the very same grounds—A CONVICTION SO DEEP THAT I WILL NEVER YIELD IT, NOR ADMIT AS A TEXT OF MY FAITH A BOOK PRETENDING TO BE A REVELATION FROM GOD WHICH LEAVES THAT WORD OUT. THE HOLY GHOST HAS WRITTEN IT—LET NO MAN DARE TOUCH IT—GREAT IS THE MYSTERY OF GODLINESS, GOD WAS MANIFEST IN THE FLESH” (pp. 78-80).

“WHAT THEN IS THE GRAND SUMMING UP OF THIS ... AS TO THE TENDENCY OF THE REVISION?

“1. A general weakening all along the line toward Rome XE "Roman Catholic" . This must be, if Rome is to furnish the basal document which is to determine our Bible. ... No wonder I say that men have gone up valiantly to Church Courts to overturn if possible, the declaration of the Old School Assembly of 1845 by a vote of 173 to 8, that Rome is apostate and her baptism as a baptism into an apostate system is utterly invalid.

“2. A second Tendency of the Revision XE "English Revised Version" is to loosen the Revelation of God from the letter, and to cast it floating out upon the winds. How can God inspire thoughts, ideas, but by words? Did you ever have a thought in your mind, an idea that was not in words? Never. If Inspiration is not verbal, in the very words, it is nowhere.

“3. The tendency is to remove from men that fear of penalty, which, say what we please, is the kingbolt of the Divine Government over the world. TAKE AWAY THE DOCTRINE OF HELL-FIRE AND THE WORLD WOULD BECOME ONE GREAT SODOM. ...

“The time has not come for a New Translation of the Holy Scriptures. The Church is not spiritual enough. The Principle has not been settled, and the Data are not all in” (George Sayles Bishop XE "Bishop, George" , “Sheol: The Principle and Tendency of the Revision XE "English Revised Version" Examined,” The Doctrines of Grace and Kindred Themes, 1910, pp. 60-87).

[Distributed by Way of Life Literature's Fundamental Baptist Information Service, an e-mail listing for Fundamental Baptists and other fundamentalist, Bible-believing Christians. OUR GOAL IN THIS PARTICULAR ASPECT OF OUR MINISTRY IS NOT DEVOTIONAL BUT IS TO PROVIDE INFORMATION TO ASSIST PREACHERS IN THE PROTECTION OF THE CHURCHES IN THIS APOSTATE HOUR. This material is sent only to those who personally subscribe to the list. If somehow you have subscribed unintentionally, following are the instructions for removal. The Fundamental Baptist Information Service mailing list is automated. To SUBSCRIBE or to UNSUBSCRIBE or to CHANGE ADDRESSES or to RE-SUBSCRIBE UNDER A NEW ADDRESS, go to http://www.wayoflife.org/fbis/subscribe.html. If you have any trouble with this, please let us know. And please be patient with us. We do not ignore any unsubscribe request, but we cannot always get to your request immediately as each person involved with maintaining the Way of Life web site does this only on a very part time basis and is busy with many other major activities, such as pastoring and missionary work. We take up a quarterly offering to fund this ministry, and those who use the materials are expected to participate (Galatians 6:6) if they can. Some of the articles are from O Timothy magazine, which is in its 25th year of publication. Way of Life publishes many helpful books. The catalog is located at the web site: http://wayoflife.org/catalog/catalog.htm Way of Life Literature, P.O. Box 610368, Port Huron, MI 48061. 866-295-4143, fbns@wayoflife.org. We do not solicit funds from those who do not agree with our preaching and who are not helped by these publications, but from those who are. OFFERINGS can be made at http://www.wayoflife.org/fbns/offering.html. PAYPAL offerings can be made to https://www.paypal.com/xclick/business=dcloud%40wayoflife.org]

DID FULLER GET HIS VIEWS ON THE KJV FROM A CULTIST?

Updated October 22, 2008 (first published December 30, 2000) (David Cloud, Fundamental Baptist Information Service, P.O. Box 610368, Port Huron, MI 48061, 866-295-4143, fbns@wayoflife.org; for instructions about subscribing and unsubscribing or changing addresses, see the information paragraph at the end of the article) -

Some of the men fundamentalists are promoting modern textual criticism, such as Bob Ross, Gary Hudson, Doug Kutilek, James Price, and the editor of “From the Mind of God to the Mind of Man,” have made the amazing charge that the current King James Bible defense is based upon the views of Benjamin Wilkinson, a Seventh-day Adventist professor. They claim that Wilkinson authored the view that the Received Text is the preserved Word of God that can be traced through history, and that J.J. Ray and David Otis Fuller picked up this teaching and promoted it to the “KJV Only” crowd.

In his 1930 book, “Our Authorized Bible Vindicated,” Wilkinson defended the text of the King James Bible and gave some evidence of its textual primacy among Bible believers through the centuries. Large portions of Wilkinson’s book were republished in David Otis Fuller’s 1970 book, Which Bible.

That much is fact. Whether Fuller was right or wrong in reprinting some of Wilkinson’s writings (and hiding the fact that Wilkinson was an Adventist) is something each reader will have to decide for himself.

I believe that he was wrong. Wilkinson’s writings added nothing of substance to the debate and by using Wilkinson’s book Dr. Fuller gave his enemies something to use against him and his position on the Bible.

Further, Wilkinson was wrong in some of his facts, having leaned heavily upon the writings of Adventist “prophetess” Ellen G. White. (I have obtained the vast majority of the books cited by Wilkinson for my own library with the objective of checking his documentation.) It is not true, for instance, that the Waldenses had a perfect Bible that is exactly like the King James. While the Waldensian New Testaments were much closer to the King James than to the modern versions, they were not exactly like the KJV. I have had the privilege of examining two of the seven extant Waldensian Bibles--the one at Trinity College, Dublin, and the one at Cambridge University. Both are based on Latin and have the textual corruptions that pertain to Latin. For example both omit “God” in 1 Timothy 3:16. Wilkinson claimed that the Waldensian Bibles were based on an “old Latin” rather than the Latin vulgate and were textually perfect, but this is not true (if we believe that the Greek Received Text is pure).

At the same time, to claim that Fuller’s views on the Bible version issue were derived from Wilkinson and to make Wilkinson the father of King James Bible defense is pure unadulterated nonsense.

Further, I am convinced that it is MALICIOUS nonsense, because even though this silly little myth has been refuted (such as in my book For Love of the Bible, first edition 1995 and second edition 1999, as well as in this article, which was first published in 2000) the aforementioned men continued to perpetuate it. As of September 8, 2008, their articles purporting this myth are still on the web.

THE DEFENSE OF THE KJV PRE-DATED BENJAMIN WILKINSON

First of all, long before Benjamin Wilkinson wrote on the Bible version issue, there were pastors and Christian leaders defending the King James Bible in the same way that Dr. Fuller defended it. I have carefully and extensively documented this in my 440-page book For Love of the Bible: The Defense of the KJV and the Received Text from 1800 to Present.

One example is the Trinitarian Bible Society (TBS) of England. The Society was formed in 1831 from a conflict within the British and Foreign Bible Society (BFBS) over the doctrine of the Trinity and the deity of Jesus Christ. The BFBS refused to take a stand against Unitarianism, and those men who were concerned for doctrinal purity left to form the TBS. In the early years of the TBS, the matter of different Bible texts and versions was not a serious issue in the sense it was to become at the end of the nineteenth century. Though there were textual critics in the first half of that century, they did not exercise wide influence in ordinary Christian circles. The battles faced by Trinitarian in its earlier years were in other directions.

With the publication of the English Revised Version New Testament and the Westcott-Hort Greek text of 1881, the TBS began to take a more active position on texts and versions. A number of articles were published in the TBS Quarterly Record at the turn of the century critiquing the ERV and supporting the Received Text. Some of these drew heavily upon John Burgon’s Revision Revised, as well as the research of F.C. Cook and F.H.A. Scrivener. From that time to this, Trinitarian has stood solidly behind the Received Text and the King James Bible. Their published writings have promoted all of the major points commonly given in defense of the KJV. Consider a couple of selections:

“The architects and advocates of the modern English translations of the Holy Scriptures often assure us that their numerous alterations, omissions and additions do not affect any vital doctrine. While this may be true of hundreds of minute variations there is nevertheless a substantial number of important doctrinal passages which the modern versions present in an altered and invariably weakened form” (God Was Manifest in the Flesh, TBS Article No. 10).

“For too long the ‘science’ of Textual Criticism has been in bondage to the authority of a small class of ancient manuscripts, with the Sinai and Vatican copies at their head, which are in thousands of instances at variance with the Greek Text preserved in the great majority of the documents now available for ascertaining the true text. ... The result has been that even in the ‘evangelical’ seminaries generations of theological students have been encouraged to accept without question theories which involve the rejection of the historical text and the adoption of an abbreviated and defective text cast in the mold of the Vatican and Sinai copies” (Many Things, TBS Article No. 33).

“No evangelical Christian, learned or unlearned, would wish to follow [modernistic] writers along the perilous paths of infidelity in which they strode with such presumption. There is another danger, no less serious, in that Textual Criticism, the evaluation of the actual manuscripts in the ancient languages, the preparation of printed editions of the Hebrew and Greek Text, and the modern translations now being made in English and many other languages, are very largely conducted under the direction or influence of scholars who by their adoption of these erroneous theories have betrayed the unreliability of their judgment in these vital matters. WE MUST NOT PERMIT OUR JUDGMENT TO BE OVERAWED BY GREAT NAMES IN THE REALM OF BIBLICAL ‘SCHOLARSHIP’ WHEN IT IS SO CLEARLY EVIDENT THAT THE DISTINGUISHED SCHOLARS OF THE PRESENT CENTURY ARE MERELY REPRODUCING THE CASE PRESENTED BY RATIONALISTS DURING THE LAST TWO HUNDRED YEARS. Nor should we fail to recognise that scholarship of this kind has degenerated into a skeptical crusade against the Bible, tending to lower it to the level of an ordinary book of merely human composition” (If the Foundations Be Destroyed, TBS Article No. 14).

It is obvious that defense of the King James Bible and its underlying text predated Benjamin Wilkinson in the Trinitarian Bible Society.

Another example was fundamentalist leader William Aberhart (1878-1943), who stood for the Received Text and the King James Bible in western Canada during the first half of the twentieth century. Aberhart was a pastor, Bible school dean, radio Bible teacher, and a greatly beloved political leader. He was Premier of Alberta from 1935-43. In the late 1920s Aberhart separated from the Regular Baptists over issues such as Bible inspiration and prophecy, and in 1924 he established the Calgary Prophetic Bible Institute. The first student enrolled in this Bible Institute was Ernest Charles Manning, who eventually became the premier of Alberta, holding that position from 1943 until 1968. Aberhart also founded the 1,250-seat Bible Institute Baptist Church, which often featured the preaching of well-known fundamentalist leaders such as William B. Riley and Harry Rimmer.

Aberhart trained his people and his students to have confidence in the divine preservation of the Bible. He defended the King James Bible as the preserved Word of God. A summary of Aberhart’s teaching was given to me personally by Pastor Mark Buch (1910-1995), who was educated by Aberhart in the 1930s. Buch was the founder and pastor of the People’s Fellowship Tabernacle in Vancouver, British Columbia. This church was a stronghold for biblical fundamentalism in western Canada from the time it was founded in 1939. Buch knew and preached with many of the well-known Fundamentalist leaders of the last century, including J. Frank Norris, G. Beauchamp Vick, and Bob Jones Sr.

When I was doing research for my book For Love of the Bible, I had the pleasure of interviewing Pastor Buch on a number of occasions. Buch had taken the second year Apologetics course Aberhart taught on the subject of inspiration and preservation at the Prophetic Bible Institute. Note how Pastor Buch described Aberhart’s position on Bible preservation:

“Mr. Aberhart was one of the greatest Bible teachers in Canada. He was the first person I came in contact with WHO KNEW THE TRUE STORY OF THE DIVINE INSPIRATION AND PRESERVATION OF GOD’S HOLY WORD. He explained how it came down from the first apostolic faultless autograph, its safe keeping through the Byzantine church, the majority reformation copy by Erasmus of Rotterdam, William Tyndale’s translation, the Authorized committee of mental and spiritual giants, and the resultant glorious treasure—the Authorized Version” (Mark Buch, In Defence of the Authorized Version, People’s Fellowship Tabernacle, Vancouver, British Columbia, p. 25).

The position William Aberhart held on the Bible version issue in the 1920s is exactly the position that David Otis Fuller taught, and Aberhart was writing and teaching this several years before the publication of Wilkinson’s book. In the course of my research, I looked into the sources of Aberhart’s position. One of his sources was the writings of John William Burgon, whose book The Revision Revised was first published in 1881 and was reprinted many times. Mark Buch testified to me that Aberhard used Burgon’s material in his Bible institute classes.

TO SAY THAT FULLER WAS BRAINWASHED BY ANY ONE CERTAIN MAN OR BOOK IS TO IGNORE THE FACTS

While it is true that David Otis Fuller published some of Wilkinson’s writings, he also published the writings of a wide variety of men on the Bible version issue, and to focus on Wilkinson as the basis for Fuller’s views is something that is done to demagogue Fuller and other defenders of the KJV.

By his enemies, David Otis Fuller (called “Duke” by his friends) is made out to be some sort of scheming madman, and an ignorant one at that! The fact is that he was a graduate of Princeton Seminary and a noted pastor, author, and Baptist associational leader. He obtained the Master of Divinity degree at Princeton and was honored with a Doctor of Divinity degree by Dallas Theological Seminary. He pastored the prominent Wealthy Street Baptist Church in Grand Rapids, Michigan, for 40 years (1934-74). While there, he founded the Grand Rapids Baptist Institute, which later became the Grand Rapids Baptist Bible College (today called Cornerstone). Fuller co-founded the Children’s Bible Hour radio program in 1942 and for 33 years was its chairman. For 52 years Fuller was on the board of the Association of Baptists for World Evangelism. He was on the Council of 14 in the General Association of Regular Baptist Churches. Fuller published between fifteen to twenty books.

When he first began investigating the Bible version issue for himself in the 1960s, Fuller came across not only Wilkinson’s work, but also Philip Mauro’s Which Version, John Burgon’s Revision Revised, and Alfred Martin’s doctoral dissertation against the Westcott-Hort Text. Martin was Vice President of Moody Bible Institute and refuted modern textual criticism in his doctoral dissertation to the faculty of the Dallas Theological Seminary graduate school. Martin corresponded with Fuller on the Bible text issue and allowed Fuller to publish a condensation of his dissertation in Which Bible.

To say that Fuller was brainwashed by any one certain man or book is to ignore the facts. Whatever Fuller accepted from Ray or Wilkinson or anyone else he accepted because he felt that it was affirmed by other reputable sources.

Fuller was only a man, with the faults and weaknesses of a man. I respect him but I do not idolize him. The eternal treasure is held in “earthen vessels” (2 Cor. 4:7) and those who preach the Word of God are “subject to like passions as we are” (Jam. 5:17). But there can be no doubt that Fuller was a scholarly individual who studied the Bible Version issue from many angles. He even visited the British Library to seek out John Burgon’s unpublished works. “It was the privilege of this compiler, after struggling through several rounds of red tape, to see for myself three of the sixteen folio volumes Burgon had written in his own hand, a compilation of eighty-seven thousand quotations from the early Church Fathers. I make bold to say there is no other collection like this in existence” (Fuller, Counterfeit or Genuine, introduction, p. 11). (I examined two of those massive volumes myself on a visit to the British Library in March 2003.)

Altogether Fuller edited three major volumes totaling 900 pages on the Bible version issue: Which Bible? (1970), True or False? (1973), and Counterfeit or Genuine? (1975). These volumes are evidence of Dr. Fuller’s diligent research on the subject of texts and versions. He located many books long out of print and made the contents available to his generation. Fuller’s three volumes on this subject contain the full or summarized works of many older authorities on the textual issue, including John Burgon, Herman Hoskier, Philip Mauro, Joseph Philpot, Samuel Zwemer, and George Sayles Bishop, as well as the works of a number of contemporary writers, including Edward Hills, Terence Brown, and Wilbur Pickering. Dr. Fuller was influential in obtaining and publishing several post-graduate theses that defended the TR and the KJV in opposition to the modern versions. These include the following:

A Critical Examination of the Westcott-Hort Textual Theory—Alfred Martin’s dissertation to the faculty of the Graduate School of Dallas Theological Seminary, May 1951.

The Preservation of the Scriptures—Donald Brake’s dissertation to the faculty of the Department of Systematic Theology at Dallas Theological Seminary in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Master of Theology Degree, May 1970.

An Evaluation of the Contribution of John William Burgon to New Testament Textual Criticism—Wilbur Pickering’s thesis presented to the faculty of the Department of New Testament Literature and Exegesis at the Dallas Theological Seminary in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Master of Theology Degree, May 1968.

Contrary to the wild-eyed caricature that many have drawn of him, Dr. Fuller did not claim that the King James Bible was given by inspiration or that it contains some type of advanced revelation or that it could not be improved or changed. He claimed simply that it is the only reliable English translation of the preserved Greek and Hebrew text of Scripture. He did not believe the KJV has errors, but he differentiated plainly between improvements and errors.

“We do not say that the KJV does not permit of changes. There are a number that could be AND SHOULD BE made, but there is a vast difference between a change and an error” (Fuller, Is the King James Version Nearest to the Original Autographs? nd., p. 1).

I don’t share Dr. Fuller’s position that the KJV should be changed; my objective here is to define his position as carefully as I can and to refute the many lies that have been told about him.

Fuller believed that versions other than the King James could be used in study, if used carefully:

“I do not say that you cannot profit from reading other versions. You can. But if they are based on the Westcott and Hort text, they are immediately suspect and you should be mighty careful that you check that version with the KJV as closely as possible” (Fuller, Which Bible Is Preserved of God, message preached in the 1970s).

Dr. Fuller’s position on Bible versions is given on pages 5 and 6 of his first book, Which Bible:

“The compiler of this book, and the able writers whom he quotes, all contend that the Bible is the inspired, inerrant and authoritative word of God and that there has been a gracious exercise of the divine providence in its preservation and transmission. They are also deeply convinced that the inspired text is more faithfully represented by the Majority Text—sometimes called the Byzantine Text, the Received Text or the Traditional Text—than by the modern critical editions which attach too much weight to the Codex Vaticanus, Codex Sinaiticus and their allies. For this reason the reader is encouraged to maintain confidence in THE KING JAMES VERSION AS A FAITHFUL TRANSLATION BASED UPON A RELIABLE TEXT” (Fuller, Which Bible? pp. 5,6).

“A faithful translation based upon a reliable text.” That is what David Otis Fuller believed about the King James Bible. For various reasons, many have not been content to allow D.O. Fuller to state his own position. Instead they have caricatured him as a wild-eyed traditionalist who believed that every word of the KJV was penned by direct inspiration. One would think that Dr. Fuller went around saying, “If the KJV was good enough for Paul it was good enough for me.” This caricature is convenient as a straw man that those who despise the Authorized Version can pummel in a very grand and pompous manner.

A more honest evaluation of Fuller’s Which Bible? was given by Dr. John Holliday in the Gospel Witness:

“WHICH BIBLE? is not a repudiation of scholarship. It is not an argument for the inerrancy of a translation. It is not a defense of out-dated forms of speech. It is an exposure of the presence of enemies in the field of Bible translation. It is a warning against adulterated versions of the Scriptures, particularly versions which show evidence of having been deliberately corrupted in order to destroy belief in vital Biblical truths. It is a long-overdue defense of the worth of the old Authorized Version ... A DEFENSE THAT IS GROUNDED UPON THE TRUSTWORTHINESS OF ITS UNDERLYING TEXT AND THE FAITHFULNESS OF THE TRANSLATION.”

David Otis Fuller was powerfully conscious of the fact that he stood before God in his life and ministry. He was not an armchair theologian; he was a soul winner and a pastor. He died leading a little Sunday School girl to Jesus Christ. His chief concern was for the authority of God’s Word in the lives and hearts of people. He believed that the Bible text issue must be approached by faith and not by science falsely so-called. His wisdom was not ivory tower; it was down-to-earth. It was with D.O. Fuller as it was in the days of Jesus, in that the common man heard him gladly.

D.O. Fuller loved the blessed Word of God. It was not merely another book to him, and a great many men who think of themselves as scholarly today simply do not understand a genuine, heart-felt zeal for the Bible. As with the late Lester Roloff, to “Duke” Fuller the Bible Version issue was not merely about scholarship, about conflation, recension, inversion, eclecticism, conjectural emendation, intrinsic and transcriptional probability, interpolation, harmonistic assimilation, cognate groups, and genealogical methods. It was about the inspired, infallible, living Words of God. Roloff testified that he looked upon the King James Bible as he looked upon his mother (1 Pet. 1:23). It was a heart-felt issue with him. He was no more willing to look upon omissions and changes in the Bible text with scholarly calmness as he would look upon someone trying to cut a few “unnecessary” pieces off of his mother!

This is the way that David Otis Fuller felt about the King James Bible. Consider the following quotation:

“Please remember this. You and I are facing, as I have said before, the most vicious and malicious attack upon the Word of God that has ever been made since the Garden of Eden, and the modern attack began with the publication of the Revised Version of 1881. This is an unpopular cause at present in Christian circles. I have found this out again and again, and I am going to find it out in the future. But I can say as far as I am concerned it doesn’t make any difference what happens to me, but it makes a whale of a difference what happens to the cause of Jesus Christ. And someday you and I, my friend, will have to stand before a holy God and give an account to what we did or did not do in seeking to open the eyes of people to the facts that have been covered up for so long concerning His holy, indestructible, impregnable Word” (D.O. Fuller, letter to Dr. Paul Tassell, National Representative of the GARBC, Jan. 8, 1982).

Some have questioned Dr. Fuller’s motives in his stand for the King James Bible, but I had the privilege of corresponding with him before he died and of having a close relationship with some men who knew him well and of having diligently studied all of his writings on the Bible version issue; and I have seen no evidence that he was motivated by anything other than principle. He said he was motivated by love for the Bible. Those who knew him best believed this. I have looked at the evidence (including the statements by many of his critics), and I am convinced that for those who are not predisposed to vilify the man or to despise his position on the Bible, all of the evidence points to one conclusion: Dr. Fuller was a brave Christian gentleman who was motivated by his God-given conviction that the King James Bible is the preserved Word of God in English and that the modern versions are corruptions.

If he made some mistakes along the way, can that be surprising? Every book that has ever been written by a man has had to be revised, usually sooner than later and usually more often than less often. The only exception is the 66 books that make up the Holy Bible.

Fuller certainly did not gain anything, from an earthly perspective, for his stand for the King James Bible. He was a highly respected pastor and Christian leader BEFORE he published Which Bible, True or False, and Counterfeit or Genuine. He certainly did not gain in personal prestige or influence, speaking in a general sense. Rather, he was mocked, ridiculed, slandered, and ostracized, even by many of his own fundamentalist and Baptist brethren. He made no personal financial gain from the sell of his books, turning all of the profit back into the printing ministry.

Countless Christians today who have confidence in their Bibles, who have been delivered from the fog of critical textual theorizing and from the confusion of an unsettled text of Scripture, have David Otis Fuller to thank.

I close with the words of Pastor Robert Barnett, Calvary Baptist Church, Grayling, Michigan, who knew “Duke” Fuller well:

“One may not have understood the arguments and details Dr. Fuller was presenting, but when you left the room, you knew that God was real to Dr. Fuller, and the King James Bible was his infallible authority in every area in which it spoke. You also knew that Dr. Fuller had a genuine concern for both your soul and your life” (Pastor Robert Barnett, Calvary Baptist Church, Grayling, Michigan, March 1990).

Having studied the Bible Version issue diligently for 30 years and having built a library on this subject that contains most of the material that has been published on all sides of the issue for the past 200 years, I am convinced that David Otis Fuller’s enemies today have a spiritual disease. It is a disease that he identified and labeled. It is a disease that, as Princeton educated man, he had to fight in his own flesh. It is a disease called “scholarolatry.”

“Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall.” Proverbs 16:18

“Seest thou a man wise in his own conceit? there is more hope of a fool than of him.” Proverbs 26:12

“Thus saith the LORD; Cursed be the man that trusteth in man, and maketh flesh his arm, and whose heart departeth from the LORD. ... Blessed is the man that trusteth in the LORD, and whose hope the LORD is.” Jeremiah 17:5, 7

“Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding.” Proverbs 3:5

“Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ.” Colossians 2:8

“O Timothy, keep that which is committed to thy trust, avoiding profane and vain babblings, and oppositions of science falsely so called: Which some professing have erred concerning the faith. Grace be with thee. Amen.” 1 Timothy 6:20-21

For more information see the following articles (and many others) under the Bible Version section of the End Times Apostasy Database at the Way of Life web site:
http://www.wayoflife.org/

“Old-Time Fundamentalists Who Defended the King James Bible”
“Answer to Challenge on Preservation Article”
“Textual Criticism Is Drawn from the Wells of Infidelity”
“Examining James White’s ‘The King James Only Controversy’”
“Are Modern Versions Based on Westcott and Hort?”
“Can Evangelicals Be Trusted on Bible Versions?”
“Is the Received Text Based on a Few Late Manuscripts?”
“Which Edition of the Received Text Is the Preserved Word of God?”

[Distributed by Way of Life Literature's Fundamental Baptist Information Service, an e-mail listing for Fundamental Baptists and other fundamentalist, Bible-believing Christians. OUR GOAL IN THIS PARTICULAR ASPECT OF OUR MINISTRY IS NOT DEVOTIONAL BUT IS TO PROVIDE INFORMATION TO ASSIST PREACHERS IN THE PROTECTION OF THE CHURCHES IN THIS APOSTATE HOUR. This material is sent only to those who personally subscribe to the list. If somehow you have subscribed unintentionally, following are the instructions for removal. The Fundamental Baptist Information Service mailing list is automated. To SUBSCRIBE or to UNSUBSCRIBE or to CHANGE ADDRESSES or to RE-SUBSCRIBE UNDER A NEW ADDRESS, go to http://www.wayoflife.org/fbis/subscribe.html. If you have any trouble with this, please let us know. And please be patient with us. We do not ignore any unsubscribe request, but we cannot always get to your request immediately as each person involved with maintaining the Way of Life web site does this only on a very part time basis and is busy with many other major activities, such as pastoring and missionary work. We take up a quarterly offering to fund this ministry, and those who use the materials are expected to participate (Galatians 6:6) if they can. Some of the articles are from O Timothy magazine, which is in its 25th year of publication. Way of Life publishes many helpful books. The catalog is located at the web site: http://wayoflife.org/catalog/catalog.htm Way of Life Literature, P.O. Box 610368, Port Huron, MI 48061. 866-295-4143, fbns@wayoflife.org. We do not solicit funds from those who do not agree with our preaching and who are not helped by these publications, but from those who are. OFFERINGS can be made at http://www.wayoflife.org/fbns/offering.html. PAYPAL offerings can be made to https://www.paypal.com/xclick/business=dcloud%40wayoflife.org]

SOLOMON MALAN: AN EARLY DEFENDER OF THE KJV

October 9, 2008 (David Cloud, Fundamental Baptist Information Service, P.O. Box 610368, Port Huron, MI 48061, 866-295-4143, fbns@wayoflife.org; for instructions about subscribing and unsubscribing or changing addresses, see the information paragraph at the end of the article) -

The defense of the King James Bible is not new. The following is excerpted from For Love of the Bible: The Battle for the King James Version and the Greek Received Text from 1800 to Present. The fifth edition (October 2008) is revised and updated and fully illustrated. This book is available from Way of Life Literature, P.O. Box 610368, Port Huron, MI 48061, 866-295-4143 (toll free), www.wayoflife.org (online catalog), fbns@wayoflife.org (e-mail).
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Solomon Caesar Malan, D.D. (1812-1894), Vicar of Broadwindsor, published A Vindication of the Authorized Version, from Charges Brought against It by Recent Writers (1856), A Plea for the Received Text XE "Received Text" and for the Authorized Version of the New Testament (1869), and Seven Chapters of the Revision XE "English Revised Version" of 1881 Revised (1881). The first of these was Malan XE "Malan, Solomon" ’s reply to a call for revision that had come in 1856 through William Selwyn XE "Selwyn, William" and James Heywood XE "Heywood, James" . About that same time, five other Anglican XE "Anglican" ministers were lobbying for revision. These were Charles Ellicott XE "Ellicott, Charles" (later the New Testament Revision Committee chairman), Henry Alford XE "Alford, Henry" , W.H.G. Humphry XE "Humphry, W.H.G." , John Barrow XE "Barrow, John" , and G. Moberly XE "Moberly, G." . This group was brought together in 1856 by Ernest Hawkins XE "Hawkins, Ernest" , secretary of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, and between 1857 and 1863 they published several revised portions of the English Bible. These were issued under the title of Revision of the Authorized Version, by Five Clergymen. Malan wrote in opposition to this work, which has been called “the germ of the 1881 revision.”

Malan XE "Malan, Solomon" exhibited a learned grasp of the unique and glorious heritage of the Authorized English Version. He well understood the seriousness of any attempt to revise it. Let’s go back in time 150 years and listen in as this brilliant man gives a defense of the King James Bible:

“It [the KJV] stands as yet unrivalled among other modern versions for the devout spirit in which its authors rendered the original texts; for the simple beauty of its style; and for the dignified and easy flow of a language that was in a great degree formed from it, and that singles it out from among other translations of the Bible, even as a mere literary composition. It is free from the ruggedness and from the archaisms of the older English versions; and at the same time it possesses at least an equal merit with them, for its faithful rendering of the original. But it has this great advantage over some of them, that whereas they were the work of single individuals, this was made by a goodly company of nearly fifty of the most pious and learned men of that time; who, together, availed themselves of the labours of their predecessors in order to raise their own production to a higher degree of excellence. ...

“It may, indeed, be taken down; but, if so, never to be rebuilt as it was. It might, it is true, have a more modern appearance; but then, it would lose the solemn look of age. It might also possibly be better adapted to the fastidious taste of the present day; but then, unbroken associations of two centuries and a half, together with much of national individuality, would perish for ever; and those persons who think the Authorized Version antiquated XE "Archaic (words in the KJV)" , would be the first to regret the change. ... And they would lament the day when, for the sake of novelty, they had abandoned those sweet and solemn words of warning blended with their earliest recollections of childhood, by renouncing their trust of a national treasure, committed to them in the safe keeping of the Authorized English Version of the Bible. ...

“So much care, so much earnestness, in the due performance of this important task [the creation of the King James Bible], were not bestowed in vain. They have stamped the work with a character for excellence to which no modern version, and but one or two of the older ones, can lay claim. As regards the Old Testament, the Authorized Version is, generally speaking, less paraphrastic, and is therefore a more correct rendering of the Hebrew XE "Hebrew" , than the Septuagint and the versions that follow them wholly or in part; such as the Armenian, the Ethiopic, the Coptic, the Vulgate, the Arabic, and even the Syriac. ... And, as regards the New Testament, the English Bible agrees best with the old versions, which are of the highest value, on account of their faithfulness and accuracy. ...

“[I]t stands pre-eminent when side by side with more modern versions,—not only for its devout adherence to the original texts, but also for the beauty of its style. ... So true is this, that whereas neighbouring nations have had, within a short period, a succession of versions of the Bible in their respective languages, to the detriment of union and of uniformity among the readers of the Bible in those countries, the English Version has stood on its own merits, and has shone of its own lustre for nearly two centuries and a half. ...

“Thus it is that it has entered into the very substance of the nation. It is interwoven with its sinews, and forms more than any other book ever did—an unseen, by many perhaps, unacknowledged, or even neglected, but still a living, element in the prosperity of the people. ... THESE LASTING AND WHOLESOME EFFECTS ARE THE RESULT OF THE ENGLISH BIBLE BEING ONE AND THE SAME FOR ALL. IF, INSTEAD OF ONLY ONE BIBLE, ENGLAND HAD, LIKE SOME OTHER COUNTRIES, MANY BIBLES, THAT VARIETY ALONE WOULD BREED AND FOSTER ENDLESS DIVISION. ...

“Their reverence for the Sacred Scriptures induced them [KJV translators] to be as literal as they could, to avoid obscurity; and it must be acknowledged that they were extremely happy in the simplicity and dignity of their expressions. Their adherence to the Hebrew XE "Hebrew" idiom is supposed at once to have enriched and adorned our language; and, as they laboured for the general benefit of the learned and the unlearned, they avoided all words of Latin original when they could find words in their own language ...

“Thus, then, the English Bible has not only stood for centuries, and NOW STANDS, ON ITS OWN MERITS AS A TRUE WITNESS OF THE INSPIRED TEXT OF SCRIPTURE; but it is also strong of its own strength, in being, as the highest authorities tell us, ‘the best standard of the English language.’ ... For ‘our translators,’ says Dr. Adam Clarke, ‘not only made a standard translation, but they have made their translation the standard of our language. THE ENGLISH TONGUE, IN THEIR DAY, WAS NOT EQUAL TO SUCH A WORK; BUT GOD ENABLED THEM TO STAND AS UPON MOUNT SINAI, AND CRANE UP THEIR COUNTRY’S LANGUAGE TO THE DIGNITY OF THE ORIGINALS, so that after the lapse of two hundred [and fifty] years, the English Bible is, with very few exceptions, the standard of the purity and excellence of the English tongue. The original, from which it was taken, is alone superior to the Bible translated by the authority of King James.’...

“Such considerations, however, have no weight whatever with many who are willing to sacrifice much to the love of change; or at all events, who seem to take pleasure in aiming blows at everything that is not of yesterday. Everything now must keep pace with the age; even the word of God. ... And yet wisdom neither came with us, nor will die with us. As regards the Authorized Version then, and those who find fault with it, ‘let us not too hastily conclude,’ says Mr. Whittaker XE "Whittaker, J.W." , ‘that the translators have fallen on evil days and evil tongues, because it has occasionally happened that an individual, as inferior to them in erudition as in talents and integrity, is found questioning their motives, or denying their qualifications for the task which they so well performed. ... It [the KJV] may be compared with any translation in the world, without fear of inferiority; it has not shrunk from the most rigorous examination; it challenges investigation; and, in spite of numerous attempts to supersede it, it has hitherto remained unrivalled in the affections of the country.’

“And God grant it may long continue so, for the good of the people to which it belongs! ...

“I purpose therefore ... to look into the charges thus brought forward against the English Bible, with those who cling to it as they ought, affectionately and devoutly; in order to assist them in expelling from their mind all doubt on the subject. Meanwhile, they may rest assured that, hitherto, all attempts at improvement upon their Bible, have come far short of it in language, in style, in truthfulness, and above all, in a generally correct and devout rendering of the original texts” (Malan XE "Malan, Solomon" , A Vindication, pp. i-xvi, xxii-xxvi).
Malan XE "Malan, Solomon" answered the various arguments that were being put forth in advance of a revision of the Authorized Version. For example:

“... we now hear from many, that the English Bible is no longer suited to the exigencies of the present day, but that our advanced state of knowledge loudly calls for a new revision. An evil day that will be when it comes. However, Bishop Middleton holds out no encouragement to them, when he says: ‘The style of our present version is incomparably superior to anything which might be expected from the finical and perverted taste of our own age. It is simple, it is harmonious, it is energetic; and, which is of no small importance, use has made it familiar, and time has rendered it sacred.’ ... its words are ‘household words,’ ... its simple and hallowed language is understood and loved alike, by the poor peasant and by the august Sovereign, whom it binds to Her people. England XE "England" has not ‘a Bible,’ one of many to choose from, like her neighbours; but ‘the Bible’ is in every English home; and ‘my Bible,’ in English, means that one Book, the very words of which are the same for all” (Malan XE "Malan, Solomon" , A Vindication, pp. xviii, xix).

Malan XE "Malan, Solomon" plainly saw the danger of loosing from the ancient moorings of the Received Text XE "Received Text" and the Authorized Version.

“Who will be bold, or I might almost say hardened enough, if not perhaps to pull down, yet even to whitewash the stately edifice of the English Bible? ... It might possibly be better adapted to the fastidious taste of the age; but then, unbroken associations of two centuries and a half, together with much of national individuality, would perish for ever; and those persons who think the authorized version antiquated XE "Archaic (words in the KJV)" would be the first to regret the change. ... For independently of the words of the Bible being sacred in all languages, the language of the English Bible in particular is consecrated ... the vernacular translation of the Bible has formed and fixed the language of the country” (Malan XE "Malan, Solomon" , A Vindication of the Authorized Version, 1856, pp. iii, iv, xiv).

Malan XE "Malan, Solomon" pointed out the unsettled, ever-changing character of modern textual criticism, observing: “In other words, the translator chooses his own text, which he renders as he thinks fit; so that, in fact, he has it all his own way. ... Mill is thought by some to be antiquated XE "Archaic (words in the KJV)" , Griesbach XE "Griesbach, J.J." out of date, and Tischendorf XE "Tischendorf" even not exactly to their taste” (Malan, A Vindication of the Authorized Version, p. xxi).

Malan “takes exceptions even to the quite prevalent custom of ministers’ criticising the present translation before their congregations, on the ground that it ‘needlessly unsettles the mind of their hearers on a subject in which comparatively few of them can ever be fair judges’” (Bissell, The Historic Origin of the Bible, p. 350).

In the second book, Malan XE "Malan, Solomon" directed his remarks to a critique of Henry Alford XE "Alford, Henry" ’s sixth edition Greek XE "Greek" New Testament (published in 1868) which followed Tischendorf XE "Tischendorf" and gave heavy preference to the Vaticanus XE "Vaticanus" and Sinaiticus XE "Sinaiticus" manuscripts. Malan comments on some of Alford’s readings in the Gospels and the book of Titus. The following two examples illustrate the tone of the whole:

“[Matthew 1:25] ‘Till she had brought forth her first-born son,’ A.V. is changed by Dr. Alford XE "Alford, Henry" to ‘till she had brought forth a son’! His reasons for this change are, that the Vatican MS. and a very few others make it; whereas the reading of the Auth. Version, which is that of the Received Text XE "Received Text" , is far better supported, and by many more MSS. The English reader may refer to p. 37 for a discussion on this passage; but if he knows no Greek XE "Greek" , he may rest assured the Authorized Version is right and far better than the Dean’s alteration ‘till she brought forth a son’...” (Malan XE "Malan, Solomon" , A Plea for the Received Text and for the Authorized Version of the New Testament, p. 103).

“[Mark 13:14] ‘Spoken of by Daniel XE "Daniel" the prophet,’ A.V., ‘omit,’ Dr. Alford XE "Alford, Henry" . This clause is not, indeed, in the Vatican MS., but is found in others, as well as in the Syriac, Georgian, Slavonic, and Ethiopic versions. So that we need not obey Dr. Alford’s peremptory order to omit it” (Ibid., p. 142).
Malan XE "Malan, Solomon" ’s conclusion offers a window into the sympathies of a great many nineteenth-century preachers toward the attempts to undermine the Greek Received Text XE "Received Text" :

“A man who, like him [Henry Alford XE "Alford, Henry" ], sets to a work of this kind, apparently without the slightest hesitation or misgiving in his own powers, thinking it the easiest thing in the world to make wholesale changes in the Greek XE "Greek" text and in the joint labours of more than fifty learned men of old, instead of dealing with the utmost reverence and caution, not only forms an unworthy estimate of the work he undertakes—but he also recklessly wounds the feeling of deep respect and affection with which men, nowise his inferiors in judgment or scholarship, still continue to look upon the Received Text XE "Received Text" and the English Bible.

“Both these have, indeed, lasted more than two centuries; a long time, in truth, for those who think that wisdom, learning, and scholarship have only just dawned on the land, and that, until now, all was darkness and ignorance. Wise men, however, do not think so but rather take the long life of those two monuments of ancient piety and learning as a proof of their real merit and excellence. ...

“[A] better acquaintance with his [Alford XE "Alford, Henry" ’s] work only tends to deepen their reverence and to strengthen their affection for their old friends and companions, the Received Greek XE "Greek" Text of the New Testament and the Authorised Version of it—neither of which they ever intend to give up; not even at the Dean’s bidding” (Malan XE "Malan, Solomon" , A Plea for the Received Text XE "Received Text" and for the Authorized Version of the New Testament, pp. 210, 11).

When the 1881 English Revision XE "English Revised Version" appeared, Malan XE "Malan, Solomon" was not swayed from his earlier position. “The learned writer charged the Revisers with having ‘looked upon’ their work ‘in the light of a Greek XE "Greek" exercise,’ and with having ‘taken pleasure in making as many changes as they could, with little or no regard for cadence, rhythm, style, or even grammar.’ He pronounced the result to be ‘little short of a great failure’” (Samuel Hemphill XE "Hemphill, Samuel" , A History of the Revised Version of the New Testament, p. 96).

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This is excerpted from For Love of the Bible: The Battle for the King James Version and the Greek Received Text from 1800 to Present. The fifth edition (November 2008) is revised and updated and fully illustrated. This book is available from Way of Life Literature, P.O. Box 610368, Port Huron, MI 48061, 866-295-4143 (toll free), www.wayoflife.org (online catalog), fbns@wayoflife.org (e-mail).

[Distributed by Way of Life Literature's Fundamental Baptist Information Service, an e-mail listing for Fundamental Baptists and other fundamentalist, Bible-believing Christians. OUR GOAL IN THIS PARTICULAR ASPECT OF OUR MINISTRY IS NOT DEVOTIONAL BUT IS TO PROVIDE INFORMATION TO ASSIST PREACHERS IN THE PROTECTION OF THE CHURCHES IN THIS APOSTATE HOUR. This material is sent only to those who personally subscribe to the list. If somehow you have subscribed unintentionally, following are the instructions for removal. The Fundamental Baptist Information Service mailing list is automated. To SUBSCRIBE or to UNSUBSCRIBE or to CHANGE ADDRESSES or to RE-SUBSCRIBE UNDER A NEW ADDRESS, go to http://www.wayoflife.org/fbis/subscribe.html. If you have any trouble with this, please let us know. And please be patient with us. We do not ignore any unsubscribe request, but we cannot always get to your request immediately as each person involved with maintaining the Way of Life web site does this only on a very part time basis and is busy with many other major activities, such as pastoring and missionary work. We take up a quarterly offering to fund this ministry, and those who use the materials are expected to participate (Galatians 6:6) if they can. Some of the articles are from O Timothy magazine, which is in its 25th year of publication. Way of Life publishes many helpful books. The catalog is located at the web site: http://wayoflife.org/catalog/catalog.htm Way of Life Literature, P.O. Box 610368, Port Huron, MI 48061. 866-295-4143, fbns@wayoflife.org. We do not solicit funds from those who do not agree with our preaching and who are not helped by these publications, but from those who are. OFFERINGS can be made at http://www.wayoflife.org/fbns/offering.html. PAYPAL offerings can be made to https://www.paypal.com/xclick/business=dcloud%40wayoflife.org]

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During the period when the Roman Catholic Church was in power, she did everything she could to keep the Bible out of the hands of the common people. It was illegal to translate the Bible into the common languages, even though most people could not read the official Catholic Bible because it was in Latin, a language known only to the highly educated.

Consider some of the laws Rome made against Bible translation. These began to be made in the 13th century and were in effect through the 19th.

(1) In the year 1215 Pope Innocent III issued a law commanding “that they shall be seized for trial and penalties, WHO ENGAGE IN THE TRANSLATION OF THE SACRED VOLUMES, or who hold secret conventicles, or who assume the office of preaching without the authority of their superiors; against whom process shall be commenced, without any permission of appeal” (J.P. Callender, Illustrations of Popery, 1838, p. 387). Innocent “declared that as by the old law, the beast touching the holy mount was to be stoned to death, so simple and uneducated men were not to touch the Bible or venture to preach its doctrines” (Schaff, History of the Christian Church, VI, p. 723).

(2) The Council of Toulouse (1229) FORBADE THE LAITY TO POSSESS OR READ THE VERNACULAR TRANSLATIONS OF THE BIBLE (Allix, Ecclesiastical History, II, p. 213). This council ordered that the bishops should appoint in each parish “one priest and two or three laics, who should engage upon oath to make a rigorous search after all heretics and their abettors, and for this purpose should visit every house from the garret to the cellar, together with all subterraneous places where they might conceal themselves” (Thomas M’Crie, History of the Reformation in Spain, 1856, p. 82). They also searched for the illegal Bibles.

(3) The Council of Tarragona (1234) “ORDERED ALL VERNACULAR VERSIONS TO BE BROUGHT TO THE BISHOP TO BE BURNED” (Paris Simms, Bible from the Beginning, p. 1929, 162).

(4) In 1483 the infamous Inquisitor General Thomas Torquemada began his reign of terror as head of the Spanish Inquisition; King Ferdinand and his queen “PROHIBITED ALL, UNDER THE SEVEREST PAINS, FROM TRANSLATING THE SACRED SCRIPTURE INTO THE VULGAR TONGUES, OR FROM USING IT WHEN TRANSLATED BY OTHERS” (M’Crie, p. 192). For more than three centuries the Bible in the common tongue was a forbidden book in Spain and multitudes of copies perished in the flames, together with those who cherished them.

(5) In England, too, laws were passed by the Catholic authorities against vernacular Bibles. The Constitutions of Thomas Arundel, issued in 1408 by the Archbishop of Canterbury, made this brash demand: “WE THEREFORE DECREE AND ORDAIN THAT NO MAN SHALL, HEREAFTER, BY HIS OWN AUTHORITY, TRANSLATE ANY TEXT OF THE SCRIPTURE INTO ENGLISH, OR ANY OTHER TONGUE, by way of a book, libel, or treatise, now lately set forth in the time of John Wyckliff, or since, or hereafter to be set forth, in part of in whole, privily or apertly, upon pain of greater excommunication, until the said translation be allowed by the ordinary of the place, or, if the case so require, by the council provincial” (John Eadie, The English Bible, vol. 1, 1876, p. 89). Consider Arundel’s estimation of the man who gave the English speaking people their first Bible: “This pestilential and most wretched John Wycliffe of damnable memory, a child of the old devil, and himself a child or pupil of Anti-Christ, who while he lived, walking in the vanity of his mind … crowned his wickedness by translating the Scriptures into the mother tongue” (Fountain, John Wycliffe, p. 45).

(6) Pope Leo X (1513-1521), who railed against Luther’s efforts to follow the biblical precept of faith alone and Scripture alone, called the fifth Lateran Council (1513-1517), which charged that no books should be printed except those approved by the Roman Catholic Church. “THEREFORE FOREVER THEREAFTER NO ONE SHOULD BE ALLOWED TO PRINT ANY BOOK OR WRITING WITHOUT A PREVIOUS EXAMINATION, TO BE TESTIFIED BY MANUAL SUBSCRIPTION, BY THE PAPAL VICAR AND MASTER OF THE SACRED PALACE IN ROME, and in other cities and dioceses by the Inquisition, and the bishop or an expert appointed by him. FOR NEGLECT OF THIS THE PUNISHMENT WAS EXCOMMUNICATION, THE LOSS OF THE EDITION, WHICH WAS TO BE BURNED, a fine of 100 ducats to the fabric of St. Peters, and suspension from business for a year” (Henry Lea, The Inquisition of the Middle Ages).

(7) These restrictions were repeated by the Council of Trent in 1546, which placed translations of the Bible, such as the German, Spanish, and English, on its list of prohibited books and forbade any person to read the Bible without a license from a Catholic bishop or inquisitor.

Following is a quote from Trent: “…IT SHALL NOT BE LAWFUL FOR ANYONE TO PRINT OR TO HAVE PRINTED ANY BOOKS WHATSOEVER DEALING WITH SACRED DOCTRINAL MATTERS WITHOUT THE NAME OF THE AUTHOR, OR IN THE FUTURE TO SELL THEM, OR EVEN TO HAVE THEM IN POSSESSION, UNLESS THEY HAVE FIRST BEEN EXAMINED AND APPROVED BY THE ORDINARY, UNDER PENALTY OF ANATHEMA AND FINE prescribed by the last Council of the Lateran” (Fourth session, April 8, 1546, The Canons and Decrees of the Council of Trent, Translated by H.J. Schroeder, pp. 17-19).

These rules were affixed to the Index of Prohibited Books and were constantly reaffirmed by popes in the 16th, 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries. These prohibitions, in fact, have never been rescinded. It is true that the Council of Trent did not absolutely forbid the reading of the Scriptures under all circumstances. It allowed a few exceptions. The priests were allowed to read the Latin Bible. Bishops and inquisitors were allowed to grant license for certain faithful Catholics to read the Scriptures in Latin as long as these Scriptures were accompanied by Catholic notes and if it was believed that these would not be “harmed” by such reading. In practice, though, the proclamations of Trent forbade the reading of the Holy Scriptures to at least nine-tenths of the people. Rome’s claim to possess authority to determine who can and cannot translate, publish, and read the Bible is one of the most blasphemous claims ever made under this sun.

The attitude of 16th century Catholic authorities toward the Bible was evident from a speech Richard Du Mans delivered at Trent, in which he said “that the Scriptures had become useless, since the schoolmen had established the truth of all doctrines; and though they were formerly read in the church, for the instruction of the people, and still read in the service, yet they ought not to be made a study, because the Lutherans only gained those who read them” (William M’Gavin, The Protestant, 1846, p. 144). It is true that the Bible leads men away from Roman Catholicism, but this is only because Roman Catholicism is not founded upon the Word of God!

Pope Clement VIII (1592-1605) confirmed the Council of Trent’s proclamations against Bible translations (Eadie, History of the English Bible, II, p. 112) and went even further by forbidding licenses to be granted for the reading of the Bible under any conditions (Richard Littledale, Plain Reasons Against Joining the Church of Rome, 1924, p. 91).

(8) The restrictions against ownership of the vernacular Scriptures were repeated by the popes until the end of the 19th century:

Benedict XIV (1740-1758) confirmed the Council of Trent’s proclamations against Bible translations (Eadie, History of the English Bible, II, p. 112) and issued an injunction “that no versions whatever should be suffered to be read but those which should be approved of by the Holy See, accompanied by notes derived from the writings of the Holy Fathers, or other learned and Catholic authors” (D.B. Ray, The Papal Controversy, p. 479).

It was during the reign of Pope Pius VII (1800-1823) that the modern Bible society movement began. The British and Foreign Bible Society was formed in March 1804, the purpose being “to encourage a wider circulation of the Holy Scriptures without note or comment.” Other societies were soon created for the same exalted purpose. Germany (1804); Ireland (1806); Canada (1807); Edinburgh (1809); Hungary (1811); Finland, Glasgow, Zurich, Prussia (1812); Russia (1813); Denmark and Sweden (1814); Netherlands, Iceland (1815); America, Norway, and Waldensian (1816); Australia, Malta, Paris (1817); etc. One of the societies began distributing a Polish Bible in Poland. The Pope, instead of praising the Lord that the eternal Word of God was being placed into the hands of the multitudes of spiritually needy people, showed his displeasure by issuing a bull against Bible Societies on June 29, 1816. The Pope expressed himself as “shocked” by the circulation of the Scriptures in the Polish tongue. He characterized this practice as a “most crafty device, by which the very foundations of religion are undermined,” “a pestilence,” which he must “remedy and abolish,” “a defilement of the faith, eminently dangerous to souls.” Pope Pius VII also rebuked Archbishop Buhusz of Mohiley in Russia because of his endorsement of a newly formed Bible society (Kenneth Latourette, The Nineteenth Century in Europe, p. 448). The papal brief, dated September 3, 1816, declared that “if the Sacred Scriptures were allowed in the vulgar tongue everywhere without discrimination, more detriment than benefit would arise” (Jacobus, Roman Catholic and Protestant Versions Compared, p. 236).

Pope Leo XII (1823-29) issued a bull to the Bishops in Ireland, May 3, 1824, in which he affirmed the Council of Trent and condemned Bible distribution. “It is no secret to you, venerable brethren, that a certain Society, vulgarly called The Bible Society, is audaciously spreading itself through the whole world. After despising the traditions of the holy Fathers, and in opposition to the well-known Decree of the Council of Trent, this Society has collected all its forces, and directs every means to one object,--the translation, or rather the perversion, of the Bible into the vernacular languages of all nations. ... IF THE SACRED SCRIPTURES BE EVERYWHERE INDISCRIMINATELY PUBLISHED, MORE EVIL THAN ADVANTAGE WILL ARISE THENCE, on account of the rashness of men” (Bull of Leo XII, May 3, 1824; cited from Charles Elliott, Delineation of Roman Catholicism, 1851, p. 21). This Pope re-published the Index of Prohibited Books on March 26, 1825, and mandated that the decrees of the Council of Trent be enforced against distribution of Scriptures (R.P. Blakeney, Popery in Its Social Aspect, p. 137).

Pope Gregory XVI (1831-46) ratified the decrees of his predecessors, forbidding the free distribution of Scripture. In his encyclical of May 8, 1844, this Pope stated: “Moreover, we confirm and renew the decrees recited above, DELIVERED IN FORMER TIMES BY APOSTOLIC AUTHORITY, AGAINST THE PUBLICATION, DISTRIBUTION, READING, AND POSSESSION OF BOOKS OF THE HOLY SCRIPTURES TRANSLATED INTO THE VULGAR TONGUE” (James Wylie, The Papacy, 1867, p. 182). This encyclical was delivered against Bible societies in general, and mentioned in particular the Christian Alliance, which was formed in 1843 in New York for the purpose of distributing Scriptures.

Pope Pius IX (1846-78) in November 1846 issued an encyclical letter in which he denounced all opponents of Roman Catholicism, among which he included “those insidious Bible Societies.” He said the Bible societies were “renewing the crafts of the ancient heretics” by distributing to “all kinds of men, even the least instructed, gratuitously and at immense expense, copies in vast numbers of the books of the Sacred Scriptures translated against the holiest rules of the Church into various vulgar tongues...” What a horrible crime! Distributing the Scriptures freely to all people! It was Pius IX who had himself and his fellow popes declared “infallible” at the Vatican I Council in 1870.

Pope Leo XIII (1878-1903) published an “Apostolic Constitution” in 1897 which stated: “All versions of the vernacular, even by Catholics, are altogether prohibited, unless approved by the Holy See, or published under the vigilant care of the Bishops, with annotations taken from the Fathers of the Church and learned Catholic writers” (Melancthon Jacobus, Roman Catholic and Protestant Bibles, p. 237).

Where the Roman Catholic Church held power the Bible was always scarce. Consider a few examples: When the government of New Orleans was taken over in 1803, “it was not till after a long search for a Bible to administer the oath of office that a Latin Vulgate was at last procured from a priest” (William Canton, The Bible and the Anglo-Saxon People, I, p. 245). In Quebec, as late as 1826, MANY PEOPLE HAD NEVER HEARD OF THE NEW TESTAMENT (Canton, II, 61). The situation was the same in South America, where “for about three centuries, were almost entirely without the Bible.” It was 1831 before the first Bible was printed in Spanish America, and even then the copies were exorbitantly expensive (Canton, II, 347). Thus, even when Catholic authorities finally printed some Bibles, they were priced far beyond the reach of most people. Between December 1907 and February 1908 a diligent search was made to determine how many Bibles were available in Catholic Ireland. Not a portion of the Bible was available in bookshops in Athlone, Balbriggan, Drogheda, Mullingar, Wexford, and Clonmel. A shop assistant at Mullingar said, “I never saw a Catholic Bible.” When asked about the New Testament, a sales person at the The Catholic Truth Society replied, “We don’t keep it.” Those who did the extensive survey concluded “that IN NINE TENTHS OF THE CITIES, TOWNS, AND VILLAGES OR IRELAND A ROMAN CATHOLIC COULD NOT PROCURE A COPY OF THE ROMAN CATHOLIC BIBLE OR NEW TESTAMENT” (Alexander Robertson, The Papal Conquest, 1909, pp. 166-167).

These facts uncover only the tip of iceberg in regard to Rome’s attitude toward the Bible in former times. Our book “Rome and the Bible: The History of the Bible through the Centuries and Rome’s Persecution against It” documents this more extensively. It is available from Way of Life Literature, P.O. Box 61368, Port Huron, MI 48061, 866-295-4143, fbns@wayoflife.org.

THE WALDENSES (also called Vaudois or Albigenses) are an example of what occurred during this period. They lived in the mountains of Italy and France and eventually spread throughout Europe; they refused to join the Catholic Church or recognize the Pope. They received the Bible as the sole source for faith and practice and had their own translations, which they diligently reproduced in hand-written copies. Rome persecuted the Waldenses throughout the Dark Ages up until the 18th century.

A few brief descriptions of the persecutions against the Waldenses follow. Note that many entire books have been written about these persecutions and the following facts only hint at the destruction and torment poured out upon these people. [For more information, the reader’s attention is invited to the Fundamental Baptist CD-Rom Library, which contains dozens of rare antiquarian Baptist and Waldensian histories, including Baptist History by John M. Cramp (1852), The Story of the Baptists in All Ages and Countries by Richard Cook (1888), Memorials of Baptist Martyrs by J. Newton Brown (1854), A History of the Baptists by Thomas Armitage (1890), A History of the Christian Church (Waldenses) by William Jones (1819), History of the Ancient Churches of Piedmont and Albigenses by Pierre Allix (1690, 1692), A History of the Waldenses by J.A. Wylie (1860), and A History of the Ancient Christians of the Valleys of the Alps by Perrin (1618). The Fundamental Baptist CD-Rom Library is available from Way of Life Literature, 866-295-4143, fbns@wayoflife.org.]

12TH CENTURY

The Roman Catholic Church persecuted Peter Waldo and refused to accept his translation of the New Testament into the Romaunt language. Pope Alexander III (1159-1181) expelled Waldo and his followers from his diocese, and the next pope, Lucius III, put his papal curse upon them (William Blackburn, History of the Christian Church, 1880, pp. 309, 310). The Council of Tours in 1163 promoted inquisition against Bible believers, issuing a decree that stated: “No man must presume to receive or assist heretics, nor in buying or selling have any thing to do with them, that being thus deprived of the comforts of humanity, they may be compelled to repent of the error of their way” (Gideon Ouseley, A Short Defence of the Old Religion, 1821, p. 221). “Many Albigenses, refusing the terms, were burnt in different cities in the south of France” (G.H. Orchard, A Concise History of the Baptists, 1855, p. 199). The Third Lateran Council “gave permission to princes to reduce heretics to slavery and shortened the time of penance by two years for those taking up arms against them” (Philip Schaff, History of the Christian Church, V, p. 519).

13TH CENTURY

In the year 1209, Pope Innocent III called for a crusade against the Waldenses in France. Anyone who volunteered to war against the “heretics” (so called by Rome because they dissented from her dogmas) was promised forgiveness of sin and many rewards. Tens of thousands took up arms for the Pope and marched against the hated Waldenses. Some 200,000 dissenters were killed by the Pope’s army within a few months. Two large cities, Beziers (Braziers) and Carcasone, were destroyed, together with many smaller towns and villages. The war was conducted for 20 years! Thousands were made homeless and were forced to wander in the woods and mountains to escape their tormentors. The cruelties practiced by the Catholic persecutors were horrible. The Christians were thrown from high cliffs, hanged, disemboweled, pierced through repeatedly, drowned, torn by dogs, burned alive, crucified. In one case, 400 mothers fled for refuge with their babies to a cave in Castelluzzo, which was located 2,000 feet above the valley in which they lived. They were discovered by the rampaging Catholics; a large fire was built outside of the cave and they were suffocated.

15TH CENTURY

In 1487 Pope Innocent VIII called for a crusade against the Waldenses in Italy, Germany, and elsewhere. He promised forgiveness of sins and a share in the plunder to those who joined. Charles VIII of France and Charles II of Savoy agreed to raise an army for the destruction of the Waldenses. This regular army numbered about 18,000 soldiers and thousands of “ruffians” joined, urged on by the promise of forgiveness of sins and the expectation of obtaining spoil from the Waldensian possessions. Wylie describes these volunteers as “ambitious fanatics, reckless pillagers, merciless assassins” (James Wylie, History of the Waldenses, 1860, p. 29). This army attacked the Waldensian mountain valleys in northern Italy simultaneously from the plains to the south and from France to the west. Thousands of Bible-believing Christians perished in this crusade. Their homes and crops were destroyed. Many entire villages were razed. Their women were raped and then viciously murdered. Their children were dashed against trees and thrown off cliffs. More than 3,000 Waldensian Christians, men, women, and children, perished in one cave called Aigue-Froid to which they had fled for safety. These were the inhabitants of the entire village of Val Loyse, and the property of these pitiful people was distributed to the participants of the crusade. Many entire large valleys were burned and pillaged and depopulated. This crusade against the Waldensians lasted for a year.

16TH CENTURY

Following is a brief description of the persecutions in the 16th century as given by a Waldensian pastor: “There is no town in Piedmont under a Vaudois pastor, where some of our brethren have not been put to death … Hugo Chiamps of Finestrelle had his entrails torn from his living body, at Turin. Peter Geymarali of Bobbio, in like manner, had his entrails taken out at Lucerna, and a fierce cat thrust in their place to torture him further; Maria Romano was buried alive at Rocco-patia; Magdalen Foulano underwent the same fate at San Giovanni; Susan Michelini was bound hand and foot, and left to perish of cold and hunger at Saracena. Bartholomew Fache, gashed with sabres, had the wounds filled up with quicklime, and perished thus in agony at Fenile; Daniel Michelini had his tongue torn out at Bobbio for having praised God. James Baridari perished covered with sulphurous matches, which had been forced into his flesh under the nails, between the fingers, in the nostrils, in the lips, and over all his body, and then lighted. Daniel Revelli had his mouth filled with gunpowder, which, being lighted, blew his head to pieces. Maria Monnen, taken at Liousa, had the flesh cut from her cheek and chin bone, so that her jaw was left bare, and she was thus left to perish. Paul Garnier was slowly sliced to pieces at Rora. Thomas Margueti was mutilated in an indescribable manner at Miraboco, and Susan Jaquin cut in bits at La Torre. Sara Rostagnol was slit open from the legs to the bosom, and so left to perish on the road between Eyral and Lucerna. Anne Charbonnier was impaled and carried thus on a pike, as a standard, from San Giovanni to La Torre. Daniel Rambaud, at Paesano, had his nails torn off, then his fingers chopped off, then his feet and his hands, then his arms and his legs, with each successive refusal on his part to abjure the Gospel” (Alex Muston, A History of the Waldenses: The Israel of the Alps, 1866).

Not only were the Waldensian Christians themselves destroyed wherever the armies could gain ascendancy, but their literature and vernacular Scriptures were destroyed with a vengeance during these persecutions. The Catholic priests who accompanied the armies made certain of this. So many copies of the Waldensian Scriptures were destroyed that we have little information about their Bibles.

In the 17th century, Samuel Morland visited the Waldenses in northern Italy as the representative of England’s ruler, Oliver Cromwell. Morland tried to assist the Waldenses in the bitter persecutions that were still being poured out upon them. Entire armies had been sent to destroy the Waldensian villages in the 17th century. Practically all of their documents had been destroyed. Morland gathered up any remaining materials he could find and in 1658 sent them back to England to be deposited in the library at the University of Cambridge. The Morland collections are still available. On June 2, 2004, Miss J.S. Ringrose, Deputy Keeper of Manuscripts at University Library, Cambridge, wrote to Justin Savino, a student at Emmanuel Baptist Theological Seminary, Newington, Connecticut, as follows: “There are two main collections of Waldensian manuscripts, both deposited by Samuel Morland in 1658. MSS Dd. 3. 25-38 (Morland MSS G-V) are seventeenth century manuscripts, mainly transcripts of earlier historical sources. MSS. Dd. 15.29-34 (Morland A-F) are medieval.” The Morland F packet contains manuscripts from the 14th century with the entire New Testament and parts of the Old and apocryphal writings “in the Peidemontese dialect of Provencal or Occitan.” On a visit to the library in April 2005 I examined the F packet. It contains six small items, including a New Testament (though not containing all of the books).

CONSIDER SOME EXAMPLES OF HOW THE BIBLE WAS PERSECUTED BY ROME:

THE ENGLISH BIBLE WAS PERSECUTED

JOHN WYCLIFFE (1324-1384), the father of the English Bible, is an example of how Rome treated the Bible in these days.

Wycliffe, the vicar of St. Mary’s Church at Lutterworth, completed the English New Testament in 1380 and the Old Testament in 1382. He rejected many of Rome’s heresies, including the doctrine that the people should not have the Bible in their own language. Here is one of the powerful statements that he made to the Catholic authorities: “You say it is heresy to speak of the Holy Scriptures in English. You call me a heretic because I have translated the Bible into the common tongue of the people. Do you know whom you blaspheme? Did not the Holy Ghost give the Word of God at first in the mother-tongue of the nations to whom it was addressed? Why do you speak against the Holy Ghost? You say that the Church of God is in danger from this book. How can that be? Is it not from the Bible only that we learn that God has set up such a society as a Church on the earth? Is it not the Bible that gives all her authority to the Church? Is it not from the Bible that we learn who is the Builder and Sovereign of the Church, what are the laws by which she is to be governed, and the rights and privileges of her members? Without the Bible, what charter has the Church to show for all these? It is you who place the Church in jeopardy by hiding the Divine warrant, the missive royal of her King, for the authority she wields and the faith she enjoins” (David Fountain, John Wycliffe, pp. 45-47).

Rome persecuted Wycliffe bitterly and attempted unsuccessfully to have him imprisoned. Pope Gregory XI issued five bulls against Wycliffe, but he was protected by the Queen of England and others.

Wycliffe died on December 31, 1384, and forty-three years later, in 1428, the Roman Catholic Church dug up Wycliffe’s bones and burned them.

Rome also persecuted Wycliffe’s followers, the Lollards, imprisoning them and putting many of them to death. The Lollards’ Tower in London was so named because it is one of the places where they were imprisoned and tortured. It was illegal to own a copy of the Wycliffe Bible, and most of the priceless handwritten Scriptures were burned.

WILLIAM TYNDALE (1484-1536), the first to translate the English Bible from Greek and Hebrew, is another example of Rome’s persecutions.

As a young man Tyndale had a burden to translate the Bible into English directly from the Hebrew and Greek so that his people could have the Word of God from the purest fountains. When he expressed this plan to Catholic authorities in England, then under Roman Catholic rule, he learned that it would not be possible to do this work in his own country.

While employed at Little Sodbury Manor after graduation from Oxford, Tyndale preached in that part of western England and debated the truth with Catholic priests. One evening a priest exclaimed, “We are better without God’s laws than the pope’s.” Hearing that, Tyndale replied: “If God spare my life, ere many years I will cause a boy that driveth a plough shall know more of the Scriptures than thou doest.”

Tyndale traveled to Europe to pursue this objective, where he had to move from place to place and hide his work from the ecclesiastical authorities.

After completing the New Testament and a portion of the Old, Tyndale was arrested in May 1535. He was imprisoned for 16 months in the castle at Vilvorde, Belgium.

On October 6, 1536, Tyndale was strangled and then burned at the stake. His ashes were thrown into the river that flowed alongside the castle.

THE GERMAN BIBLE WAS PERSECUTED

The PRE-LUTHER GERMAN BIBLES were persecuted in the 15th century. The first complete printed Bible in German was published by Johann Mentelin (John Mentel) at Strassburg in 1466 (Olaf Norlie, The Translated Bible, 1934, p. 73). Mainz was the most active publication center in Germany at that time, and in 1485, the archbishop there issued AN EDICT PRESCRIBING CENSORSHIP FOR ALL TRANSLATIONS OF THE BIBLE. The edict forbade the Scriptures to be given to simple and unlearned men and to women. Following is an excerpt: “We have observed books containing the office of the mass and also containing divine things and lofty matters of our religion and translated from Latin into the German language, not without damage to religion [meaning the Catholic religion!], circulating among the hands of the vulgar [common people] … for who will give to the ignorant and unlettered persons, and to the female sex at that, into whose hands the manuscripts of sacred learning should fall, the ability to find the true sense? No sane person would deny that the texts of the Holy Gospels and of the Epistles of Paul require many additions and explanations from other writings.”

THE LUTHER BIBLE, which first appeared in 1522, was also fiercely persecuted.

D’Aubigne, in his History of the Reformation, describes how Rome replied to this milestone in Germany history: “Ignorant priests shuddered at the thought that every citizen, nay every peasant, would now be able to dispute with them on the precepts of our Lord. The King of England denounced the work to the Elector Frederick and to Duke George of Saxony. But as early as the month of November THE DUKE HAD ORDERED HIS SUBJECTS TO DEPOSIT EVERY COPY OF LUTHER’S NEW TESTAMENT IN THE HANDS OF THE MAGISTRATES. BAVARIA, BRANDENBURG, AUSTRIA, AND ALL THE STATES DEVOTED TO ROME, PUBLISHED SIMILAR DECREES. IN SOME PLACES THEY MADE SACRILEGIOUS BONFIRES OF THESE SACRED BOOKS IN THE PUBLIC PLACES” (D’Aubigne, III, p. 77).

Persecutions were poured out by the Catholic authorities upon those who read the works of Luther. An example of those who were tormented for distributing the German Luther New Testament was a bookseller named John in Buda, Hungary. He had circulated the German Scriptures throughout that country. “He was bound to a stake; his persecutors then piled his books around him, enclosing him as if in a tower, and then set fire to them. John manifested unshaken courage, exclaiming from the midst of the flames, that he was delighted to suffer in the cause of the Lord” (D’Aubigne, III, p. 152).

In 1520 a strict search for Lutheran Bibles and books was instigated in Venice, and those found were destroyed (M'Crie, Reformation in Italy, p. 28).

The ANABAPTIST LUTHERAN BIBLES were persecuted.

The German Bible produced by Anabaptists appeared in 1529, five years before the entire Luther Bible. It was called THE WORMS BIBLE, after the name of the city in which it was published. The translation was done by two Anabaptists, Ludwig Hetzer and Hans Denck, “accomplished scholars, thoroughly versed in Hebrew and Greek, as well as in Latin. Denck studied and received the degree of Master at the University of Basel, under and with Erasmus, Hetzer was an alumnus of Basel, and also of the University of Paris” (John Porter, The World’s Debt to the Baptists, 1914, p. 138). “At the time of its publication the approval of the Denck-Hetzer edition was unlimited and universal. Within three years thirteen separate editions appeared at Strasburg, Augsburg, Hagenau, and other places. ... In a word, in all Germany the book of the despised Anabaptists was bought, read, and treasured” (Ludwig Keller, Hans Denck, Ein Apostel der Wiedertaufer, p. 211; cited by Porter, p. 139).

This German Bible and its translators suffered the fate we have seen so many times already. “Denck, suffering with tuberculosis, under the decree of banishment and outlawry, died in hiding, in Basel, in 1529, a little before the Bible came from the press. Hetzer was arrested, condemned as a heretic, and beheaded the same year at Constance. … EVERY POSSIBLE EFFORT WAS MADE TO SUPPRESS THIS ‘HERETIC BIBLE;’ PRINTING OFFICES, PLACES WHERE THE BOOK WAS FOR SALE, PRIVATE HOUSES AND INDIVIDUALS WERE SEARCHED, AND ALL COPIES FOUND WERE DESTROYED. Only three copies that are accessible to scholars are now known to be in existence, one is in the library in the University of Bonn, one in a library in Stuttgart, and one in the New York Public Library” (Porter, p. 139).

THE SPANISH BIBLE WAS PERSECUTED

In the fifteenth century a Roman Catholic priest named BONIFACIO FERRER translated the whole Scriptures into the Valencian or Catalonian dialect of Spain. He died in 1417, but his translation was printed in Valencia in 1478. In spite of the fact that it was produced by a Catholic, “it had scarcely made its appearance when it was suppressed by the Inquisition, who ordered the whole impression to be devoured by the flames. So strictly was this order carried into execution, that scarcely a single copy appears to have escaped” (M’Crie, History of the Progress and Suppression of the Reformation in Spain, 1829, pp. 191, 92). In 1645 four leaves of this translation were discovered in a monastery.

In 1543 the FRANCISCO DE ENZINAS Spanish New Testament was published with the title “The New Testament, that is, the New Covenant of our Only Redeemer and Saviour Jesus Christ, translated from the Greek to the Castillian [Spanish] language.” Enzinas presented a copy of his New Testament to Charles V, Emperor of the Roman Empire (1519-1558), during the emperor’s visit to Brussels, who gave it to his Catholic confessor, Pedro de Soto. “After various delays, Enzinas, having waited on the confessor, was upbraided by him as an enemy to religion, who had tarnished the honor of his native country; and refusing to acknowledge a fault, was seized by the officers of justice and thrown into prison” (M'Crie, History of the Reformation in Spain, pp. 194-95). Francisco’s father and uncles visited him in prison and reproached him for dishonoring his family. After fifteen months’ confinement he miraculously escaped prison in Brussels and fled to Antwerp, then on to England, where, in 1548, he was given the chair of Greek at Cambridge. He returned to the continent in 1550 and died of the plague at Strasbourg in 1553. Most of his New Testaments were burned and all of his manuscripts were destroyed by the Inquisition.

Another man who was raised up by God to provide the Spanish world with a vernacular Bible was JUAN PEREZ DE PINEDA (c. 1490-1567). In Seville, Spain, as the head of the College of Doctrine, he began to study the Bible and rejected Roman Catholic doctrine. When persecution began against the believers in that area, Perez and some of his friends were able to flee from Spain. Perez settled in Geneva and was the first to form a Spanish church in that city (M’Crie, p. 363). Afterwards he moved to France. His translation of the New Testament into Spanish, relying heavily on the Enzinas version, was published in 1556 in Geneva.

Another of the men who fled Spain's inquisition terrors was CASSIODORO DE REINA (1520-1594). As a monk in the San Isidro del Campo monastery in Seville he joined the Protestant revival and rejected Catholic doctrine. Arrested and sentenced to death, Reina was able to escape from prison and flee to London, where he preached to a Spanish congregation (Lupton, A History of the Geneva Bible, I, p. 40). Later he journeyed to Geneva and associated with the Protestant Spanish church there, pastored by the aforementioned Juan Perez de Pineda. In 1567 Reina completed a Spanish New Testament that “is hailed to this day as the greatest literary triumph in Spanish history.” Reina settled in Basle, and the entire Bible appeared in 1569.

Reina’s work was taken over by CIPRIANO DE VALERA (1532-1602?).

Like Enzinas and Reina, Valera had fled the inquisition in Spain. In 1565 Valera joined Oxford University and became well known for his linguistic expertise, “having mastered at least ten languages.” He revised and corrected Reina’s work and published the New Testament in London in 1596, and, the entire Bible in 1602 in Amsterdam.

All of these Spanish Bibles “were accompanied with vindications of the practice of translating the scriptures into vernacular languages, and the right of the people to read them” (M’Crie, p. 202).

What a contrast this was with the attitude of the Roman Catholic Church. As late as 1747, the inquisitor general in Spain fretted that “some men carried their audacity to the execrable extreme of asking permission to read the sacred scriptures in the vulgar tongue, not afraid of finding in them the most deadly poison” (M’Crie, p. 202, f3).

Pope Julius III addressed a bull to the inquisitors in 1550 in which he warned them of the Spanish Bibles which were being smuggled into the country (M’Crie, History of the Reformation in Spain, p. 203). The inquisitors were given instructions “to seize all the copies, and proceed with the utmost rigour against those who should retain them, without excepting members of universities, colleges or monasteries. ... At the same time the strictest precautions were adopted to prevent the importation of such books by placing officers at all the sea-ports and land-passes, with authority to search every package, and the person of every traveller that should enter the kingdom” (M’Crie, p. 204).

THE FRENCH BIBLE WAS PERSECUTED

JACQUES LEFEVRE (1455-1536), a professor at the University of Paris, published a French New Testament in 1523 and the complete French Bible in 1528. For his labor of love for the French people, the elderly Lefevre was hated and persecuted by the Romanist authorities.

One thing that galled them was Lafevre’s principle that all Christians should read the Scriptures. One of these angry authorities exclaimed: “Does he not dare to recommend all the faithful to read the Scriptures? Does he not tell therein that whoever loves not Christ’s Word is not a Christian; and that the Word of God is sufficient to lead to eternal life?” (D’Aubigne, III, p. 385).

The Sorbonne, the theological faculty of the University of Paris, condemned Lefevre as a heretic and he was forced to flee to Strasbourg in 1525. In 1531, Lefevre took refuge in southern France and remained there till his death…” (Durant, The Story of Civilization, VI, p. 502).

The Sorbonne declared war on printing and printers. In 1534, twenty men and one woman were burnt alive. One of those was a printer whose sole crime was printing some of Luther’s writings, while another was a bookseller who had sold the same.

An edict was issued in 1546 by the Roman Catholic authorities against Lefevre and his work, in which the following statement is found: “It is neither expedient nor useful for the Christian public that any translation of the Bible should be permitted to be printed; but that they ought to be suppressed as injurious.” It was also ordered that any person possessing a copy of it should deliver it up within eight days (John Beardslee, The Bible among the Nations, 1899, pp. 211, 12).

Many French believers were burned for distributing the Bible. Foxe’s unabridged Martyrology is a massive set of books. I own a copy of the 8th edition, which was printed in 1641. It is 3 volumes folio, 3227 pages, the three volumes together almost one foot in width, and each page 9 X 13.5 inches. Roughly 150 of these large pages are dedicated to an enumeration of just some of the French martyrs. Following are a few examples:

In 1925 a Gospel preacher named Schuch was burned in the town of Nancy in France. When he was arrested and tried, he had his Bible with him, and holding the same as he stood before his accusers, he preached to them out of the Scriptures and “meekly yet forcibly confessed Christ crucified.” His words so incised his tormentors that “transported with rage, they rushed upon him with violent cries, TORE AWAY THE BIBLE FROM WHICH HE WAS READING THIS MENACING LANGUAGE, and like mad dogs, unable to bite his doctrine, THEY BURNT IT in their convent.” The man was immediately condemned to be burned alive, and the sentence was quickly carried out. “On the 19th of August 1525 the whole city of Nancy was in motion. The bells were tolling for the death of a heretic. The mournful procession set out. When the martyr reached the place of execution, HIS BOOKS WERE BURNT BEFORE HIS FACE; he was then called upon to retract; but he refused, saying, “It is thou, O God, who hast called me, and thou wilt give me strength unto the end.” Having mounted the pile, he continued to recite the psalm until the smoke and the flames stifled his voice” (D’Aubigne, History of the Reformation, III, pp. 468, 69).

In 1546 Peter Chapot was burned to death for bringing French Bibles into France and for selling them. Because of his bold testimony at the place of persecution, a decree was made that “all which were to be burned, unless they recanted at the fire, should have their tongues cut off. Which law diligently afterward was observed” (Foxe, unabridged, 1641, II, p. 133).

Stephen Polliot was also arrested in 1546 with a bag of Scriptures and Gospel books he was distributing. His tongue was cut out and he was burned, “his satchel of books hanging about his neck” (Foxe, unabridged, II, p. 134).

Nicholas Nayle, a shoemaker, was arrested in Paris and burned in 1553 for bringing parcels of books to distribute among the believers.

In 1554 Dionysius Vayre, who had smuggled many books into France, was arrested in Normandy and sentenced to be “burned alive, and thrice lifted up, and let down again into the fire” (Foxe, unabridged, II, p. 145).

Waldensian bookseller Bartholmew Hector was arrested in 1556. When the Inquisition judge said, “You have been caught in the act of selling books that contain heresy; what say you?” Hector replied, “If the Bible is heresy to you, it is truth to me.” After languishing in prison for several months, Hector was burned at the stake.

THE DUTCH BIBLE WAS PERSECUTED

In 1270 JACOB VAN MAERLANDT completed the four Gospels in Dutch. “This effort aroused the wrath of the Roman Catholic Bishop of Utrecht, who thought it was disrespectful to the Scriptures thus to bring them within the reach of the common people, and Van Maerlandt nearly lost his life as a reward for his labor” (John Beardslee, The Bible among the Nations, p. 175).

In 1526 the first entire Bible in Dutch was published by JACOB VAN LIESVELDT in Antwerp, and 20 years later Liesveldt was beheaded in Antwerp “for his printing labours” (Lupton, A History of the Geneva Bible, I, p. 35).

THE ITALIAN BIBLE WAS PERSECUTED

ANTONIO BRUCIOLI published an Italian New Testament at Venice in 1530 and an entire Bible two years later. Brucioli also produced a commentary on the whole Bible, which was published in seven volumes. “His translations of the Bible were put into the first class of forbidden books, and all his works, on whatever subject, ‘published or to be published,’ together with all books which came from his press, even after his death, were strictly prohibited. ... violent measures were afterwards employed for its suppression” (M'Crie, Reformation in Italy, 1856, pp. 56, 57).

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“I John, by the grace of God King of England and Lord of Ireland, in order to expiate my sins, from my own free will and the advice of my barons, give to the Church of Rome, to Pope Innocent and his successors, the kingdom of England and all other prerogatives of my crown. I will hereafter hold them as the pope's vassal. I will be faithful to God, to the Church of Rome, to the pope my master, and to his successors legitimately elected.”

The Scriptures was forbidden in the common languages of the people in Wycliffe’s day. One of Wycliffe’s enemies, Knyghton, a canon of Leicester, complained that by translating the Scriptures into English and thus laying it “open to the laity and to women who could read” Wycliffe was casting the gospel pearl under the feet of swine. This was the attitude that was typical of Roman Catholic leaders in that day.

WYCLIFFE’S DOCTRINE

Wycliffe was a Catholic priest but began to preach against Rome’s errors in his mid-30s. He did not reject Rome all at once but gradually grew in his understanding. There is a lot we do not know about his doctrine, as many of his writings have perished, but we do know that Wycliffe exposed many of Rome’s errors:

He rejected the doctrine that tradition is equal in authority with the Scriptures. He rejected transubstantiation and indulgences. He taught that the apostolic churches have only elders and deacons “and declared his conviction that all orders above these had been introduced by Caesarean pride” (Shelton, II, p. 415).

Wycliffe believed the Bible to be the Word of God without error from beginning to end. He testified, “It is impossible for any part of the Holy Scriptures to be wrong. In Holy Scripture is all the truth; one part of Scripture explains another” (Fountain, John Wycliffe, p. 48).

Wycliffe’s foundational doctrine was that the Bible is the sole authority for faith and practice and that men had the right to interpret Scripture for themselves before the Lord. He said, “Believers should ascertain for themselves what are the true matters of their faith, by having the Scriptures in a language which all may understand.”

Wycliffe was very bold against the pope, contending that “it is blasphemy to call any head of the church, save Christ alone” (Thomas Crosby, History of the English Baptists, I, 1740, p. 7).

Consider some other statements by Wycliffe on the subject of the papacy:

“It is supposed, and with much probability, that the Roman pontiff is the great Antichrist.”

“How than shall any sinful wretch, who knows not whether he be damned or saved, constrain men to believe that he is head of holy Church?” (Shelton, II, p. 415).

“Antichrist puts many thousand lives in danger for his own wretched life. Why, is he not a fiend stained foul with homicide who, though a priest, fights in such a cause?” (Eadie, History of the English Bible, I, pp. 46,47).

Wycliffe taught that men have the right to have the Bible in their own languages and was willing to endure the wrath of the Catholic authorities by translating the Scriptures into English. When Wycliffe began the translation work, the Pope in Rome issued “bulls” against him. Wycliffe’s reply was as follows:

“You say it is heresy to speak of the Holy Scriptures in English. You call me a heretic because I have translated the Bible into the common tongue of the people. Do you know whom you blaspheme? Did not the Holy Ghost give the Word of God at first in the mother-tongue of the nations to whom it was addressed? Why do you speak against the Holy Ghost? You say that the Church of God is in danger from this book. How can that be? Is it not from the Bible only that we learn that God has set up such a society as a Church on the earth? Is it not the Bible that gives all her authority to the Church? Is it not from the Bible that we learn who is the Builder and Sovereign of the Church, what are the laws by which she is to be governed, and the rights and privileges of her members? Without the Bible, what charter has the Church to show for all these? It is you who place the Church in jeopardy by hiding the Divine warrant, the missive royal of her King, for the authority she wields and the faith she enjoins” (Fountain, John Wycliffe, pp. 45-47).

Wycliffe also taught that men had the right to interpret Scripture. “Believers should ascertain for themselves what are the true matters of their faith, by having the Scriptures in a language which all may understand.”

There is some evidence that Wycliffe rejected infant baptism, at least toward the end of his life. There is evidence of this from his own writings. Wycliffe taught that “baptism doth not confer, but only signify grace, which was given before.” This principle undermines the doctrine of infant baptism. The Martyrs Mirror, first published in Dutch in 1660, states that in 1370 Wycliffe issued an article “declared to militate against infant baptism” (p. 322).

There is also evidence of this from the Catholic authorities. Thomas Walden and Joseph Vicecomes claimed that Wycliffe rejected infant baptism and they charged him with Anabaptist views. Walden, who wrote against the Wycliffites or Hussites in the early part of the 1400s, called Wycliffe “one of the seven heads that came out of the bottomless pit, for denying infant baptism, that heresie of the Lollards, of whom he was so great a ringleader” (Danver’s Treatise, p. 2, 287, cited by Joseph Ivimey, History of the English Baptists, 1811, I, p. 72).

Even if Wycliffe did not entirely deny infant baptism, it is certain that many of his Lollard followers did. The term “Lollard,” like that of “Waldensian,” was a general term that encompassed a wide variety of doctrine and practice. While many of the Lollards retained infant baptism, it is certain that others did not.

THE CONNECTION BETWEEN WYCLIFFE AND THE WALDENSIANS

It is important to understand that there were already Waldensian, or separatist Anabaptist Christians, in England during the days of Wycliffe. We documented this in our study on the Waldenses in the Advanced Bible Studies Series course on Church History. Waldenses came to England in the 11th, 12th, 13th, and 14th centuries.

The Martyrs Mirror describes the persecution of 443 Waldenses in England in 1391. At least one of these told the inquisitors that he had been a Waldensian for 30 years. That takes us back to 1361, when Wycliffe was only 37 years old and when he first began preaching against Catholic errors.

Anglican historian Joseph Milner notes the possible connection between the Waldensians and John Wycliffe: “The connection between France and England, during the whole reign of Edward III, was so great, that it is by no means improbable, that Wickliffe himself derived his first impressions of religion from [Raynard] Lollard [a Bible-believing Waldensian leader who was burned at the stake at Cologne]” (Milner, The History of the Church of Christ, 1819, III, p. 509).

Catholic writers connected Wycliffe with the Waldenses. “Thomas Walden, who wrote against Wickliff, says, that the doctrine of Peter Waldo was conveyed from France into England—and that among others Wickliff received it. In this opinion he is joined by Alphonsus de Castro, who says that Wickliff only brought to light again the errors of the Waldenses. Cardinal Bellarmine, also, is pleased to say that ‘Wickliff could add nothing to the heresy of the Waldenses’” (Jones, A History of the Christian Church, II, p. 91).

Joshua Thomas, in his History of the Welsh Baptists, describes some Baptists who lived in the 14th century in Olchon in Herefordshire, and he believes Wycliffe “received much of his light in the gospel” from these separatist believers (Ivimey, I, pp. 65-67).

Frederick Nolan, who diligently pursued the history of the transmission of the biblical text, says that the Lollards were disciples of the Waldenses (Nolan, Inquiry into the Integrity of the Received Text, 1815, p. xix, footnote 1).

WYCLIFFE’S BATTLES WITH THE CATHOLIC CHURCH

For his translation efforts and his biblical views, Wycliffe was hounded by the Roman authorities.

Wycliffe was forced to appear before the Catholic bishops in the first half of the year 1377 to give an account of his doctrine.

The bishops then appealed to Pope Gregory XI, and he issued five papal bulls against Wycliffe in May 1377.

From then on, Wycliffe had trouble with the Catholic authorities.

THE PROTECTING HAND OF GOD UPON WYCLIFFE

Wycliffe would have been cut off by the Roman Catholic authorities had he not, by divine intervention, been protected by certain powerful individuals and unusual events.

One of these was JOHN OF GAUNT, the Duke of Lancaster, who protected Wycliffe for many years. John was a large man and a bold warrior. His armor, which is displayed today in the Tower of London, is 6 foot 9 inches.

Another protector was QUEEN JOAN (1328-85). She was the wife of Edward (1360-76), also known as the Black Prince (so named because of his black armor). When Edward died in 1376, she became the Queen Mother to her son Richard II. In 1378, the enemies of Wycliffe called him to stand before a tribunal of bishops in Lambeth Palace. Wycliffe was accused of spreading heresies, but the bishops were frustrated in carrying out any sentence. “…Sir Richard Clifford entered with a message from the Queen Mother, the widow of the Black Prince, forbidding them to pass sentence upon Wycliffe” (Fountain, John Wycliffe, p. 33). The trial ceased.

QUEEN ANNE, the wife of Richard II (1367-1400), also assisted Wycliffe. She was daughter to the Roman emperor Charles IV and sister of Wenceslaus, king of Bohemia. Anne was only a teenager when she was brought to England to wed Richard. She brought versions of Scriptures in German, Bohemian, and Latin with her into England. She loved Wickliffe’s doctrine and sent copies of Wycliffe’s books into Bohemia by her attendants (Ivimey, I, p. 69). The godly queen died in June 1394, at the age of twenty-seven.

Further, in 1378 Pope Gregory XI died, and THE GREAT PAPAL SCHISM began, during which there were two (Gregory XII and Benedict III) and then three popes, and these were too busy hurling curses at one another to worry much about Wycliffe in England!

WYCLIFFE’S MISSIONARY ENDEAVORS

Wycliffe not only translated the Bible but he carried out missionary endeavors.

Wycliffe had a powerful influence through his extensive writings, which were widely distributed in England and even in Europe and created a dissident revival movement.

Wycliffe had a missionary heart and he trained and sent out preachers to proclaim the Gospel of the grace of Jesus Christ. These were called “Bible men” and eventually were also called Lollards, and they were hounded and bitterly persecuted by the Catholic authorities. (The term “Lollard” predated Wycliffe. It might have been derived from a Waldensian preacher named Walter Lollardus, an Englishman who was burnt for heresy in Cologne. See William Canton, The Bible and the Anglo-Saxon People, 1914, p. 42; and Joseph Ivimey, The History of the English Baptists, 1811, I, p. 64.)

Wycliffe also had copies of the hand-written Scriptures produced and distributed not only in England but also abroad in Europe. That these multiplied widely is evident from the record that still exists of the many copies that were confiscated by the authorities: “By reference to the Bishop’s Registers it will appear that these little books were numerous, as they are often specified as being found upon the persons of those accused. Sometimes the Gospels are spoken of either separately, or together; or it is the book of Acts, or the Epistle of James, or the Apocalypse that is specified. It appears also from these Registers, that many of those who possessed these little volumes were either servants or tradesmen” (Condit, History of the English Bible, p. 75).

THE END OF WYCLIFFE’S LIFE

In 1381, just three years before his death, Wycliffe boldly proclaimed that the Roman doctrine of transubstantiation was false. He taught that the bread and wine of the Lord’s Supper do not change substance and are merely symbolic of the body and blood of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Wycliffe’s protector, John Gaunt, refused to accept Wycliffe’s denial of Rome’s foundational doctrine. He warned Wycliffe to be silent about this, but Wycliffe refused, though he knew by his stand he would probably lose his protection from an earthly perspective. Gaunt did withdraw his guardianship, but Wycliffe put his trust in Someone who is larger than 6 foot 9 inches!

Wycliffe was expelled from his teaching position at Oxford at that time and was forced to withdraw to his parish of Lutterworth where he lived until his death.

In May 1382, Wycliffe was called before yet another synod of ecclesiastical authorities. This is called the Blackfriars’ Synod, because it was held in the monastery of Blackfriars in London (so named because of the black robes worn by the Dominican monks).

When the 47 bishops and monks and religious doctors took their seats, a powerful earthquake shook the city. Huge stones fell out of castle walls and pinnacles toppled. “Wycliffe called it a judgment of God and afterwards described the gathering as the ‘Earthquake Council’” (Fountain, John Wycliffe, p. 39).

The synod condemned Wycliffe, charging him specifically with 10 heresies and 16 errors. His writings were forbidden and the king gave authority to imprison all of those who believed the condemned doctrines.

Wycliffe died on December 31, 1384.

THE WYCLIFFE BIBLE

Wycliffe’s greatest influence was through the Bible that he translated. The New Testament was completed in 1380 and the Old Testament in 1382, just two years before he died.

It was revised by JOHN PURVEY, one of Wycliffe’s disciples. The Wycliffe Bible commonly distributed was the Purvey edition.

Purvey knew that the fear of God and great care were necessary for an accurate translation. The following is from the introduction he wrote to his revision:

“A translator hath great need to study well the sense both before and after, and then also he hath need to live a clean life and be full devout in prayers, and have not his wit occupied about worldly things, that the Holy Spirit, Author of all wisdom and cunning and truth, dress him for his work and suffer him not to err. God grant to us all grace to know well and to keep well Holy Writ, and to suffer joyfully some pain for it at the last.”

In 1421, Purvey was arrested a second time for his persistence in preaching against Rome’s errors and for the distribution of Scriptures. It is said that during his first arrest in 1400, he recanted, but if that is true, he repented of it and ultimately died for his faith.

It is probable that Purvey died in prison in miserable straits for his faith in the Word of God sometime during or after 1427. We are told he “endured great suffering in Saltwood Castle” (Eadie, History of the English Bible, I, p. 65).

Wycliffe’s translation was based on the Latin Vulgate, and it contained most of the errors common to that version. Following are some examples:

MATTHEW 5:44 — “bless them that curse you” is omitted in the Wycliffe
------ 6:13 – “for thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever” is omitted in the Wycliffe
------ 9:13 – “to repentance” is omitted in the Wycliffe
------ 15:8 – “draweth nigh unto me with their mouth” is omitted in the Wycliffe
------ 16:3 – “O ye hypocrites” is omitted in the Wycliffe
MARK 2:17 – “to repentance” is omitted in the Wycliffe
------ 6:11 – “more tolerable for Sodom and Gomorrha” is omitted in th the Wycliffe
------ 10:21 – “take up the cross” is omitted in the Wycliffe
------ 13:14 – “spoken by Daniel the prophet” is omitted in the Wycliffe
LUKE 2:33 – “Joseph” is changed to “father” in the Wycliffe
------ 2:43 – “Joseph and his mother” is changed to “his parents” in the Wycliffe
------ 4:8 – “get thee behind me Satan” is omitted in the Wycliffe
------ 11:2-4 – “Our … which art in heaven … Thy will be done, as in heaven, so in earth … but deliver us from evil” is omitted in the Wycliffe
JOHN 4:42 – “the Christ” is omitted in the Wycliffe
ACTS 2:30 – “according to the flesh, he would raise up Christ” is omitted in the Wycliffe
------ 7:30 – “of the Lord” is omitted in the Wycliffe
------ 16:7 – “Spirit of Jesus” is added in the Wycliffe
------ 17:26 – “blood” is omitted in the Wycliffe
ROMANS 1:16 – “of Christ” is omitted in the Wycliffe
1 CORINTHIANS 5:7 – “for us” is omitted in the Wycliffe
------ 7:5 – “fasting” is omitted in the Wycliffe
------ 15:47 – “the Lord” is omitted in the Wycliffe
EPHESIANS 3:9 – “by Jesus Christ” is omitted in the Wycliffe
COLOSSIANS 1:14 – “through his blood” is missing in the Wycliffe
1 THESSALONIANS 1:1 – “from God our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ” is omitted in the Wycliffe
1 TIMOTHY 1:17 – “wise” God is omitted in the Wycliffe
------ 3:16 – “God was manifest in the flesh” is changed to “which was manifest in the flesh” in the Wycliffe
------ 6:5 – “from such withdraw thyself” is omitted in the Wycliffe
HEBREWS 1:3 – “by himself” is omitted in the Wycliffe
JAMES 5:16 – “faults” is changed to “sins” in the Wycliffe
1 PETER 1:22 – “through the Spirit” is omitted in the Wycliffe
------ 4:1 – “for us” is omitted in the Wycliffe
REVELATION 1:11 – “I am Alpha and Omega, the first and the last” is omitted in the Wycliffe
------ 8:13 – “angel” is changed to “eagle” in the Wycliffe

The language of the Wycliffe version is simple and forceful and laid the foundation for other Bibles in English. Following is a selection from John 11:

“The disciples said to him, Master now the Jews soughten for to stone thee, and goist thou thither? Jesus answered whether there be not twelve hours of the day? If any man wander in the night he stomlish, for light is not in him. He saith these things and after these things he saith to him Lazarus our friend sleepeth but I go to raise him from sleep; therefore his disciples saiden: Lord, if he sleepeth, he shall be safe.”

Many phrases from our English Bible of 1611 can be traced back to Wycliffe, including the following:

“for many be called, but few be chosen”; “a prophet is not without honour, but in his own country”; “he that is not against us, is for us”; “Suffer ye little children to come to me, and forbid ye them not, for of such is the kingdom of God”; “how hard it is for men that trust in riches to enter in to the kingdom of God”; “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”; “Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to each creature”; “And Mary said, Lo! the handmaid of the Lord”; “ask ye, and it shall be given to you; seek ye, and ye shall find; knock ye, and it shall be opened to you”; “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do”; “In the beginning was the word”: “he was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not”; “For God loved so the world, that he gave his one begotten Son”; “I am bread of life”; “I am the light of the world”; “ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free”; “I am a good shepherd”; “I and the Father be one”; “and Jesus wept”; “straight is the gate and narrow the way”; “And no man ascendeth [up] into heaven, but he that came down from heaven”; “I have overcome the world”; “my kingdom is not of this world”; “what is truth?”; “born again”;
“a living sacrifice”; “the deep things of God”; “upbraideth not”; “whited sepulchres”; “for the wages of sin is death”; “ye be the temple of God, and the Spirit of God dwelleth in you”; “when I was a little child, I spake as a little child, I understood as a little child, I thought as a little child”; “I have kept the faith”; “what fellowship hath light with darkness”; “we make known to you the grace of God”; “the world and all that dwell therein is the Lord’s”; “be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only”; “for your adversary, the devil, as a roaring lion goeth about, seeking whom he shall devour”; “Lo! I stand at the door, and knock”; “And he said to me, It is done; I am alpha and omega, the beginning and the end.”

In fact, some entire verses are retained in the KJV from the Wycliffe. Following are three examples:

MATTHEW 11:29 Take ye my yoke upon you, and learn ye of me, for I am mild and meek of heart; and ye shall find rest to your souls.

MATTHEW 18:20 “For where two or three shall be gathered in my name, there I am in the midst of them.”

MATTHEW 22:21 “ …Therefore yield ye to Caesar those things that be Caesar’s, and to God those things that be of God.”

The Wycliffe Bible had a strong impact on the English language itself. “There is an important relation existing between Vernacular versions of the Scriptures and the languages into which they are translated. So marked is this influence where such translation is made, that it constitutes an epoch in the literary and in the religious history of the people. … It was a bold stroke on the part of Wycliffe to set forth the Scriptures in the language of the people, but the results far exceeded his fondest expectations. In all simplicity he thought to give the word of God to his own age, but in fact he laid the foundation for the Reformation in England, and for the permanence and excellence of the English language” (Blackford Condit, History of the English Bible, 1896, pp. 79,80).

THE STRANGE TALE OF WYCLIFFE’S BONES

At the Roman Catholic Council of Constance, which met between 1415 and 1418, John Wycliffe was condemned and his bones were ordered dug up and burned. This is the same Catholic council that burned John Huss and Jerome of Prague.

“As his Bible aroused the English conscience, the pope felt a chill; he heard unearthly sounds rattle through the empty caverns of his soul, and he mistook Wickliff’s bones for his Bible. The moldering skeleton of the sleeping translator polluted the consecrated ground where it slept. The Council of Constance condemned his Bible and his bones to be burnt together” (Armitage, A History of the Baptists, I, p. 315).

For some reason, another 13 years passed before the strange deed was actually performed. It occurred during the reign of Pope Martin V (1417-1431). In 1428, nearly 44 years after his death, Wycliffe’s bones were exhumed and burned and the ashes scattered. What sight could be more unscriptural, more pagan, more wicked, than these Catholic leaders digging up old bones in a grave yard so they can publicly desecrate the long-dead Bible translator and preacher of the Gospel of Grace? What other evidence do we need that the Roman Catholic Church is apostate? After the remains of Wycliffe were burned, the ashes were cast into the little river Swift, which flows near the Lutterworth church.

The British historian Thomas Fuller saw in this a far grander vision than the one enjoyed that day by the Catholic authorities that carried out the dastardly deed:

“To Lutterworth they come, Sumner, Commissarie, Official, Chancellour, Proctors, Doctors, and the Servants … take, what was left, out of the grave, and burnt them to ashes, and cast them into Swift a Neighbouring Brook running hard by. Thus this Brook hath conveyed his ashes into Avon; Avon into Severn; Severn into the narrow Seas; they, into the main Ocean. And thus the Ashes of Wickliff are the Emblem of his Doctrine, which now, is dispersed all the World over.”

THE INFLUENCE OF WYCLIFFE AND THE LOLLARDS

The Word of God was preached in England in a dark day and many came to the light and were saved. The record of this is largely unwritten and that which was written was largely destroyed, but it can be found in Heaven’s libraries.

After Wycliffe’s death the Lollards and other dissident believers continued to preach the Word of God and congregate together in fellowships to the extent possible.

The term “Lollard,” like the terms “Waldensian” and “Albigensian” and “Paulician,” was a catchall word that encompassed a wide variety of Christians who were opposed to Roman Catholic doctrine.

While there were Lollards who were pedobaptists and still held to some of Rome’s errors, others progressed farther in their spiritual understanding and were immersionists. This fact is commonly overlooked or denied by Protestant (and even some Baptist) historians today, but the evidence is overwhelming. In a letter dated October 10, 1519, Erasmus gave this description of the Lollards in Bohemia: “… they own no other authority than the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament; they believe or own little or nothing of the sacraments of the church; such as come over to their sect, must every one be baptized anew in mere water…” (Crosby, I, pp. 14,15). Thus Erasmus described the Lollards as Anabaptists.

The authorities in England persecuted the readers of the Wycliffe Scriptures. “This Bible provoked bitter opposition, and it became necessary for the people to meet in secret to read it, as they often did. Persecution did not begin at once, but it finally became widespread and bitter. Many suffered and it has been said that some, for daring to read the Bible, WERE BURNED WITH COPIES OF IT ABOUT THEIR NECKS” (Simms, The Bible from the Beginning, p. 161).

Many laws were passed against Bible believers, such as the following:

The Constitutions of Thomas Arundel: In 1408 Thomas Arundel, Archbishop of Canterbury, at the Synod of Oxford, made a constitution which rendered it illegal to read any of Wycliffe’s writings or translations within the province of Canterbury. “Detected copies of the Bible, or of any of its component books, would consequently be destroyed” (H.W. Hoare, Our English Bible: The Story of Its Origin and Growth, 1901, p. 100). The Constitutions of Thomas Arundel made this brash demand: “WE THEREFORE DECREE AND ORDAIN THAT NO MAN SHALL, HEREAFTER, BY HIS OWN AUTHORITY, TRANSLATE ANY TEXT OF THE SCRIPTURE INTO ENGLISH, OR ANY OTHER TONGUE, by way of a book, libel, or treatise, now lately set forth in the time of John Wyckliff, or since, or hereafter to be set forth, in part of in whole, privily or apertly, upon pain of greater excommunication, until the said translation be allowed by the ordinary of the place, or, if the case so require, by the council provincial” (Eadie, I, p. 89). This was the first English statute for the burning of heretics (though Bible-believing Christians had been burned before this), and it was not repealed until 1677, or 276 years later. This is Arundel’s estimation of the Bible translator: “This pestilential and most wretched John Wycliffe of damnable memory, a child of the old devil, and himself a child or pupil of Anti-Christ, who while he lived, walking in the vanity of his mind … crowned his wickedness by translating the Scriptures into the mother tongue” (Fountain, John Wycliffe, p. 45).

During the reign of Henry V (1413-22), an Act was confirmed by which the “English sheriffs were forced to take an oath to persecute the Lollards, and the justices must deliver a relapsed heretic to be burned within ten days of his accusation. ... No mercy was shown under any circumstances” (Armitage, A History of the Baptists, 1890, I, pp. 323, 325).

In 1414 the legislature under Henry V joined in asking for harder measures against the Lollards. “After a suspected rising of the Lollards, a law was passed, declaring that ALL WHO READ THE SCRIPTURES IN THE MOTHER TONGUE SHOULD ‘FORFEIT LAND, CATEL, LIF, AND GOODS, FROM THEYR HEYRES [THEIR HEIRS] FOR EVER’” (Eadie, History of the English Bible, I, p. 89).

Many of the Lollards were burned alive for their faith in the 1400s. Following are a few examples. In our Advanced Bible Studies course on Church History we list about 40 that were burned in the 15th century, but there were probably many more. Much of the record is gone.

In 1409 a tailor named Bradbe was roasted alive in a barrel (Eadie, I, p. 87; Hassell, pp. 465,66).

Thomas Bagley was burned at Smithfield in 1430. He had stated that if a priest made the consecrated wafer into God, he made a God that can be eaten by rats and mice.

At Christmas time in 1417, Sir John Oldcastle was roasted alive for his faith in the Word of God and his rejection of Rome’s authority. Oldcastle was the Lord of Cobham, a famous and fearless knight, and a favorite of King Henry IV. He loved John Wycliffe and the Wycliffe doctrine and often stood by Wycliffe or other Lollard preachers in his armor to protect them. Oldcastle used his position to shield Lollard preachers and his wealth to have copies of the Wycliffe Scriptures made for distribution. In spite of his open rejection of Roman Catholicism, Oldcastle was himself shielded King Henry IV until his death in 1413, at which time Oldcastle’s Romanist enemies connived destroy him. They falsely charged Oldcastle with plotting a rebellion against the new king and had him arrested and condemned to die as a traitor and a heretic. Brought to the place of punishment a few days before Christmas 1417, “having a cheerful countenance,” it was evident that the old warrior still carried a burden for the souls of the people. Prior to his brutal execution, he warned the people to obey the Holy Bible and to beware of false teachers, whose lives are contrary to Christ and His example. He refused to allow a Catholic priest to minister to him, boldly declaring, instead, that he would confess his sins “to God only.” Falling down on his knees, he prayed that God would forgive his persecutors. This man who had loved the Word of God and had caused it to be distributed among the people, was hung in chains and suspended over the fire to be roasted alive. As this barbarous execution proceeded, the hateful priests and monks reviled and cursed the poor man and did their best to prevent the people from praying for him. It was to no avail. The people loved the godly knight and they wept and prayed with him and for him. The last words which were heard, before his voice was drowned by the roaring flames, was “Praise God!”

John Goose was burned at Tower Hill in 1474. He had been arrested and had abjured ten years earlier, but he repented of his abjuration and continued in the truth. After Goose’s final arrest, a sheriff in London, Robert Billesdon, took the condemned man to his home to plead with him to repent of his “errors.” The steadfast believer refused and requested something to eat, saying “I eat now a good and competent dinner, for I shall pass a little sharp shower or I go to supper.” Thus, he was planning to eat his supper in Heaven, but before that, he had to go through the fire, which he described as “a little sharp shower.” After he finished his meal, John Goose asked to be taken to the execution.

In 1494, 80-year-old Joan Boughton was burned to death at Smithfield. She was charged with holding eight heretical opinions derived from Wycliffe. Joan Boughton’s daughter, Lady Young, widow of Sir John Young, a mayor of London, was also burned at the stake. She had accepted Christ and apostolic doctrine, but her husband remained a Catholic.

Many others suffered imprisonment in the Lollard’s Tower and other places:

So many of the dissident Christians were arrested and incarcerated that a tower in Lambeth Palace, the London headquarters of the Archbishop of Canterbury, was named Lollard’s Tower. It was made into a prison in the early 15th century by Archbishop Henry Chichele.

Those imprisoned in the Tower were shackled in chains. The rings for the shackles could still be seen in the early 20th century.

In one three-year period (1428-31) 120 persons were imprisoned for Lollardy.

The Lollard’s Tower was bombed on May 10, 1941, during World War II, and was “completely gutted.” It has been rebuilt and today it houses private apartments. When we had a private tour of Lambeth Palace in March 2003, our guide told us that she did not know what, if anything, still remains of the prison room. But there is a photo in the official Lambeth Palace guide book that appears to possibly have been taken after World War II and that shows a corner of the prison room with the rings in the walls (Lambeth Palace, Warners Midlands PLC: 1998, p. 11).

Many Lollards were branded and otherwise marked: Many were marked for life as “heretics” by branding or by being forced to wear special clothes.

Some were forced to wear a depiction of a fiery torch on their clothes during the rest of their lives as a reminder “that they deserved burning” and as a continual warning to others of the potential price of standing upon the Bible and rejecting Roman Catholic authority. To go into the public without this garment or with it covered meant death. “And, indeed, to poor people it was true,--put it off, and be burned; keep it on, and be starved: seeing none generally would set them on work that carried that badge about them” (Evans, Early English Baptists, I, p. 23, f1).

Others were branded on the cheeks. “Their necks were tied fast to a post with towels, and their hands holden, that they might not stir; and so the hot iron was put to their cheeks. It is not certain whether branded with L for Lollard, or H for heretic, or whether it was only a formless print of iron” (Fuller, Church History, p. 164).

The Scriptures were confiscated and burned

In 1375, the Archbishop of Prague issued orders for Wycliffe’s books to be burned, and “consequently two hundred volumes of them … were committed to the flames“ (Orchard, A Concise History of Baptists, p. 237). In 1410 about 200 copies of Wycliffe’s writings were publicly burned at Oxford.

So many of the Wycliffe Bibles were destroyed that only 15 copies of the Old Testament and 18 of the New still exist, in spite of the fact that they were reproduced over a period of more than 140 years prior to the printing of the Tyndale New Testament (Simms, The Bible from the Beginning, p. 164).

The Forbidden Book

“The Bible was worth more than life itself to many of these ancient Christians, and so it is today to those who understand its true value. “The forbidden book was often read by night, and those who had not been themselves educated listened with eagerness to the reading of others; but to read it, and to hear it read, were alike forbidden. Copies of the New Testament were also borrowed from hand to hand through a wide circle, and poor people gathered their pennies and formed copartneries for the purchase of the sacred volume. Those who could afford it gave five marks for the coveted manuscript (a very large amount of money in that day), and others in their penury gave gladly for a few leaves of St. Peter and St. Paul a load of hay. … Some committed portions to memory, that they might recite them to relatives and friends. Thus Alice Colins was commonly sent for to the meetings, ‘to recite unto them the Ten Commandments and the Epistles of Peter and James.’ … In 1429 Margery Backster was indicted because she asked her maid Joan to ‘come and hear her husband read the law of Christ out of a book he was wont to read by night.’ … The means employed to discover the readers and possessors of Scripture were truly execrable in character. Friends and relations were put on oath, and bound to say what they knew of their own kindred. The privacy of the household was violated through this espionage; and husband and wife, parent and child, were sworn against one another. The ties of blood were wronged, and the confidence of friendship was turned into a snare in this secret service. Universal suspicion must have been created; no one could tell who his accuser might be, for the friend to whom he had read of Christ’s betrayal might soon be tempted to act the part of Judas towards himself, and for some paltry consideration sell his life to the ecclesiastical powers” (Eadie, History of the English Bible, I, pp. 91, 92, 93).

The persecutions continued right up to William Tyndale’s day in the early 16th century. The Lollard believers continued to be imprisoned, persecuted, and burned. In our Advanced Bible Studies course on Church History we list 99 Christians who were burned for their faith in England between 1500 and 1532, and many others were imprisoned, beaten, and otherwise tormented.

Because of the fierce persecution in Britain, the Word of God was carried abroad. Because of the bitter persecution in England following Wycliffe’s death, multitudes of Christians were forced into exile, fleeing to the wilds of Scotland, Wales, and Ireland, to Germany, France, Spain, Portugal, Bohemia. As they moved from place to place, they carried with them the precious words of eternal life and in this manner the outlawed Scriptures spread even in the face of bitter persecution.

The preaching of the Word of God prepared the way for the Reformation in England and elsewhere. The groups of Christians who established their faith and practice upon the Wycliffe Bible continued to exist until the formation of the Church of England. The doctrine of the Lollards was still being proclaimed in England in 1529. The royal proclamation that year called upon the authorities to “destroy all heresies and errors commonly called Lollardies.” As late as 1546, well into the Protestant Reformation, another proclamation by the English authorities forbidding the possession of Scriptures also mentioned the writings of Wycliffe.

Thus, John Wycliffe is called the “MORNINGSTAR OF THE REFORMATION.”

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