“Woe unto them that call evil good and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness…” (Isa 5:20 KJV).
The first revision of the KJV New Testament, which was released in 1881, was the Revised Version (RV) or English Revised Version (ERV), and the complete bible published in 1884. From this version, which was supposed to be a revision of the King James Bible, which was itself a revision of the Bishop’s Bible, became a new version based on older and better Greek NT texts. And soon thereafter an American version of this new English version was produced, and published in 1901, known as the American Standard Version (ASV), thus beginning the first of many streams of bible versions based on these new Westcott and Hort (WH) manuscripts. The WH text has many omissions and changes compared to the Textus Receptus (TR) on which the KJV is based. It is the source of all our modern bible versions.
The WH Greek text consists of more recently discovered manuscripts which originate from ancient Alexandria, most of which were discovered in the 19th century, and they enchanted scholars who affirmed that greater age means greater accuracy. The WH text has since morphed into the Nestle-Aland Text (NA) and the United Bible Societies Greek Text (UBS), but they are all essentially the same, being based on the same manuscripts.
Today, bible publishers have created a massive industry which is constantly producing new versions and revising existing ones, always claiming that they are the last word in accuracy, and updated with the results of newly discovered manuscripts. But the industry is a very cut-throat one, and dirty deeds have been perpetrated on rival publishers; for example, so-called Christians from the religious right, particularly from the Southern Baptists, forced Zondervan to take their newly published TNIV off the market because, as they accused, promoted feminism in the churches. If not, the Southern Baptist Union would ban the use of any NIV in all of their ministries.
Once they had achieved their goal of removing the TNIV from the market, they published their own bible, the Holman Christian Bible, which had the same “feminist characteristics” as the TNIV. Crossway Publishers joined forces with them with behind-the-scenes dirty dealing, and published their new bible, the ESV.
Protestant bibles aren’t Protestant
But profit is not the only motivation for the continual production of Bible versions. With Catholics heavily involved in Protestant bible societies and on bible translation committees, one should expect that bible versions will be geared towards Catholic theology. Indeed, with Protestants and Catholics now using the same Greek text, all that is required for the Bible to be “Catholicised” is to add the books of the Apocrypha and you have a full-on Catholic Bible.
The American Bible Society, for example, has its own “Catholic Ministries”, and 50% to 60% of its staff and some of the board members are Catholic. And the late Jesuit Catholic Cardinal Carlo Montini was on the translation committee of the United Bible Societies’ Greek text upon which modern bible versions are based. Whether this is a good thing or not, you can decide; I’m only providing the information.
See: https://www.chick.com/battle-cry/article?id=American-Bible-Society-No-Longer-Pope`s-Pest
A Fundamentalist contribution
Fundamentalist Bible translator David Daniels (2013, p. 143-144) writes: “The British and Foreign Bible Society (BFBS) opened the door to Roman Catholics soon after its founding in 1804. Protestant money was used to employ former Benedictine priest Leander Van Ess (1772-1847) and help distribute over 500,000 of his Catholic New Testaments and print other Bibles with the Apocrypha. The BFBS let Unitarians (who deny Jesus is God) become members. But they forbad prayers (especially in Jesus’ name) and scripture reading in BFBS meetings for the first 50 years!
The American Bible Society (ABS) invited Roman Catholics to its founding in 1816. And from 1822-1841 the ABS printed and distributed 20,000 Roman Catholic Bibles in Latin America, to prove the ABS’s ‘fraternal purpose’ to Rome…
…It was these two Bible Societies that got together to create a new Bible for the Spanish-speaking people. The BFBS and ABS were like two peas in a pod. In 1946 these two Bible Societies, plus 11 others, had formed the United Bible Societies (UBS). And Eugene Nida, as we have seen, was a major force in the UBS.
In June, 1964 the UBS convened the Driebergen conference of Bible societies in the Netherlands.
These goals came out of the Driebergen conference:
- Prepare a ‘common text’ of the ‘original languages’ of the Bible, acceptable to all modern churches (including Roman Catholic)
- Prepare a ‘common translation’ acceptable to all
- Translate and publish the Apocrypha if churches ask for it
This was a watershed event. What was once hidden now became known: they specifically invited Roman Catholic leaders, in order to make their dreams a reality: they wanted to create an ‘interconfessional’ Bible, one that was acceptable both to Protestants and Roman Catholics!
Does that mean the Roman Catholics were willing to approve a Protestant Bible? Not at all! The Council of Trent and Canon Law gave strict rules about what kind of ‘bible’ the Catholics are allowed to read. And anything not endorsed by Catholic leadership is forbidden!
So it wasn’t that Catholics would have to read a preserved or even a Protestant Bible. No! Instead, the UBS gave Protestants a Roman Catholic Bible, complete with Apocrypha and Catholic-approved notes” (emphases his).
Further down, Daniels says: “From 1955-1965, Nida had set up and worked with an international committee of different scholars, to make a single Greek New Testament for everybody. But they left out a huge group: no Catholics were involved.
But in October of 1959, Jesuit Walter Abbott (1924-2008) wrote an article called ‘The Bible as a Bond,’ for the Jesuit magazine, America. He argued that since Catholics and non-Catholics agreed on the Hebrew and Greek Bible texts, they should have joint Bible translation projects all over the world. He sent a copy to Jesuit Cardinal Augustin Bea (1881-1968) at the Vatican. And suddenly everything changed…
….So in 1967, when Eugene Nida ‘demanded that the very best scholars in the Catholic Church be assigned to work with him’, what sort of Catholic was picked to work with Nida? Another Jesuit, of course – Carlo Maria Martini, the new rector of the Pontifical Biblical Institute!…
….In 1967 Nida asked him onto the UBS Greek New Testament Committee. Martini helped create the UBS 2nd-4th editions, to be ‘the’ Greek text used by both Roman Catholics and Protestants. He was the only Catholic on the committee, but his presence opened up ‘scholarly relations’ between Protestants and Rome. By 1971, the critical Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia text was jointly published at Rome and by the UBS. By 1975, the UBS Greek New Testament was distributed by the Vatican and the UBS….Now most Bible translations would come from the same Vatican-approved Hebrew and Greek texts, thanks to the Jesuits” (“Did The Catholic Church Give Us The Bible?” p. 146-147. Permission in writing from the author has been given for these quotations).
References
Daniels, David W, 2005, 2013, “Did The Catholic Church Give Us The Bible?” Chick Publications, Ontario, California