“The three great obstacles which stood in the way of Catholicism’s crumpling up the mental defences of English Protestantism, were: the King James Bible, the Prayer Book, and the Thirty-nine Articles” (Wilkinson, B. G., 1930, p. 154 Kindle edition).
Betrayal of the Church of England
Benjamin Wilkinson, a Seventh Day Adventist scholar, wrote a remarkable and revealing book in 1930 (see References at bottom of page) in defence of the King James Bible. Essential to his argument was that the Catholic Church and its Jesuit foot soldiers had never given up their efforts to bring the Church of England back under their control. He revealed that the plot involved Jesuits, Catholic prelates, and traitorous English scholars and clergy to bring the English Church back into the Catholic fold and control. The treacherous leader of the traitors was the brilliant scholar, John Henry Newman who, through his erudite and convincing tracts or essays, praised and promoted Catholicism and vilified Protestantism; and they were circulated throughout Oxford University – hence, the name Tractarian or Oxford Movement.
Wilkinson writes: “Newman wrote in 1841 to a Roman Catholic, ‘Only through the English Church can you act upon the English nation. I wish, of course, our Church [C of E] should be consolidated, with and through your [Catholic] communion, for its sake, and your sake, and for the sake of unity’. He and his associates believed that Protestantism was Antichrist. Faber, one of the associates of Newman in the Oxford Movement, himself a brilliant writer, said, ‘Protestantism is perishing: what is good in it is by God’s mercy being gathered into the garners of Rome….My whole life, God willing, shall be one crusade against the detestable and diabolical heresy of Protestantism’” (Wilkinson p. 151).
And: “Before the English people could go the way of the Continent and be brought to question their great English Bible, the course of their thinking must be changed. Much had to be done to discredit, in their eyes, the Reformation……Despite all the persecutions they (the Jesuits) have met with, they have not abandoned England, where there are a greater number of Jesuits than in Italy; there are Jesuits in all classes of society; in Parliament; among the English clergy; among the Protestant laity, even in the higher stations” (Wilkinson quoting a converted priest who had served the Catholic Church as a Professor of Theology, Official Theological Censor of the Inquisition – p. 145).
Wilkinson identifies the key point which paved the way to the success of Tractarianism in changing the English Church from Protestant to Catholic. “…if we were to single out any one outstanding event in the history of this Romanizing Movement prior to the Revision of the Bible in 1870, we would point to Tract 90 as that event….With Tract 90, Newman levelled his blow at the Thirty-nine Articles. With a surpassing skill which the Church of England never satisfactorily met, he, point by point, contended that Roman Catholicism could be taught in the Church of England under the Thirty-nine Articles – p. 154.
The betrayal and corruption of the English Church was highly successful in bringing the clergy to the feet of the Pope where they could kiss his cloven foot in subjection to him. Wilkinson says: “…the Tractarians had become dominant at Oxford. Hort is thankful that the High Church movement is gaining ground in both universities – Oxford and Cambridge…. Oxford still retains her Romanizing tendencies, and many bishops of the Church of England have wholly surrendered to the Catholic positions which gained ground” – p. 156.
Newman had blind-sided the Anglican clergy with Tract 90 and its reinterpretation of the Thirty-nine Articles, the Statement of Faith of the Church of England, by showing that the Articles can be interpreted to suit Catholic theology. Another blow to the heart of the Church was the introduction of liberal theology, otherwise known as Higher Criticism or Modernism – a euphemistic term for unbelief and apostasy; a term used by scholars to disguise the fact that they’re undermining and denying the Bible while they appear to be supporting it with the latest in archaeological discoveries and scholarship.
“….had it not been for Jesuitism, Modernism might never have been a force in the Protestant Church. As the historian Froude says: ‘But for the Oxford Movement, skepticism [unbelief] might have continued a harmless speculation of a few philosophers. The attitude of Roman Catholics to the King James Version has ever been one of bitter hostility” (Wilkinson p. 168).
“Furthermore, in his Dublin Review (June 1883), Newman says that the Authorized Version ‘is notoriously unfair where doctrinal questions are at stake’, and speaks of its dishonest renderings’. This shows the Catholic attitude of mind toward the King James Version. Cardinal Newman was invited to sit with the English New Testament Revision Committee. He refused. Nevertheless, with his reputation for biblical knowledge, with the profound admiration Dr Hort never failed to express for him, and with his Napoleonic leadership in breaking down Protestantism, the fact that he was invited is indicative of the influence which the Oxford Movement had on revision” – p. 169.
“Doctors Westcott and Hort, who come prominently before us later as leaders in connection with Bible revision, lent their influence on the side of the Ritualists [Tractarians] – Wilkinson p. 167.
“We have already spoken of the influence of the movement on certain Revisers, when we brought forth Doctors Hort and Westcott, as in sympathy with, and assisting the movement of ritualism. One need only to scan the list of the men who sat on the English New Testament Revision Committee, review certain acts in their history and read their writings, to know all too well that the majority were actually of the Oxford Movement), or in sympathy with the same. Dr Thirwall, who has been pointed out as the leader in introducing [unbelieving] German textual criticism into England, and who has been described by two authors as a man of princely intellect, came out strongly in defence of the Tractarians when they were assailed” – p. 170.
Westcott and Hort had a long list of Catholic tendencies, e.g. devotion to Mary, ritualism, priestcraft, love of the Catholic mass and transubstantiation, evolution, socialism, spiritism (Westcott formed the Ghostly Guild so that he and his cronies could communicate with spirits), and other ungodly and unbiblical corrupt doctrines and practices, all of which are documented in their own words in letters to their sons (mainly).
It was Westcott and Hort who produced a new NT text (WH) to deceptively replace the Textus Receptus (TR), the Greek text of the orthodox and trustworthy Byzantine family of Greek texts. It was Westcott and Hort who organised the Convocation for a revision of the KJV, but who, in fact, ambushed the members by presenting their corrupt critical text of the corrupt Alexandrian family of texts, with which they were enchanted, to supplant the TR and the KJV. And a revision was achieved; a revision so radical that it was another version altogether.
The Preface to the Revised Standard Version gives a sanitised and condescending version of what happened, in order to hide the truth. Speaking of the KJV, they write: “Its revisers in 1881 expressed admiration for its ‘simplicity, its dignity, its power, its happy turns of expression….It entered, as no other book has, into the making of the personal character of the English-speaking people [hence the Catholic Church’s hatred of it and the reason to get rid of it]. We owe to it an incalculable debt”.
[And now the sheepskin is removed with the next statements]. “Yet the King James Version has grave defects. By the middle of the 19th century [when the Tractarians and Jesuits were plotting the destruction of KJV and takeover of the Church of England] the development of biblical studies [i.e. the introduction of Modernism into the Church] and the discovery of many [corrupt] manuscripts more ancient than those upon which the King James Version was based [Alexandrian texts only go back to the 4th century, whereas the Byzantine texts go back to the beginning, having been preserved by true Christian groups such as the Waldenses], made it manifest that these defects are so many and so serious as to call for revision of the English translation” This last statement is an admission that the Alexandrian and the Byzantine texts are seriously different to each other and can only exist as different versions. The two can never be reconciled. So a revision was never possible.
The scope of the Jesuit-inspired Oxford Movement’s take-over of the Church of England and of the corruption of the King James bible, along with the replacement of the Textus Receptus, is monumental in its cunning, planning, betrayal of Truth and the standards of the Church or England.
The story of the Revision
The first revision, the New Testament of which was released in 1881, was the Revised Version (RV) or English Revised Version (ERV), and the complete bible was published in 1884. From this version, which was supposed to be a revision of the King James Bible but which was in reality an attack on the KJV to supplant it and consign it to obscurity, was a new version based on different 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 the new, corrupt, Westcott and Hort (WH) text.
The WH text has many omissions and changes compared to the Textus Receptus (TR) on which the KJV is based. It is the polluted source of all our modern bible versions, thus making the modern versions corrupt. “…every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit. A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit…wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them” (Matt 7:17-20). In modern computer parlance, we might say, “garbage in, garbage out”.
The WH Greek text consists of corrupt manuscripts which originate from ancient Alexandria, most of which were discovered in the 19th century, and they enchanted scholars who trumpeted that greater age means greater accuracy – and the preserved TR, along with the preserved KJV, was shunted aside and relegated to quaintness and inaccuracy. Indeed, Fenton Hort, the “H” of the WH text, regarded the TR as “vile” and villainous” – even though he admitted he was not well acquainted with Greek. 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.
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 the Catholic Church. 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 Voila! 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. See: https://www.chick.com/battle-cry/article?id=American-Bible-Society-No-Longer-Pope`s-Pest
Protestant Bible societies are so corrupted with Catholic theology and translational principles that Evangelicals shouldn’t even touch a modern version because of their association with the Catholic Church, and the compromise from which they were born.
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).
King James Version: Tried, True, and Trustworthy
Despite that the King James Bible is 400 years old, it is still essentially the same as when it was first published. It has stood the test of time and been used of God in many revivals and mission work, among many other uses, and has been the instrument of salvation for countless souls. And it reflects a long line of faithful translations and original language manuscripts, some of which are older than the vaunted Sinaiticus and Vaticanus. And its so-called revisions were merely corrections of grammar made by printers’ errors and misprints; the text is the same now as it was in 1611.
Pseudo-Protestant bibles are corrupt and worthless
In contrast, due to their polluted original language sources, the modern versions differ from the KJV in so many places, many of which undermine the deity of Christ by bad translation and by omission, that they cannot be trusted.
They each differ from other modern versions because copyright laws require that there be significant differences from one to another; which means, translators aren’t able to translate what the text actually says and means, but have to accept inaccuracy; and they sometimes compensate by a closer reading in the footnotes.
Furthermore, the NT texts themselves – Sinaiticus, Vaticanus and Alexandrinus, disagree hugely from each other. It is said that in the gospels alone, Sinaiticus and Vaticanus disagree in 3000 places! How can such versions be deemed accurate and closest to the autographs when there are so many problems with them. Such bibles aren’t worth the paper they’re printed on. And how can they ever be the revelation of God to humanity; how can they ever be a faithful guide to eternal life?
But bible publishers don’t care. They are driven by greed for sales and profit. And they have prostituted their desire for accuracy by producing Catholic bibles from the existing Catholic Vaticanus and Sinaiticus Catholic sources.
The Jesuit campaign to recapture the Church of England by getting rid of the King James Bible and replacing it with the Alexandrian source texts of the Catholic Bible, and by introducing liberal theology into it, has been spectacularly successful. Now, the internet is awash with antichristian lying scholars and ex-Christians who deny the Bible and undermine it, using liberal theology and corrupt modern versions to support their lying claims. It is difficult to find a faithful church now because of the watering down of the scriptures, liberal theology which has robbed the churches of their confidence and vitality, and the leaven of Pentecostalism, a spiritist movement filled with mediums in contact with devils and with fake healers, false teachers, and false prophets. This is the evil fruit of compromise which the ministers of the established Churches indulged. Benjamin Wilkinson, whose book inspired this article, would be shattered to see how accurate his foresight was if he was alive today; albeit, his church has its own problems with Gospel Truth.
“…Nevertheless when the Son of man cometh, shall he find faith on the earth?” (Luke 18:8).
References
Daniels, David W, 2005, 2013, “Did The Catholic Church Give Us The Bible?” Chick Publications, Ontario, California
Wilkinson, B. G. “Our Authorized Bible Vindicated” 1930, Kindle edition, Teach Services, Inc.; 2nd edition (2 December 2014).