“For we are not as many, which corrupt the word of God: but as of sincerity, but as of God, in the sight of God speak we in Christ” (2 Cor 2:17 KJV).
Introduction
The Revised Standard Version (RSV), while not the source of the stream of bibles emerging from the Revision Committee commissioned by Convocation in 1870, is the best known and very influential bible of the Revised Version (RV) stream, of which the RV is the source. The Revision Committee was convened for the task of revising the Authorised Version (AV), popularly known today as the King James Version (KJV) in 1870.
In a carefully prepared campaign of deception designed to ambush the Committee members and persuade them to adopt a new Greek text compiled by B. F. Westcott and W. H. A. Hort (WH), the Authorised Version was targeted for destruction by them and some of their partners in crime, in order to undermine and Catholicise the Church of England. As long as the KJV stood supreme, their revolution could not succeed.
Virtually the only voice raised in vigorous and scholarly opposition was that of Dean Stanley Burgon, who exposed the corruption of the new text by revealing its unorthodox readings and omissions and how and where it differed from the traditional Greek text, the Textus Receptus (TR). It was not so much that differing from the KJV was the main problem; it was that these changes altered the meaning of Scripture as it was understood at the time, and consequently, theology. This “new” theology abandoned the Gospel of salvation in Christ by faith in his finished work on the cross, and replaced it with the Catholic system of salvation by works and a host of other false doctrines and dogmas. It was the Byzantine readings of the NT text, the most well-known being Textus Receptus, upon whichthe Authorised Version was based, which stood in the path of this attempted apostasy, and which was consequently hated by the revisers.
The Endless Streams of the Revised Version
The first bible revision in the stream, the New Testament of which was released in 1881, was the Revised Version (RV), also known as the English Revised Version (ERV); the complete bible (Old and New Testaments) was published in 1884 and the RV Apocrypha were published in 1894. This revision was supposed to be a mild revision of the KJV; but it was really a brand new version. The text of the New Testament of the RV was based on different Greek texts to that of the KJV. The physical manuscripts of this “new” (critical) Greek text are much older than any of the Byzantine texts, so its supporters maintain that it is therefore more accurate and trustworthy. But the supporters of the Textus Receptus insist that, because it is the majority of texts in existence, its readings can be found in some texts which are even earlier than those of the Westcott and Hort (WH) texts.
Soon thereafter an American version of this new English version was produced, published in 1901, known as the American Standard Version (ASV), thus beginning the first of many streams of bible versions based on the new Westcott and Hort (WH) text.
Theology of the Revisers
Most of the revisers of the KJV led by B. F. Westcott and F. J. A. Hort were liberal in their theology, Catholic in heart, Darwinian evolutionists, spiritualists engaged in séances, having Marxist tendencies, did not believe in the necessity of faith in Christ alone for salvation, and other heretical and pernicious ideas; and one of them, George Vance Smith, was a Unitarian. The situation was the same for the American revision committee, led by arch-liberal, Philip Schaff. These are the “higher” theological Critics with some “lower” or Textual Critics.
Of the liberal theology espoused by these heretics, one commentator summarises them nicely: “According to this radical criticism is there any inspiration? None. Any Trinity? None. Any fall into sin? None. Any devil or angel? None. Any miracles? None. Any law from Mount Sinai? None. Any wrath of God? None. Any prophecy? None. Is Christ God? No. Is the death of Christ vicarious? No. Did Christ rise from the dead? No. Has there been any outpouring of the Holy Ghost? No. Will there be any resurrection of all the dead? No. Or a final judgment? No. This is rather radical, and practically robs Christianity of everything that it has” (Uriah Smith, 1908, p. 624).
The Greek Text of Westcott and Hort
The WH text consists of manuscripts most of which originate from ancient Alexandria, and most of which were discovered in the 19th century, and which enchanted liberal scholars who trumpeted that greater age means greater accuracy. Westcott and Hort concocted a text which they drew from the various manuscripts which had been discovered during the preceding decades, sifting and collating until they were satisfied with their achievement. Unfortunately they accepted every “family” of texts except the widely accepted Byzantine, which was the vast majority of Greek texts. They hated this textual “family”, and Hort called the KJV, which is the best exemplar in English of the Byzantine, “vile” and “villainous”.
The manuscripts they regarded as closest to the autographs were Codex Vaticanus (B) and Codex Sinaiticus (Aleph), and a third known as Alexandrinus (A), which is bizarre because Aleph and B differ from each other in thousands of places – just in the gospels there are around 3000 differences between them. And they’re filled with scribal corrections (Sinaiticus being the worst), the text being scrubbed out to allow a newer reading here, and various other changes and omissions there, over a long period. Nearly all of these changes and omissions either undermine or attack the deity of Christ, his Person, and his work.
Despite that these manuscripts are arguably faulty and therefore corrupt, Westcott and Hort were enchanted by them. They are dated to late 4th and early 5th centuries and Westcott and Hort regarded them as being the earliest texts known to us and closest to the autographs. They are each almost a complete New Testament; they also contain the books of the Apocrypha and some other early Christian writings e.g. Shepherd of Hermas. The WH text has since morphed into the Nestle-Aland Text (NA) and the United Bible Societies Text (UBS), but they are all essentially the same, and known generally as the Critical Text, and based on the same few “unique” manuscripts. And all our bibles today are based on this corrupt text – if ever a bible text could be called “vile” and “villainous”, it is the Critical Text.
The Critical Problems with the Critical Text
Apart from the multitude of changes and omissions, the Critical Text has several built-in problems, which means that there can never be a standard bible used by all and which will remain authoritative and trustworthy. This is because the two textual versions are constantly being revised and updated (the current editions are NA27 and UBS 4) and necessarily continuing in this process endlessly; consequently, the Church can never again possess an authoritative bible as long as this text is its basis. The text is constantly being revised and updated, so the bible is in a constant state of flux.
There are several categories in the Critical Text into which each word is placed – ‘most likely’, ‘less likely’, ‘least likely’ – and these are decided upon by the committee or its leader. The bizarre fact is that with each update, readings which were once in one category can be found in a different category in the update; and back again in the next. Each of these readings are debated and argued over as to which reading is the most likely to be closest to the autograph, and then a vote is taken to confirm it. Imagine that! The infallible, inerrant, authoritative, God-breathed Word and words of the Sovereign God of all creation, depends on a majority vote of a committee of fallible, unbelieving, men and women before it can be trusted and used by the Church. After all the centuries of the Church on earth, is this what we have been reduced to? Jesus asked: “Nevertheless when the Son of man cometh, shall he find faith on the earth?” (Lk 18:8).
The whole process is reminiscent of Enid Blyton’s children’s’ story “The Magic Faraway Tree”, in which the children never knew which magic land they would find when they climbed to the top of the tree. And it puts the Church in the ludicrous position of never being able to make definitive statements of doctrine, faith, or practice, because both the original language texts and the resultant bible versions are constantly changing. Our modern bibles are therefore really only best-guess bibles, and every few years we have to buy the latest version to keep up with the latest manuscript discovery or the change in our language or any other furphy the textual critics and bible translation committees and bible publishers choose to tell us is the truth. In the end it’s a gold mine for bible publishers but worse than useless for people who want to know with certainty what God says; and “truth is fallen in the street” (Isa 59:14).
The Stream Becomes a Flood
The American Standard Version was itself revised, being completed in 1952, and becoming a new version, namely the Revised Standard Version (RSV). Despite its popularity, the RSV had its critics and some of them were angry and vocal about the radical changes to the text. It removed many passages, verses, and parts of verses from the text, italicised them, and placed them in a footnote, with a comment to undermine their validity and authority as Scripture. These changes were so radical that Ahmed Deedat, a Muslim apologist, took advantage of this vandalism, a gift to him, pouring scorn upon the RSV, the bible itself, and Christianity and Christians, in a booklet entitled “Is the Bible the Word of God?” Sadly, his observations and attack were justified, and this reflects badly on Christianity as a whole.
The RSV was updated in 1971 to become more orthodox by restoring the controversial omissions and changes in the 1952 version back to their rightful place in the text, albeit in italics to distinguish and separate them from the main text; and with comments in the margin to ensure the reader believes them to be doubtful or spurious readings. So, although the RSV 1971 was an improvement, it basically retained the errors of the 1952 edition but in a less blatant form.
In 1965-1966 the RSV was slightly modified to accommodate the Catholic Church, e.g. “young woman” in Isaiah 7:14 was changed back to “the virgin”; etc. And the apocrypha was included in the Old Testament, following the order of the Vulgate.
In 1973 the Common Bible was released. It was the RSV with the apocrypha placed between the Testaments and was designed to be used by all denominations.
In 1982 the Readers Digest Bible was published, a condensed version of the RSV. It catered to those who didn’t read much or well, so 55% of the Old Testament and 25% of the New Testament were cut out. It still contained the Lord’s Prayer, Ten Commandments, and Psalm 23 because they are so well known, but I doubt it was of much use to anybody.
In 2006 Ignatius Press (Catholic) released the Revised Standard Version, Second Catholic Edition (RSV-2CE), making some readings and notes already in the RSV text more in accord with Catholic theology.
A Revision Becomes a New Version
In 1989 the RSV was revised and the revision was called the New Revised Standard Version, a version which is based on the 1971 RSV and which is now the preferred bible of academics, scholars, liberals, theological colleges, and many churches because of its vaunted accuracy and the gender-inclusiveness of its translation. It says of itself in “To the Reader”, it is “As literal as possible, as free as is necessary….Paraphrastic renderings have been adopted only sparingly, and then chiefly to compensate for a deficiency in the English language – the lack of a common gender third person singular pronoun”. However, it has been criticised because, in order to achieve gender-inclusive readings, it resorts to adding words, changing the singular to plural, and various other ways of mishandling the Greek or Hebrew text.
And now the NRSV is also being updated. “A three-year process of reviewing and updating the text of the NRSV was announced at the 2017 Annual Meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature. The update will be managed by the SBL following an agreement with the copyright-holding NCC. The stated focuses of the review are incorporating advances in textual criticism since the 1989 publication of the NRSV, improving the textual notes and reviewing the style and rendering of the translation. A team of more than fifty scholars, led by an editorial board, is responsible for the review, which goes by the working title of the New Revised Standard Version, Updated Edition (NRSV-UE)” (emphasis mine).
So the NRSV-UE is now an update of a revision (NRSV) of a revision (RSV-71) of a corrupt revision (RSV-52) of a derivation (ASV) of a corrupt translation (RV) which was intended to be a revision of a translation (KJV) but was in reality a brand new version, the wellspring (RV) of the stream of English versions which now flood the market. Phew!
Another Revision Becomes Another New Version
In response to the appearance of the radical gender-inclusive NIVI, Evangelicals began yet another new translation, which also branched out from the RSV 1971. The result was the English Standard Version (ESV) which was released in 2001. A blog called “Biblical Catholic” tells us: “By contrast, the ESV was conceived as a kind of knee-jerk reaction against the publication, in England, of the NIV with Inclusive Language in 1996…..The ESV was first conceived in 1997, the committee was put together in 1998, and the first edition was published in 2001. They didn’t really devote the necessary time and attention to the task that they should have, because they were in a rush to get it out as soon as possible”. The ESV has subsequently become very popular with Evangelicals. A Catholic edition, ESV-CE, was published in 2018/2019. But it is little different to the RSV and NRSV but catering more to an evangelical readership, as will be noticed in some of its readings.
New Revisions, New Versions, New Streams
Another stream, again arising from the American Standard Version (ASV) of 1901 was itself a revision which became the New American Standard Bible (NASB) in 1971. It has gone through several “modified editions” – 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, and the Updated Edition (1995), and designated Updated NASB or NASB95. The latest edition is the NASB2020.
Furthermore, the ASV spawned other versions, namely The Amplified Bible New Testament (1958), the Living Bible (1971), Recovery Version (1999), and World English Bible (2000). Two of these also became streams in their own right.
The first of these two was the Amplified Bible (AMP). This was conceived and birthed by a devoted Christian woman named Frances Siewert (1881-1967). The New Testament had as its base the ASV and the Old Testament was based on the RSV. In 1962 and 1964 the two-volume Amplified Old Testament was published, and in 1965 the complete Amplified Bible was published. This was later expanded and in 1987 the Amplified Bible, Expanded Edition was completed and published. It is popularly known today as the Classic Edition. Finally, in 2015, an updated edition, designated Amplified Holy Bible, was completed and published. It was designed to be more readable but many Christians still prefer the Classic Edition.
The other of these two streams issuing from the ASV was a paraphrase by Kenneth Taylor who created The Living Bible (TLB), which also had as its base the ASV; it was published in 1971. Sales were huge and it was produced in many editions. The publisher saw its lucrative potential and a revision committee was set up to turn the Living Bible paraphrase into a true version.
As a result the New Living Bible (NLT) was born, and released to the public in 1996. It is a dynamic equivalence translation based on the two major critical texts (UBS and NA). The first edition saw it start losing its dependence on its forbear, becoming a version in its own right, and a very successful, productive, and lucrative cash cow overnight. It, too, was revised, and the second edition was released in 2004 and is sometimes referred to as NLTse. Further editions with minor revisions were released in 2007, 2013, and 2015. In a collaborative venture between NLT revisers and Catholic scholars, changes were made to the text, which were incorporated into the 2015 edition in order to make it acceptable to the Catholic Church; these changes will be included in all future editions of the NLT. The Catholic edition naturally includes the apocrypha (which are incorporated into the OT as found in the Vulgate, rather than between the Testaments as a separate entity from them).
Although a Catholic edition of a supposedly evangelical version appears problematic to evangelicals, the thing that makes a Catholic bible a uniquely Catholic bible is not the Greek text but the Catholic notes which accompany it. Now that Catholics and evangelicals all use the same Greek critical text as the basis for their bibles, one can use any version they like, without absorbing by osmosis, as it were, the other’s doctrines and practices. As for the books of the Apocrypha, they were widely regarded and used in the early Church as Scripture, and weren’t removed from the bibles which Protestants used – they simply inserted them at the back of the bible, as Luther did, or between the two testaments. It was another 2-3 centuries before the British and Foreign Bible Society decided to omit it altogether; and it has been so ever since. And the Reformers encouraged Christians to read the Apocrypha because they contain edifying material.
The NLT fulfilled its potential by becoming No. 1 best bible seller in July 2008, toppling the NIV and ending its twenty-year reign at the top of the sales charts.
The Stream Becomes a Raging Torrent
The number of new versions, revisions, updates, modified versions etc. arising from the English Revised Version and its relatives, and the corrupt WH Text, on the churches is eye-watering. The publishers have realised what a golden goose and cash cow these bible versions and revisions are, and an endless stream of income for them; they will not easily let go of its productive teat.
And with each of these new versions comes an even greater multitude of study bibles, version-specific commentaries, word studies, and even some concordances. The number of study bibles alone is staggering! One need only turn to Amazon to see endless pages of them. The innovative creation and marketing of these study bibles is genius, with study bibles for every conceivable niche in a highly lucrative market, to such an extent that the niches actually divide and separate Christian from Christian on the basis of race, colour, age, gender, military, politics, relationships, popular bible teachers, and so on, It is shameful!
The modern bibles constantly fall by the wayside because they are constantly being updated, and every few years the publishers change it and it disappears from sight as the newer, “more accurate” replacement takes the baton. But the finishing line is constantly drawing away from it because the Critical Text is never completed and never will be.
The Bottom Line
The great irony is that ultimately it doesn’t matter which version one uses, whether it be one of the RSV stream, or NIV stream, etc., or even the KJV, despite what KJV-onlyists insist on – the bottom line is that there are no autographs or first copies of any book or portion of the Bible, either Old or New Testaments. For all the fuss and noise made by KJV-onlyists and the responses by the advocates of the Critical Text, neither side can deliver the killer blow against the other because there is no concrete or objective proof for either of them; there is no autograph with which anybody can compare any bible in any version in any language in order to determine the truth.
And for all the noise scholars make about there being 5000 Greek and 5000 Latin manuscripts, the vast majority of these are very late; and despite that the NT can be almost totally reconstructed just from the writings of the Church Fathers; the earliest of anything remotely textual is a postage-stamp sized fragment of John’s Gospel from the 2nd century. The earliest (almost) complete Mss, as I mentioned above, are codices Vaticanus (B) and Sinaiticus (aleph) from the 4th century, and a little later, Alexandrinus (A) from the 5th century; hence, the reason why critical scholars love them so much and swear by them. Like the Critical Text, Textus Receptus is a conglomeration of disparate Mss cobbled together by Erasmus, Stephanus, and the Elzevirs, ranging from 12th century to the 15th century.
So the strong case in favour of the Critical Text is still not indisputable because there are no autographs; and the (often) strong but vitriolic defences of the KJV as being THE alone preserved word and words of God, fall equally to the ground for the same reason. One person I know well says that the best bible version is the one with whose faults one can best live. And Billy Graham said that the best bible version is the one you’ll read.
And one is forced to wonder why God, who promised to preserve his Word, doesn’t seem to have done so. Scholars say that we don’t need the autographs because there are so many other Mss from which the original text can be restored. But without an autograph or first copy, we can ultimately only guess.
References
Smith, Uriah, “Daniel and The Revelation”, undated (circa 1899), published by The Stanborough Press, Watford, Herts.
Revised Standard Version – Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New Revised Standard Version
https://catholicbibles.blogspot/2009/01/esv-vs-nrsv.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New Living Translation
For those who wish to know the apostate theology of Westcott and Hort taken from their own writings: FROM THEIR OWN MOUTHS – Westcott and Hort – Saved By Grace