Q
A listener from Concord, California confesses that the NASB lines up better
with the Nestles Greek text than the King James Version. Would you care to
comment on this question?
A
The reason the King James Version does not seem to be an accurate translation
of the NASB/Nestle interlinear is because, as the preface to the Nestles Greek text
admits: “This is not the traditional Greek text” (emphasis mine). The KJV is a very
precise translation of the traditional Greek text. Most book stores do not carry Berry’s
Greek Textus Receptus interlinear. If you compare the NASB to this Greek text you
would find the NASB in error thousands of places. Dr. Wilbur Pickering, in his thesis
work at Dallas Theological Seminary, said:
“New versions differ from the originals in some six thousand places. They are several
times further removed from the originals than the King James Version.”
He is saying this because the recent collation of the earliest papyri has now proven
that King James readings are early, not late, as was previously supposed.
Embarrassed scholars have now thrown out that Nestle’s twenty-first edition
interlinear mentioned by the listener and produced a Nestle twenty-sixth edition with
five hundred changes back to the King James readings. Many pastors do not know
this. An example would be 1 Peter 1:22. The King James has always said “pure
heart”; the new versions merely have “heart.” The Nestle’s twenty-sixth Greek
edition had to go back to the reading, “pure heart,” because it was discovered in the
papyri.
We have five thousand or so Greek New Testament manuscripts extant today. Ninety-
nine and 44/100 percent of these agree with each other; this is the text underlying the
King James Version. The director of the British Museum, Dr. Kenyon, said, “This is
the text found in the great majority of manuscripts.” The King James comes from “the
great majority of manuscripts.” Kenyon says further, “Until 1881 it held the field as
the text in practically universal use.”
What happened in 1881? Two spiritualists, Wescott and Hort, changed this traditional
Greek text in eight thousand, four hundred, and thirteen places using the corrupt
Vaticanus manuscript. The following scenario puts an impossible strain on the
imagination:
1. God left his church without the word from A.D. 330 (Vaticanus) to 1881; the
church did not have the true word of God for fifteen hundred years.
2. It was restored in 1881 by spiritualists and heretics, like Wescott and Hort
(Wescott and Hort called themselves heretics), using the Vaticanus manuscript, a by-
product of Origen, who himself was declared a heretic by regional synods in
Alexandria, Cyprus, Jerusalem, and a general council in Constantinople in A.D. 553.
3. It was refined recently by five liberal scholars, one of which was Roman Catholic
Cardinal Carlo Martini of the Pontifical Biblical Institute. This institute announced in
April of 1994 that fundamentalist Christians were “dangerous.” Martini is said to be
one of two men most likely to be selected as the next pope.
4. This text-type, never used by the body of Christ in the nineteen hundred-year
history of the church, is accepted by the “bIind,” “lukewarm” Laodicean church.
(This church is not commended for keeping the word, like the preceding Philadelphia
church period. His word has been ousted from the pulpit; that puts him outside saying,
“Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice...” (Rev. 3:20).
This “new” Wescott and Hort Greek text was cloned for the following generation by
Eberhard Nestle. In 1927 his son Erwin became its warden. He confesses: “My father
knew quite well that a certain one-sidedness adhered to his text.” This one-sidedness
is evidenced by the critical apparatus which appears at the bottom of each page. It
purports to list which ancient authorities support the new changes and which do not.
Pastors and seminary students are unaware of the distorted nature of the evidence. The
late Dr. Ernest Colwell, past president of the University of Chicago and North
America’s preeminent textual scholar, said of the apparatus, when he was working
with the International Greek New Testament Committee: “They fail to cite witnesses
accurately or completely.”
These admissions of “one-sidedness” and inaccuracy stem from the following facts:
Only seven percent of the cursives are listed; .02 percent of the lectionaries are listed;
twenty-four percent of the citations by church fathers are listed; thirty-three percent of
the ancient versions are listed. We are not getting an accurate picture of the
manuscript evidence in either the United Bible Societies or the Nestle/Aland Greek
New Testaments.
The critical apparatus accompanying the New King James Version is equally
misleading. It uses the letter “M” to indicate that a reading is supported by the
Hodges-Farstad Greek New Testament According to the Majority Text. Readers
naturally assume that the term “Majority Text” and the letter “M” represents a
numerical majority of a full collation of the five thousand-plus Greek New Testament
documents. Nothing could be further from the truth. Von Soden collated only four
hundred and fourteen of the five thousand-plus documents. Even these four hundred
and fourteen were not fully collated. Few read the preface and introduction which
concedes:
“A large percentage of the material has never been fully collated.... We were forced to
rely on von Soden ’s work.... ” (p. vi)
“As all who are familiar with von Soden’s material will know, his presentation of the
data leaves much to be desired. ” (p. xxii)
“The present edition does not cite the testimony of the ancient versions or church
fathers” (p. xviii)
“What is urgently needed is a new apparatus for the gospels, Acts, and epistles
covering the entire manuscript tradition. It should include complete collation of a very
high percentage of the surviving Majority Text manuscripts.” (p. xxiii)
“There is still much work to do in New Testament textual criticism.” (p. vi)
The book of Revelation in Hodges-Farstad’s so-called “Majority Text” relied, for the
most part, on H.C. Hoskier’s collation of the book of Revelation. In spite of the fact
that the eighty or so Andreas MSS are older and stylistically superior, Hodge-Farstad
relied on an equal number of MS in the 046 line. To excuse this prejudicial move,
they list only one-third of the Andreas line. This distortion allows the omission of vital
texts such as Revelation 1:11, “I am Alpha and Omega, the first and the last.”
Dr. Jack Moorman of Great Britain did a very recent collation of the old uncials. He
made some amazing discoveries most seminary students have missed. He collated the
old uncial manuscripts A, C, and D, and showed that they agreed with the King James
readings two to one and three to two. He collated the alphabet uncials and found that
they agreed four to one. They have now discovered that many of the fifteen thousand
corrections on the fourth century Sinaiticus manuscripts were made before it left the
scriptorium, This vindicates scores and scores of King James readings.
When Dr. Moorman looked at the ancient versions of the New Testament, he found
that the fifty or sixty old Latin manuscripts agreed with the King James Version two
to one. The three hundred Peshitta manuscripts agreed three to one; the Gothic
manuscripts agreed three to one; the Armenian manuscripts agreed three to two. The
British Museum’s collection of eighty-seven thousand citations by church fathers
agrees with the King James Version two to one.
The antiquity of the KJV text-type is evidenced in Joseph Bosworth’s ParalIel
Gospels. It includes the Gothic version dated about 360, the Anglo-Saxon version
dated between 600 and 900, the Wycliffe translation dated 1381, and the Tyndale
dated 1526. Comparing them with the King James Version and the new versions
quickly shows that the King James is the text that has been used historically by the
church as far back as the Gothic period, dated 360.
Acts 2:6 says, “Every man heard them speak in his own language.” God has spoken
to men around the world through a text like the KJV in the German Tepl Bible, the
Italian Diodati, the French Olivetan Bible, the Hungarian Erdosi Bible, the Spanish
Valera Bible, the Polish Visoly Bible, the De Grave Bible in Holland, the Russian
Holy Synodal Bible, the German Luther Bible, and the Gottshcalkson Bible of Iceland.
These all agree with the readings of the King James Version. The King James Bible
Society (527 Benjulyn Rd., Cantonment, FL) keeps an updated list of current foreign
bibles and missionaries in agreement with the KJV. People looking around at their
church think everyone uses an NIV or another new version. That may be true within
the context of their limited vision, but when looking back at the history of the church
around the world, you will see that those sixty-four thousand missing words in the
NIV have not been missing through the history of the church.