Are all Bibles the same?

Right now, there are more than 217 English Bible versions, but how can every version represent God’s true word? Despite profiteering from copyrighted modern bible versions, there’s only one inerrant version that God sanctioned. Are you aware of the omissions in modern bible versions, especially the removal of key verses from the New Testament? Are you aware that most modern bible versions have thousands of words missing, in comparison to the King James Bible? What about the New King James version, can it be trusted? Let’s join Carl to find out…

Here is a complete transcript of the podcast…(below)

If you are interested in finding out more about this topic…click here.

There are 217 modern day English translations of the bible and one of the questions I’ve been asked down the years is, Pastor, which one of these Bible versions truly represents the word of God? Now that’s a great question. Friend, I will start out by saying that God can use any translation of the bible for His glory; He can even use inferior paraphrase versions in some cases to get His point across but there is only one version that has not been corrupted and it will take me some time to explain which one it is and why I believe it’s so. Heck we know God can even lead someone to Christ with one sentence from any Bible; that’s the power of the Holy Spirit. We know the Bible says, “All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works” (2nd Timothy 3: 16-17). But the question then becomes, which Bible translation in our possession today is truly regarded as Holy Scripture?

Friend, if you’ve ever compared the King James Version of the Bible to any of the modern-day translations, you’ll quickly realize that many of the verses have not only been deliberately changed but even removed or omitted from the original text, which begs the question why did the translators do this? Now I don’t have time to explain the entire history of how the King James Bible came into our possession but I will leave that for another broadcast. My focus today encompasses the glaring omissions, amendments and deliberate changes in the modern day translations and when I say modern I’m talking particularly about translations, received after the 19th century and into the twentieth century.

Now Friend in order to attain an accurate Bible it should be translated from the original Hebrew Scriptures for the OT and from the Greek language in the NT. It should never include the Apocrypha which was excluded by the King James translators and Jerome, because the Hebrews excluded it from their writings also. Now of all the Bibles ever written, only the Geneva and the King James Bible’s were translated from the original Hebrew Old Testament. We could use either of these two Bibles as a guide for accuracy, but only the KJV continued to be updated into modern English. All throughout history the meaning of words in our Bible remained unchanged, both in their original languages and through God anointed translations. But like I said, beginning in the late 1800’s, modern “scholars” changed the meaning of words into what the Lord never meant to say. They changed God’s word into what they think God should have said when what He said has been clear to all, throughout the ages. In fact, all modern bible versions are not only missing some of God’s words but they also changed the meaning of those words in some cases. Their focus was more on the meaning of what was said, rather than a direct, word for word translation, but this leads to confusion. That’s why this attack on God’s word today stems from two fronts, omissions and deliberate amendments.

One important observation is this my friend; all Modern bibles after the 1800’s chose to translate the NT from the Nestle and Aland Greek New Testament instead of the Textus Receptus, which is Latin for the Received Text that was prepared by Robert Stephanus in 1550. So the modern translators were not even looking at the same manuscripts as the King James translators to begin with. Even more shocking is the fact that some of the translators of the modern day Bibles weren’t even believers in God! But merely scholars in the true sense of the word and consequently did not hold Gods word in high esteem as they should have. Friend, that’s like letting the wolf watch over the hen house. These people had no right to translate these texts because the Bible makes it clear the Holy Spirit brings illumination and understanding to God’s word and without Him, we are blind to understanding it correctly. So what’s the difference between the two Greek manuscripts from which the NT was translated? I’ll tell you the difference, it’s shocking. Check this out, there are 2,886 fewer words in the Greek manuscripts used for the modern translations compared to the underlying manuscripts in the King James Bible. That’s why so many verses are omitted in our modern day translations, some of which I will mention shortly.

If you were to equate this number of missing words between the Stephanus Greek text and the Nestle and Aland Greek text, it would be equivalent to…get this…the entire books of 1st and 2nd Peter combined! Wow, so when you pick up an NIV or NLT or NASB or ESV or any other modern translation, there are literally thousands of English words missing in comparison to the Authorized KJV because of the underlying differences in the two NT Greek manuscripts. For example the KJV has 774,746 English words and the NIV has 741,065. That’s a discrepancy of 33,681 words missing from the NIV! Friend this is not accidental but deliberate on the part of the translators. Now there are several things you can look for in any Bible when you purchase one and I will list them for you now:

1. Is Acts 8:37 missing? The Ethiopian Eunuch asked the Apostle Phillip what stopped him from being baptized in water … “And Philip said, If thou believest with all thine heart, thou mayest. And he answered and said, I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.^“  Friend this key piece of information of believing with the heart which is omitted from the NLT, NIV and 30 English bibles in total. Why would anyone deliberately choose to leave out such key information upon which someone’s salvation would hinge?Is there a footnote suggesting that Mark 16:9-20 is not in the “oldest and best” manuscripts? (In other words how can I know if Jesus really rose from the dead?). Friend when it comes to the authenticity of manuscripts older is not better.
   
2. Does 1 Cor 1:18 tell you if you are” being saved” or “saved”? Friend, we know that salvation is a choice; it’s a one-time occurrence which is clearly laid out in the KJV. However in the NKJV, the Amplified, the NLT or NIV for example, the text in these Bibles state that we are “being saved”, as an ongoing process and this; my friend is a lie from the pit of Hell. Salvation is not a process it is a one-time affair. That’s the same as saying, were you born 25 yrs ago? Oh no I’m still being born; I’m still in process of being born, these 25 years. Friend, this is total nonsense.
   
3. Does John 3:16 show that Jesus was an “only Son” or the only “begotten” Son? (If begotten is not there, how was Jesus different from the “sons of God” in Jn 1:12?).
   
4. Is Jesus merely a servant or a Son in Acts 3:26? In many of the modern translations the Sonship of Jesus is denied.
   
5. And finally, does your bible deny the Trinity of God friend? …Yes, I said it, does your bible deny the trinity of God? If so, turn to 1st john 5:7 to find out…it should say, “⁷ For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one. ^“But in many modern-day translations it merely says there are three that testify and they exclude the Spirit, water and blood. This is a gross mistranslation of the original text and does not represent the witness of all three aspects of the Godhead, bearing witness to Christ being the Son of God.

Friend, unless you’ve taken the time to study the deliberate obfuscations of the modern-day translations for yourself, you’ll never realize that they’ve become watered down in many key areas and this should be a warning to us. Anyone who does not perform “due diligence” before buying a Bible risks reading a book that shifts the true meaning away from God’s word into something else. Any Pastor or teacher who does not research this issue also risks guiding people with a defective book which has been stripped of the true power of God.

Friend, there is much information that has been revealed in recent years about the modern translations and frankly some of these findings are disturbing and let me cover some of these right now. The NIV translation, which is called the New International Version or better still the Nearly Inspired Version (which is what my old bible College teacher would call it), is by far and away the worst deliberately subversive translation of the Bible ever published. It was first circulated in 1978 and was the first Critical Text Bible to deliberately replace the KJB in popularity. This NIV has more missing Bible verses than any other translation up to its time. If you want bang for your buck friend, buy a KJB because you get more words per page. Whoever translated the NIV appears to have had a sinister agenda to which the reader is unaware and don’t take my word for it, I’m going to read for you now, the changes made in the NIV compared to the KJB. Did you know the NIV has 16 verses missing from the NT? It’s the top selling Bible in the United States right now and recently surpassed the KJV which is troubling.

1. In Isa 14:12 it has the audacity to blaspheme the name of Christ by calling Lucifer the “morning star”, instead of the “Son of the morning,” as it should be translated. It infers that it was Jesus who was cast out of heaven, not Lucifer. Jesus is rightly called the Morning Star in Rev 22:16 and is one of the names of our Lord.
   
2. Omits Matt 17:21 which provides key insight into the deliverance of a child who was prone to seizures and removes the words, “prayer and fasting”.
   
3. It removes the key verse in Matthew 18:11, which says, “For the Son of man is come to save that which was lost.^“
   
4. It removes Mk 11:26, a key verse on unforgiveness where it says, ” ²⁶ But if ye do not forgive, neither will your Father which is in heaven forgive your trespasses.’
   
5. It removes Mk 15:28, the only place in the Bible showing Jesus crucifixion fulfilling Isa 53:12 and all sorts of historical details concerning the life of Christ and the early church are omitted from the NIV elsewhere.
   
6. In Col 1:14, the NIV removes the word blood, so it says,” in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.” Not true friend, the KJV reveals that it is through the blood of Jesus we have the forgiveness of sins. These translators have removed the precious blood of Jesus, the means by which the price of our sin was paid.

Friend did you notice that which has been removed from the NIV are some of the most important words that Christ ever spoke? Is this a coincidence? I think not, and why are the translators removing entire sections of the bible anyway? And you know everyone seems to love the New King James version right now but it has issues also? Many claim it’s just a newer more readable version of the King James in a modern language, right? Wrong. Let me share some facts about the NKJV translation with you also:

1. The NKJV has the word Lord omitted 66 times
2. God is removed 51 times
3. The word Heaven is omitted 50 times
4. Repent is taken out 44 times.
5. “The Blood” is removed 23 times
6. And finally, the word Hell is omitted 22 times.

Friend there are also some paraphrased Bibles out there like the Living Bible, or the Story Bible or the Message. These are not the true word of God friend no matter how much you like them. A paraphrase is “a restatement of a text or passage by giving the meaning of it in another form”. It’s not a word for word translation but someone’s opinion of what the sentence should say, so be very careful with these Paraphrased Bibles. In closing, I would recommend to you that if you’re a new Christian and struggle to understand the Elizabethan prose, start in one of two places. I would have you purchase a parallel Bible which has two translations running side by side on the same page, that way you can compare the KJV to a more modern day translation like the NASB, NLT or Amplified bibles perhaps but never the NIV. That way if you get stuck with some of the old English wording you can compare with the modern translation.

Friend, tomorrow I’m going to explain the history of the bible and how it came into our possession. I will explain to you the two rivers of source text that have run through history and reveal how our modern day translations were not only deliberately corrupted by evil men but their sole intention was to deride the true word of God. As I mentioned previously, these men were not even believers in Christ but altered the translations to pander to their own agnostic or atheistic beliefs.

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