PART ONE: RIDERS OF THE WRECKING MACHINE

The decline in the belief in the Bible has  been  to a great extent the result of the  years of higher criticism, the historical- critical method, textual criticism, Westcott-Hort and the  many new Bible versions.  All this created uncertainty in the minds of many in the Multitude about which translations are reliable and even doubt about which verses should be in the Bible? As a result they lost trust in the Bible, which is what Satan sought to do from the start in moving men to try to replace the King James Version.  There is very little preaching for Christian morality today.  Many different kinds of false doctrines  are taught and believed  in within mainstream Christianity or "Churchianity." THE FRUIT OF THE KING JAMES VERSION The Greek text of Desiderius Erasmus (1467-1536)  -  The Textus Receptus - was directly responsible for the Protestant Reformation. Erasmus published five editions of the Textus Receptus, in 1516, 1519, 1522, 1527 and 1535.  The  English King James Version used in large part  later editions of the Textus Receptus. The First Fruit of the Greek text created from five to ten Byzantine Greek texts by Erasmus was the Reformation itself.  Martin Luther's German Bible,  important for the Reformation, appeared in 1634. Luther used the Second Edition of the Erasmus Textus Receptus for his German New Testament, which he translated before the Old Testament. The King James Version has been used by English speaking peoples for almost four hundred years and has brought many to  salvation.  It was used in many great revivals. Gerald R. McDermott says of the 18th century Great Awakening that "Yet within a decade the greatest evangelical awakening since the Reformation broke out across America, England and the Continent. By the time it subsided, the political and social cultures of the Anglo-American world had been forever changed. Christian values had left their mark on the world beyond the church." That was fruit of the King James Version in action.  There were  two large 18th century  revivals inspired by the King James Version, The Great Awakening in the American colonies,  and the English  Evangelical Revival. McDermott says  "So in the 1720s and 1730s, after decades of feeling that true religion was dying, American and British evangelicals turned to prayer for such an anointing.  The first answers seemed to come in 1734-35 with the Connecticut River Valley revivals, led by Jonathan Edwards' congregation at Northampton, Mass. Then the same pattern appeared elsewhere. Days of fasting and prayer preceded revivals at Gloucester, Halifax, and Middleborough, Mass. The first signs of revival at Portsmouth, N.H. and at Wrentham, Mass., appeared during fast-day services. And in August 1743 Rev. John Sutherland in Golspie, Scotland, started three prayer groups to pray for an outpouring of the Holy Spirit. A year later, revival fell. Seventy people were converted in his church alone." I am sure that Jonathan Edwards was using the King James. McDermott goes on to say that "George Whitefield was the catalyst for the largest explosion of religion in 1740. A mere 24 years old, he preached more than 175 sermons in a 45-day whirlwind tour of Massachusetts and Connecticut. Most of his sermons were preached to immense crowds; his farewell sermon in Boston was heard by 20,000." "But if some clergymen were responsible for first sharing the news, it was the laity who took the message and ran to their neighbors. Unlike awakenings in previous centuries, the 18th-century awakening was propelled primarily by laymen, not clergymen. Even Edwards, the awakening's first great leader, said the momentum came from below, especially young people, whose "lay testifyings" produced a "great noise" that was heard throughout the region."  "The revivalists believed the Holy Spirit's presence would be palpably manifest. Edwards believed that the Spirit could be discerned, that he moved a congregation "by a mighty invisible power," and he sometimes caused a "visible commotion." The above is from:  http://www.christianword.org/revival/wakeup.html Some historians say that the Great Awakening of the 1734-1740 period had such an impact upon the culture of colonial America that the colonists had the backbone to take on the British, who had the top Navy and Army in the world. In England, John Wesley (1703-1791),  founder of Methodism, preached many sermons and led tens of thousands to Christ with the King James Bible.  Francis Asbury (1745-1816), one of Wesley's contemporaries, carried the King James Version thousands of miles throughout the U.S. in his saddlebags and saved thousands.  David Brainard (1718-1747),  brought it to the American Indians. Charles Spurgeon (1834-1892) preached the KJV to millions more. http://www.biblebelievers.com/KJV4.htm There was what is called a Second Great Awakening in New England, Kentucky, Tennessee and in other states from about 1800 to 1830. This great revival was started by the preaching of James McGready in Logan county, Kentucky in 1800. Charles G. Finney held revivals from 1824 to 1837 in New York state.  This Second Great Awakening lasted about 30 years.  In 1800 to 1830 American Christians were almost all using the King James Version.  The first copy of the King James Bible known to have been brought into the colonies was taken by John Winthrop to Massachusetts in 1630. Gradually the King James Bible replaced the Geneva Bible among the New England Puritans and became the one English Bible of Americans until late in the 19th century. http://www.historians.org/tl/LessonPlans/wi/Hoeveler/Religion.html And so the King James Version was used for the two great revivals in America, the first from about 1734 to 1740, and the second in 1800 to 1830. These revivals - which put the stamp of the King James Version on American culture of the 18th and 19th centuries -  were not the only fruit of the KJV among English speaking peoples. Millions in England,South  America, Canada, Australia, New Zeeland and elsewhere have been convicted of sin and saved by preaching from and personal reading of the KJV. Christians in England had sent out missionaries who used the KJV and translations of it into native languages to convert many people over the world.  Following the second Great Awakening, the American world wide missionary movement continued. J. Hudson Taylor was the first American missionary to inland China in 1865. http://philologos.org/__eb-jki/tape06.htm Since then, thousands of American missionaries have gone to foreign lands, carrying the KJV, to "Go thee therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. (Matthew 28: 19)" Those who defend the new Bible versions might argue that Billy Graham"s preaching has led many to salvation, and he promotes the NIV.  But they paint themselves into a corner if they bring up Billy Graham.  He had an emotional appeal, but he made too many statements opposed to Bible doctrines. In addition, while Graham was holding his crusades, belief in the Bible was declining,  America was moving  farther into a post- Christian culture, gnostic mysticism  was sometimes posing as Holy Spirit spiritual experiencing, the New Age Occult religion  got going after about 1968 and even Christians were acting more and more in immoral ways. Can the advocates of the new Bible versions, based on the Westcott-Hort 1881 Greek text, claim to have produced the same kind and same amount of fruit produced by the Textus Receptus and the King James Version?  Its true that the New International Version has been around less than thirty years.  The New American Standard came out in 1971, and the Revised Standard in 1952.  But the English Revised Version  was published in 1881 and its American counterpart, the American Standard Version in 1901, enough time to generate some fruit. Have these versions produced fruit comparable to the KJV? On  http://www.revisedstandard.net/text/WNP/id_1.html  it is said that "...the fundamental difference between the New Testament in the American Standard Version, Revised Standard Version, New English Bible, Today's English Version, New American Standard Bible, New International Version, etc., on the one hand, and in the AV (King James Version) and NKJV on the other is that they are based on different forms of the Greek text. (There are over 5,500 differences between those two forms." The NKJV may be based on the Textus Receptus instead of Westcott-Hort but it also has problems in its doctrines and in the way it states them. CREATORS AND DRIVERS OF THE WRECKING MACHINE Many professors  of theology, preachers and their followers no longer believe in the  inerrancy of the Bible. They do not accept the Bible's statements  that God is able to preserve his true word.  One of the reasons they  have lost much of their faith in the Bible is because of the teaching in the seminaries of higher Bible criticism, textual criticism and the  Westcott-Hort theory. These professors created the Wrecking Machines which weaken, undermine and dilute the doctrines of the Bible. As a result, professors of theology, many preachers and their sheeple do not think the Bible is inerrant or has been preserved by God. Two 19th century English professors created the new Greek text which became the basis for almost all the new Bible versions.  These were: Brooke Foss Westcott 1825-1901,  was professor of divinity at Cambridge. With F. J. A. Hort, he published The New Testament in the Original Greek (2 vol., 1881) Fenton J. A. Hort 1828-1892, was also a Professor at Cambridge In 1881 when Westcott and Hort published their Greek text, the English Revised Version of the New Testament was published, based on the Westcott-Hort Greek text, instead of the Textus Receptus. Westcott and Hort used two main Greek texts as their sources for their Greek text: THE VATICANUS The Vaticanus was discovered in the Vatican library in the year 1481. It was written in the 4th century. Yet it omits Genesis 1:1 to 46:28, Psalms 106 to 138, Matthew 16:2-3, all the Pauline Pastoral Epistles (1 Timothy through Titus) Hebrews 9:14-13:25 and all of the book of Revelation. THE SINIATICUS Siniaticus is a manuscript which was found in 1844  by Constantin (von) Tischendorf  on a trash pile outside the walls of St. Catherine's Monastery, at the base of what some believe is the mountain where Moses was given the Ten Commandments, Mount Sinai. The riders of the Wrecking machine are the followers of the seminary trained professional Christians who have promoted the new Bible versions. HIGHER  CRITICISM  OF  THE  BIBLE Higher criticism of the Bible, as well as textual criticism, began before Westcott and Hort published their new Greek text in 1881. Biblical criticism was started and carried on  by professors and intellectuals  who valued reason and man-made assumptions over faith and revelation. Many of them were Germans influenced by the philosophy of non-Christians like  Hegel. Their work over a few centuries has discredited  parts of the Bible. Their analysis techniques were picked up by some theologians and  used to instill doubt about Biblical accounts of prophecy, miracles, and demon possession.  Later on, even mainstream theologians began to use "higher" biblical criticism to determine:  "which are the most reliable and trustworthy texts" of the Bible.  who were the authors of the 66 books of the Bible  when were they written  which passages are of real events; which are myth, legends, folklore, etc. Which are religious propaganda, etc  Some  theologians and ministers have seen that  biblical criticism may threaten an individual's faith: G. Maier describes higher criticism as: "a truly dictatorial regime in theology."  It results in "an uncritical and unjustified denigration of the Biblical text" and a "godless technique that eroded the Word of God itself." 4 G. Maier, "The End of the Historical-Critical Method," Concordia (1974).  Some Christian scholars who are more faithful to the Lord have criticized many so-called Higher Bible Critics" as being uninspired, not having the Holy Spirit, without faith, and without salvation. The Higher critics, they say, have had a destructive effect on the faith of Christian leaders trained in the seminaries and upon the followers of these leaders in the churches. The higher Bible critics are academics and not men of God. Few  - if any - of them appear to have been inspired by the Holy Spirit. The Higher Bible Critics taught that Scripture should be understood and interpreted  within the historic and cultural setting  at the time it was written.  They would ask how the author and his readers at about the time he wrote understood the text he wrote.  Some of these critics would say that apocalyptic literature   as in Revelation, Daniel, Ezekiel and  Zechariah was perhaps  understood by many in the early church, but we are not familiar with this type of literature. The higher critics might also argue that we should not take a prophecy from these apocalyptic books out of its context and apply it to our times as a prediction of coming events. This view  undermines trust in the Scriptures, and faith that God also inspired these prophecy books. Its a result of starting from the idea that we can treat the Bible as we would treat any ancient book of literature, which is an idea believers should reject. The assumption that these books were written only for readers of the author's culture and time period just will not hold up in view of the promises of the Bible about the word of God.  Texts promising that the Bible is inspired, is truthful, and has authority and other promises that God will preserve his Word as such argue against this view. The critics may also tell us  that we should not look for and make use of the  strands of teachings  found in Revelation, Daniel, Ezekiel or Zechariah that we may find in other books of the Bible.  Since the prophecy books can be understood only in their context, the critics might say, we cannot take a metaphoric prophecy out of that context and string it together with a prophecy from some other book of the Bible. TEXTUAL CRITICISM OF THE NEW TESTAMENT Westcott and Hort (1881)  wrote that the Bible is to be considered as an ancient manuscript, no better and no worse than other ancient manuscripts.  This starting point denies that the Bible is inspired by God, and that God has control over all  that goes on in this world. The reference (1881) above is:  B.F. Westcott and F.J.A. Hort, The New Testament in the Original Greek. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1881, and Introduction and Appendix, authored by Hort, appeared in 1882 (revised edition by F. C. Burkitt in 1892).  In it Hort  gives the theories, or assumptions, they used as the basis for selecting the Greek texts.. But the problem with starting from the assumption that the Bible is just like any other old book is that the meaning of Scripture is given by the Holy Spirit.  And if a textual critic does not have the Holy Spirit, he is likely to make mistakes in handing the word of God. John 16: 13 says "Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth..." I will show later that Westcott and Hort did not believe in many of the teachings of the Old and New Testaments and very likely were not inspired by the Spirit. John Burgon, Dean of Chichester in England during  the late 19th century  said the following about the inclusion of a Unitarian on the 1881 Revision Committee led by Westcott & Hort that: "But even if the Unitarian [Vance Smith] had been an eminent Scholar, my objection would remain in full force; for I hold (and surely so do you!), that the right Interpretation of God's Word may not be attained without the guidance of the Holy Spirit, whose aid must first be invoked by faithful prayer." The 1881 committee's purpose was to consider the issue of revising the King James translation.  Dean Burgon and F. H. Scrivener lost their battle with Westcort and Hort over the revision of the King James Version. Textual criticism  is concerned with finding errors in  texts. Supposedly, the goal of textual criticism of the  New Testament  is to recreate, as closely  as possible, the original writings of the apostles. This is the smokescreen  that Westcott and Hort used to pull off their great swindle.  They managed to establish as a basis for translation  a Greek text based on Alexandarian manuscripts which dilute, abbreviate  leave out, and cast doubt upon many New testament doctrines and teachings.  Westcott and Hort set out to discredit the Textus Receptus which more careful study  now suggests may be closer to the original autographs than the Alexandrian texts. Johann Jakob Griesbach (1745-1812), an earlier textual critic, published some critical rules for accepting or rejecting New Testament wordings.  One of Griesback's critical rules was that "the hardest reading is best." Another was"the shorter reading is best, based on the idea that scribes were more likely to add than to delete.  These are really assumptions which have little if any empirical  evidence to support them. Brooke Foss Westcott  and Fenton J. A. Hort  in the 1881 edition of their Greek  New Testament   also proposed critical rules, including  the rule, or assumption, that the shorter reading is best, meaning it is assumed to be closer to the original writing of the apostles. In part, with this and other assumptions,Westcott and Hort justified to  their many  followers the undermining of the text of the  King James Version and the Textus Receptus.   In time the substitution of their 1881  Greek text for the  Textus Receptus led  mainstream evangelicals to turn to the new translations and reject the King James Version. A summary of the assumptions of Westcott and Hort that they used to select the Alexandrian Greek texts and reject the Textus Receptus can be found in the book by   Eldon Jay Epp and Gordon D. Fee, Studies in the Theory and Method of New Testament Textual Criticism. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1993. http://www.biblebeliever.co.za/King%20James/believes_westcott_hort.htm The stuff below is from this link: ASSUMPTIONS OF WESTCORT AND HORT: 1. Earlier Greek manuscripts are closer to the original writings of the Apostles 2.  A scribe usually went about blending the texts available to him trying to make improvements to the  text;  This is what they call conflation. 3.  Older manuscripts have fewer corruptions. 4.  Shorter readings are preferred. 5.  More awkward sentence grammer is preferred.  Westcott and. Hort  claimed that a  shorter reading  of a New Testament verse is closer to the original autograph should be used in translation. But what they did, in effect, was set up their critical rules to reject many longer verse  readings in the Textus Receptus and accept the shorter readings of the  Alexandrian Greek texts, the  Vaticanus and Sinaiticus.  They rationalized this rule by claiming   a shorter reading is  more accurate  because of the assumed blending together of two or more different shorter Greek verses practiced by the scribes.   The scribes, they assumed,  merged verse wordings from different Greek texts into one new reading. But typists, or ancient scribes who copied manuscripts by hand, it would seem, are more likely to leave out words that they are to add words to merge two different versions of a Bible verse into a new verse.  In the theory they concocted to justify their use of the Alexandrian Greek texts, Westcott and Hort  implied that  Christian scribes  had deliberately changed some verses of the Scriptures.  Having been interested in the occult, maybe Westcott and Hort did not want to consider the possibility that  men like Origen or Marcion  did part of the changing of verses in some copies of the New Testament to fit their false doctrines. Marcion was a gnostic and Origen of Alexandria, Egypt may have been influenced by gnosticism. The main assumption of Hort in his Introduction and Appendix (1882) to the Westcott-Hort, The New Testament in the Original Greek (1881) was that the Textus Receptus was a late Greek text and therefore not as close to the original writings of the apostles as the fourth century Vaticanus and Sinaiticus. A key part  of Hort's theory was his argument on the  lateness of the Byzantine text which was used to create the Textus Receptus. To treat the Scriptures as any other book  means that Westcott and Hort and their followers who ride their Wrecking Machine (1)  ignored the reality of Satan who tries to change God's Word (2)  had little faith in God's promise to preserve His Word. Since Satan has tried to inspire scribes and theologians to change the word of God, we might expect to find that some copies of the New Testament were changed to support gnostic or other false doctrines - at least some changes were made.  Large changes in doctrines might have been rejected even by Christians in Egypt in the fourth and fifth centuries and so the changes had to be subtle.  In II Corinthians 2:17  Paul says "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." Colwell,(1952), who once was a follower of Westcott and Hort, but who changed his position, says that: "The majority of the variant readings in the New Testament were created for theological or dogmatic reasons. Most of the manuals and handbooks now in print (including mine!) will tell you that these variations were the fruit of careless treatment which was possible because the books of the New Testament had not yet attained a strong position as 'Bible.' The reverse is the case. It was because they were the religious treasure of the church that they were changed ... most variations, I believe, were made deliberately. ... scholars now believe that most variations were made deliberately"4 E.C. Colwell, What is the Best New Testament?(Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1952), pp. 53, 58 & 49. J. Gresham Machen in his book, Christianity and Liberalism, warned what would happen if  the liberals gain control of the evangelical churches. They would retain the name and some of the trappings of genuine Christianity but the substance would be lost. The "liberals," or academics, who, for the most part, do not have the Holy Spirit, and do not believe all the teachings of the Bible, have not only taken over the evangelical churches, they have also taken over the seminaries that train the preachers. http://www.assumption.edu/ahc/scopes/Declension.html Bernard

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