Which version Is The Bible? Page 56

Furthermore, Erasmus was in regular correspondence with Professor Paulus Bombasius, the Papal librarian, who sent him any variant readings which he desired.¹ In fact, in 1533, a correspondent of Erasmus (a Catholic priest named Juan Sepulveda) sent Erasmus 365 selected readings from Vaticanus B as proof of its superiority to the Textus Receptus.² He offered to make the entire document available to Erasmus for use in his latest edition of the TR. However, Erasmus rejected the readings of the Vatican manuscript because he considered from the massive evidence of his day that the Textus Receptus data was correct. Thus Erasmus knew about Vaticanus nearly one hundred years before the King James Bible ever saw the light of day!

(4) Winds of Doctrine

A fourth reason Christendom is drawn to the new translations is that of its having "itching ears". Sadly, man does not want to believe the Bible – he wants a "bible" that he can believe – and he will keep searching until he finds one. The Spirit of God has warned:

1 This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come. 2 For men shall be lovers of their own selves ... 5 Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof 7 Ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth. 8 so do these also resist the truth: men of corrupt minds, reprobate concerning the faith. ... 13 But evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving, and being deceived (II Tim. 3). ... For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; ... (II Tim. 4:3).

Letis³ reminds us that Bible publishers are always advertising that the Reformers wished to put the Bible in the "language of the people" ... in a "tongue they could readily understand". However, the Reformers did not mean that the Bible should be in "conversational dialect" or in the language of the street; rather they meant that the Bible should be available in the spoken languages of the European nations and not merely in the Liturgical Latin of the Roman Catholic Church.

The King James translators make this very clear in their dedicatory to King James, where they intended for "God's holy Truth to be yet more and more known unto the people," whom the Roman Catholic Church desired "still to keep in ignorance and darkness." These men⁴ desired the Bible be accessible in German for the Germans, in French for the French, in Dutch for the Dutch etc. – not just restricted to Latin, as it was no longer "the language of the people." Those with vested interest in promoting "plainer and more relevant" (and more fleeting) translations always present this out of context to justify the latest, easier-to-read (and to forget) translation.

Relevant to the duties, techniques, and responsibilities of the translator, the following excerpts extracted from an article by Dr. F.R. Steele, himself trained by "one of America's outstanding scholars in the field of Assyriology" and an experienced translator of Babylonian and Sumerian documents, are instructive sober truths worthy of reflection:

1 Samuel Prideaux Tregelles, An Account of the Printed Text of the Greek New Testament with Remarks on Its Revision upon Critical Principal Together with a Collation of Critical Texts, (London: Samuel Bagster and Sons, 1854), p. 22.

2 Marvin R. Vincent, A History of the Textual Criticism of the New Testament, (New York: MacMillian, 1899), p. 53; F.H.A. Scrivener, A Plain Introduction to the Criticism of the New Testament, 4th ed., ed. Edward Miller, 2 Vols., (London: George Bell and Sons, 1894), Vol I, p. 109.

3 Letis, The Majority Text: Essays and Reviews in the Continuing Debate, op. cit., pp. 76-77.

4 McClure, The Translators Revived, op. cit., pp. 63-64. Writing in 1858 regarding the capability of the 1611 translators, McClure notes that the work was undertaken at a most auspicious period of history. Not only had the English language ripened to its full glory, the study of Greek, Oriental tongues, and of rabbinical lore had crested to a greater extent in England than ever before or since. By the good Providence of God, the study in these disciplines has never been so highly cultivated among English speaking scholars as it was in that day. These studies had captured the imagination of that generation's young schoolmen much as that of the computer among today's youth. As a result, their level of acumen was such that, despite the proud boasting in this day, all the colleges of Great Britain and America combined could not bring together "the same number of divines equally qualified by learning and piety" for such an undertaking.

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