The Ben Asher text in not the Ben Chayyim text. Watch out for the Kittel family

One in Messiah Congregation

My heart hurts as I convey this information.

Below, please find very important information from many sources I feel compelled to relay.

Read it slow...

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There is a lot of material on the Kittel Family

(and the influence of Kittel on Old Testament Studies), that have not been translated into English.

Because of this, access to the information about Kittel and his Nazi past (and hatred of Jews) have been very limited in the English Language, a position which has delighted liberal Bible translators who are only too happy to have false versions of the Old Testament masquerading as works of truth and scholarship.

It is with the intention of providing substantive information on the background of Bible Translations that we have begun to address and document the Nazi Career of Kittel, and his very wide impact on Old Testament Translations.

Most of his work on the Old Testament has been accepted by Protestant Evangelicals. It took Liberal German Protestant Theologians to promote Kittel (Both during WWII and after).

His work was accepted and integrated into Most English Bible Translations of the 20th Century through his Old Testament, the Biblia Hebraica (also known as the Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia).

Here are a few examples of the use of Kittel's Old Testament in the New King James Version, the New International Version, NIV Preface : Original 1978 Edition published by Zondervan, the Biblia Hebraica (also known as the Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia).

The Amplified Bible (published by the Lockman Foundation) is based on the American Standard Version of 1901, Rudolph Kittels Biblia Hebraica, the Greek text of Westcott and Hort, and the 23rd edition of the Nestle Greek New Testament as well as the best Hebrew and Greek lexicons available at the time.

Cognate languages, the Dead Sea Scrolls, and other Greek works were also consulted.

Although Kittel's work is still highly praised among Evangelicals and others (who have been misled), it should be noted that most of the Jewish versions of the Old Testament have strongly REJECTED the work and "scholarship" of both Rudolph (father) and Gerhard (son) Kittel.

It is possible to find Protestant Bibles without an Old Testament mis-translated by the Kittel Family.

But there are very few versions to which this applies. The Biblia Hebraica [1937] and the Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia [1977] (published by the German Bible Societies/UBS [United Bible Societies is the official name]) both of these UBS O.T.

Corrupt Versions are from "the work" of Rudolph & Gerhard Kittel.

Bible scholars today trip over themselves to obtain a set of Gerhard Kittles Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, the most revered Greek lexicon.

He is the last word on the interpretation of Greek words used in the New Testament. However, Herr Kittle, the mouthpiece of Herr Adolph Hitler, was a dedicated Nazi who justified theologically the extermination of the Jews. His method of Bible word interpretation is simple: Rule One is to pick and choose the Greek manuscript that agrees with your theology.

Rule Two is to define words based on citations by ancient pagan Greeks like Plato, Socrates, and Aristotle. This twisted method is bound to result in a corruption of the Word of God.

The Bible Method of defining Bible words is let the Bible interpret the Bible. We are told to "compare spiritual things with spiritual," I Corinthians 2:13.

Gerhards father Rudolf Kittle was the author of Biblia Hebraica, used by all new versions to translate the Old Testament (along with Origens Septuagint). NIV translators say Kittles text is an " . . . eclectic [pick and choose] text."

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Septuagint: Over time, the text was subject to numerous changes, which can be attributed to several causes, including scribal errors, efforts at exegesis, and attempts to support theological positions.

Accordingly, the Septuagint went through a number of different revisions and recensions, the most famous of which include those by Aquila (128 CE), a student of Rabbi Akiva; and Origen (235), a Christian theologian in Alexandria.

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Pseudo-Aristeas

The so-called Letter of Aristeas is a forgery. Josephus Ant. XII, ii passim) ascribes to 'Aristeas' a letter ascribing the Greek translation of the Old Testament to seventy six interpreters sent into Egypt from Jerusalem at the request of the librarian of Alexandria, resulting in the Septuagint Bible.

Early philological analysis proved the letter was a forgery. In 1684 Humphrey Hody published Contra historiam Aristeae de LXX. interpretibus dissertatio, in which he showed that the so called "letter of Aristeas", was the late forgery of a Hellenized Jew, originally circulated to lend authority to that version.

The dissertation was generally regarded as conclusive, although Isaac Vossius (1618-1689) who had been librarian to Queen Christina of Sweden, published an angry and scurrilous reply to it, in the appendix to his edition of Pomponius Mela.

Several factors led Jews to eventually abandon the Septuagint, including the fact that Greek scribes were not subject to the same rigid rules imposed on Hebrew scribes; that Christians favoured the Septuagint; the gradual decline of the Greek language among Jews. Instead, Hebrew/Aramic manuscripts compiled by the Masoretes, or authorative Aramaic translations such as that of Onkelos, of Rabbi Yonasan ben Uziel, and Targum Yerushalmi, were preferred.

The Old Latin Vulgate (AD157)

The word 'vulgate' is Latin for vulgar or common. The Old Latin Vulgate is a version. It was used by early believers in Europe when Latin was in popular use. It was sometimes referred to as the Itala version.

The Old Latin Vulgate must not be confused with Jerome's Vulgate, which was produced over 220 years later in AD 380. Jerome's Vulgate (also written in Latin for the Roman Church) was rejected by the early Christians for almost a millennium.

The Waldenses, Gauls, Celts, Albegenses and other groups throughout Europe used the Old Latin Vulgate and rejected Jerome's Vulgate. In his book An Understandable History of the Bible Rev. Samuel Gipp Th.D confirms this fact. He writes:

"The Old Latin Vulgate was used by the Christians in the churches of the Waldenses, Gauls, Celts, Albegenses and other fundamental groups throughout Europe.

This Latin version became so used and beloved by orthodox Christians and was in such common use by the common people that it assumed the term 'Vulgate' as a name.

Vulgate comes from 'vulgar' which is the Latin word for 'common' It was so esteemed for its faithfulness to the deity of Christ and its accurate reproductions of the originals, that these early Christians let Jerome's Roman Catholic translation 'sit on the shelf.'

Jerome's translation was not used by the true Biblical Christians for almost a millennium after it was translated from corrupted manuscripts by Jerome in 380 A.D.

Even then it only came into usage due to the death of Latin as a common language, and the violent, wicked persecutions waged against true believers by Pope Gregory IX during his reign from 1227 to 1242 A.D." (Ref:B2)

David Fuller confirms this fact: "It is clearly evident that the Latin Bible of early British Christianity was not the Latin Bible (Vulgate) of the Papacy." (Ref:F9)

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Jerome

Jerome (about 340 - September 30, 420), (full name Eusebius Sophronius Hieronymus) is best known as the translator of the Bible from Greek and Hebrew into Latin.

Jerome's edition, the Vulgate, is still the official biblical text of the Roman Catholic Church.

He is recognized by the Vatican as a Doctor of the Church. He was born at Stridon, on the border between Pannonia and Dalmatia, in the second quarter of the fourth century, and died near Bethlehem Sept. 30, 420.

Know the difference between the true and the false "Vulgates."

Jerome is a name shared across the European languages in remarkably unintuitive forms: Hieronymus (Latin) = Jerome (English, and with diacritical marks, French) = Girolamo (Italian) = Geronimo (Spanish)

The Vulgate Bible is an early 5th century translation of the Bible into Latin by St. Jerome, at the instigation of Pope Damasus I.

The version takes its name from the phrase vulgata editio, "the edition for the people" (cf. Vulgar Latin), and was written in an everyday Latin used in conscious distinction to the elegant Ciceronian Latin of which Jerome was a master.

The Vulgate was designed to be both easier to understand and more accurate than its predecessors.

Jerome was responsible for at least three slightly different versions of the Vulgate.

The Romana Vulgate was the first. It was soon replaced by later versions except in Britain, where it continued to be used until the Norman Conquest in 1066.

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Next was the Gallicana Vulgate, which Jerome produced a few years later.

It had some minor improvements, especially in the Old Testament. This became the standard Bible of the Roman Catholic Church a few decades after it was produced.

The Hispana Vulgate is largely identical to the Romana except for the Book of Psalms, which Jerome retranslated from the Hebrew for this version.

(The other Vulgates were mostly translated from Greek, but were checked against Hebrew and Aramaic sources.)

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After the war, members of the Confessing Catholic and Protestant Church admitted their guilt.

For example, Gerhard Kittle, a world-renowned scholar of the New Testament confessed his political guilt as he insisted that a "Christian anti-Judaism" which he found in the New Testament and in the tradition of the Christian church determined his attitude toward the Jewish question during the Third Reich.

[Wollenberg, p. 76] On March 1946, in a lecture in Zurich, Martin Niemöller declared:

"Christianity in Germany bears a greater responsibility before God than the National Socialists, the SS and the Gestapo." [Goldhagen, p.114]

Considering that the Confessing Church with its few members, represents the most active religious protest against Nazism in Germany, it projects a poor commentary on the state of Christiandom as a whole, even if the other churches had remained passive.

Unfortunately most Christian churches in Germany took an active role, not only by accepting Nazism, but to support and strengthen it.

Today the Catholic Church has undertaken a campaign of suppression and propaganda to belittle anyone that dares to uncover the reality of the atrocities committed by Roman Catholic Christians.

Protestant leaders rarely mention the influence by Martin Luther and his anti-Jewish sentiments taught throughout Germany. Indeed, most Protestants live completely unaware of the hatred and intolerances spread by their congressional ancestors.

Instead of releasing documents and admitting to the crimes of their fellow Christians, they have opted to protect their religious power structures by silence, concealment, suppression, and projecting the story of persecutions committed against their own religion by other ideological systems, a ploy that disguises their own complicity of persecutions heaped upon others.

The New Testament Greek Lexicon based on Thayer's and Smith's Bible Dictionary plus others; this is keyed to the large Kittel and the "Theological Dictionary of the New Testament."

These files are public domain.

Cross walk Lexicons

New Testament Greek

The New Testament Greek lexicon based on Thayer's and Smith's Bible Dictionary plus others; this is keyed to the large Kittel and the "Theological Dictionary of the New Testament."

Also included are RealAudio pronunciations of each word with alternates pronunciations if available.

Old Testament Hebrew

The Old Testament Hebrew lexicon is Brown, Driver, Briggs, Gesenius Lexicon; this is keyed to the "Theological Word Book of the Old Testament."

Also included are RealAudio pronunciations of each word with alternate pronunciations if available.

Kittel, R. ed. Biblia Hebraica. Stuttgart, Germany: Privileg. Bibelanstalt, 1937. This Bible was the predecessor to BHS and third in the Biblia Hebraica series begun in 1912.

It is most commonly designated as BHK in recognition of Kittels editorship or BH³.

The text is Leningradensis (B19a) and the Masorah is the unedited Masorah of Leningradensis.

Below are a few more books to beware of.

Can you believe the praise for these men in the Christian world?

Kittel & Friedrich - An exhaustive work for linguistic use:

Gerhard Kittel's work has been a massive undertaken and has made good use of external evidence to assist in a well-rounded understanding of the times in which various biblical texts were believed to have been written.

Unfortunately - as in any religion, many attempt to use this work in order to "prove" a particular point, thereby missing much of the beauty of etymology in the study of hermeneutics.

TDNT is a wonderful work for any student of linguistics, regardless of religious orientation.

The Best Work in its Category, Bar None!

If you are looking for an exhaustive reference work for NT Greek usage, then Kittel & Friedrich provide it in their Theological Dictionary of the New Testament.

Nothing even comes close to the scope of scholarship in this work. However, one note of caution is in order. Many of the theological points made in the work are from a liberal, Neo-orthodox point of view.

Therefore, this type of reference is for the advanced Bible or seminary student that possesses a strong foundation in the Christian faith and at least a working knowledge of New Testament Greek.

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Analytical Key to the Old Testament (4 vols.)

by John Joseph Owens

Keyed to the Brown, Driver, and Briggs lexicon and Gesenius' Grammar this classic reference work translates and identifies the words and phrases of the Hebrew Bible for students of Hebrew.

(Both BDB and the Gesenius Grammar are available in the Libronix DLS format. If you have them installed, the links in the Analytical Key to the Old Testament will be live hyperlinks.)

This volume provides for each word the page number of the standard Hebrew-English dictionary (Francis Brown, S. R. Driver, and Charles A. Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament [Oxford: Clarendon, 1975]) on which that words explanation begins.

This volume follows the Hebrew text chapter/verse by chapter/verse. Upon finding the desired chapter/verse, the reader can locate the term desired by following the Hebrew text at the left of the column.

The Hebrew text is the best complete Ben Asher text available (K. Ellinger and W. Rudolph, eds., Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia [Stuttgart: Württembergische Bibelanstalt, 1977]).

When there has been an insoluble difficulty in the text, a variant reading may be provided from better translations or grammars.

Old Testament Bibliography - Texts Aharon Dotan, ed. Biblia Hebraica Leningradensia, Prepared according to the Vocalization, Accents, and Masora of Aaron ben Moses ben Asher in the Leningrad Codex.Peabody, Mass: Hendrickson Publishers, 2001.

Usually referred to as BHL. An inexpensive edition designed for Jewish liturgical use, with careful attention to accents. Does not include a critical apparatus.

Norman H. Snaith, Sefer Torah, Nevi'im u-Khetuvim [title transliterated from Hebrew script]. London: British and Foreign Bible Society, 1958. Reprinted under the title The Hebrew Scriptures. ISBN: 0564000299.

An inexpensive edition intended for translators, based on Sephardic manuscripts of the ben Asher family, especially British Library Manuscript Or.2626-8.

Does not include a text-critical apparatus.

Christ the heir of all things For the Lords Day: the 29^th of September 2002, Hebrews: 1: 2b

In these last days, he has spoken to us by his son, whom he appointed the heir of all things.

Introduction: Let us begin today by qualifying the English word heir, since we might often understand it to mean only the coming into an inheritance on the death of one whose estate we are to receive a portion thereof.

Gerhard Kittles exhaustive Theological Dictionary of the New Testament begins with the classical definition: the heir in the sense of the natural heir and the one named by a will or by legal provisions.

Then Kittles linguistic analysis allows for further development in the Bible primarily on the basis of the meaning of the Hebrew equivalents but more particularly by reason of the fact that the word group came to be used for a specific train of religious thought.

That train of thought specifically identifies those recipients of Gods promises and of those who wait for what is promised and further on we read that the term is an eschatological concept, whose inheritance is identified as the kingdom of God.

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Again, my heart hurts as I convey the truth. Below, there might be some duplicate material, stay with me...

The Greek text that is used in most Bible seminaries and colleges is produced by the United Bible Societies, an organization composed of more than 100 national Bible societies.

We used the third edition when I was in school. Since then a fourth edition has appeared. In Bible school I was not told that the editors of that volume are apostates, but they are. We will consider four of the editors:

Carlo Martini, Eugene Nida, Kurt Aland, and Bruce Metzger.

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CARLO MARTINI

Jesuit cardinal Carlo Maria Martini (1927- ) is the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Milan.

Since 1967, he has been one of the editors of the United Bible Societies Greek New Testament.

His diocese in Europe is the largest in the world, with two thousand priests and five million "laity." He is Professor of New Testament Textual Criticism at the Pontifical Biblical Institute in Rome.

He is also President of the Council of European Bishop's Conferences. Time magazine, December 26, 1994, listed him as a possible candidate in line for the papacy.

Another Time magazine article reported that Martini brought together a syncretistic convocation of over 100 religious leaders from around the world to promote a new age, one-world religion.

In addressing this meeting, Mikhail Gorbachev said, "We need to synthesize a new religion for thinking men that will universalize that religion for the world and lead us into a new age."

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EUGENE NIDA

Eugene Nida (1914- ) is the father of the blasphemous dynamic equivalency theory of Bible translation.

Nida was the Executive Secretary of the Translations Department of the United Bible Societies from 1943 to 1980. Though retired, he continues to act as Special Consultant for Translators.

As to his view of biblical inspiration, Nida says, "... Gods revelation involved limitations. ... Biblical revelation is not absolute and all divine revelation is essentially incarnational. ... Even if a truth is given only in words, it has no real validity until it has been translated into life. ... The words are in a sense nothing in and of themselves. ... the word is void unless related to experience" (Nida, Message and Mission, p. 222-228).

The Psalmist did not hold to Nidas theories about the words of Scripture. He said, "The words of the Lord are pure words..." (Psalm 12:6). Throughout Scripture it is the very words of the Bible which are said to be important, not just the basic meaning.

The words ARE something in and of themselves, regardless of whether they are related to anything else. Nida is wrong. The words of the Bible are intrinsically the eternal words of God.

As to the atonement of Jesus Christ, Nida says, "Most scholars, both Protestant and Roman Catholic, interpret the references to the redemption of the believer by Jesus Christ, not as evidence of any commercial transaction by any quid pro quo between Christ and God or between the two natures of God (his love and his justice), but as a figure of the cost, in terms of suffering" (Eugene Nida and Charles Taber, Theory and Practice, 1969, p. 53).

In A Translators Handbook on Pauls Letter to the Romans, Nida (with co-author Barclay Newman) says, "... blood is used in this passage [Romans 3:25] in the same way that it is used in a number of other places in the New Testament, that is, to indicate a violent death.

... Although this noun [propitiation] (and its related forms) is sometimes used by pagan writers in the sense of propitiation (that is, an act to appease or placate a god), it is never used this way in the Old Testament."

Nida is wrong.

The sacrifice of Christ was not just a figure; it WAS a placation of God, of His holiness and of the righteous demands in His law.

Christs sacrifice WAS a commercial transaction between Christ and God, and was NOT merely a figure of the cost in terms of suffering.

The sacrifice of Calvary was a true sacrifice, and that sacrifice required the offering of bloodnot just a violent death as Nida says.

Blood is blood and death is death, and we believe that God is wise enough to know which of these words should be used. Had Christ died, for example, by beating, though it would have been a violent death, it would not have atoned for sin because blood is required.

Those, like Nida, who tamper with the blood atonement often claim to believe in justification by grace, but they are rendering the Cross ineffective by reinterpreting its meaning. There is no grace without a true propitiation.

This word means "satisfaction" and refers to the fact that the sin debt was satisfied by the blood atonement of Christ.

The great difference between the heathen concept of propitiating God and that of the Bible is thisthe God of the Bible paid the propitiation Himself through His own Sacrifice, whereas the heathen thinks that he can propitiate God through his own human labors and offerings.

The fact remains, though, that God did have to be propitiated through the bloody death of His own Son.

Nida is a clever man. He does not openly assault the blood atonement and the doctrine of inspiration as his translator friend Robert Bratcher does.

(Bratcher, translator of the Todays English Version, has co-authored books with Nida.) Nida uses the same words as the Bible believer, but he reinterprets key words and passages such as those above.

This is called Neo-orthodoxy. Beware.

BRUCE METZGER

Another of the editors of the United Bible Societies Greek New Testament is Bruce Manning Metzger (1914- ). Metzger is George L. Collord Professor of New Testament Language and Literature, Princeton Theological Seminary, and he serves on the board of the American Bible Society.

Metzger is the head of the continuing RSV translation committee of the apostate National Council of Churches in the U.S.A. The Revised Standard Version was soundly condemned for its modernism when it first appeared in 1952.

Today its chief editor sometimes is invited to speak at Evangelical forums. The RSV hasnt changed, but Evangelicalism certainly has!

Metzger was the chairman for the Readers Digest Condensed Bible and wrote the introductions to each book in this butchered version of the Scriptures.

The Preface claims that "Dr. Metzger was actively involved at every stage of the work, from the initial studies on each of the sixty-six books through all the subsequent editorial reviews. The finished condensation has received his full approval."

The Condensed Bible removed 40% of the Bible text, including the warning of Revelation 22:18-19!

In the introductions to the books of the Readers Digest Bible, Metzger questions the authorship, traditional date, and supernatural inspiration of books penned by Moses, Daniel, and Peter, and in many other ways reveals his liberal, unbelieving heart.

Consider some examples:

Genesis: "Nearly all modern scholars agree that, like the other books of the Pentateuch, [Genesis] is a composite of several sources, embodying traditions that go back in some cases to Moses."

Exodus: "As with Genesis, several strands of literary tradition, some very ancient, some as late as the sixth century B.C., were combined in the makeup of the books" (Introduction to Exodus).

Deuteronomy: "Its compilation is generally assigned to the seventh century B.C., though it rests upon much older tradition, some of it from Moses time."

Daniel: "Most scholars hold that the book was compiled during the persecutions (168-165 B.C.) of the Jewish people by Antiochus Epiphanes."

John: "Whether the book was written directly by John, or indirectly (his teachings may have been edited by another), the church has accepted it as an authoritative supplement to the story of Jesus ministry given by the other evangelists."

1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, Titus: "Judging by differences in style and vocabulary from Pauls other letters, many modern scholars think that the Pastorals were not written by Paul."

James: "Tradition ascribes the letter to James, the Lords brother, writing about A.D. 45, but modern opinion is uncertain, and differs widely on both origin and date."

2 Peter: "Because the author refers to the letters of Paul as scripture, a term apparently not applied to them until long after Pauls death, most modern scholars think that this letter was drawn up in Peters name sometime between A.D. 100 and 150."

Metzgers modernism was also made plain in the notes to the New Oxford Annotated Bible RSV (1973).

Metzger co-edited this volume with Herbert May.

It first appeared in 1962 as the Oxford Annotated Bible and was the first Protestant annotated edition of the Bible to be approved by a Roman authority.

It was given an imprimatur in 1966 by Cardinal Cushing, Archbishop of Boston, Massachusetts.

Metzger wrote many of the rationalistic notes in this volume and put his editorial stamp of approval on the rest. Consider some excerpts from the notes:

INTRODUCTION TO THE OLD TESTAMENT: "The Old Testament may be described as the literary expression of the religious life of ancient Israel. ...

The Israelites were more history-conscious than any other people in the ancient world.

Probably as early as the time of David and Solomon, out of a matrix of myth, legend, and history, there had appeared the earliest written form of the story of the saving acts of God from Creation to the conquest of the Promised Land, an account which later in modified form became a part of Scripture.

But it was to be a long time before the idea of Scripture arose and the Old Testament took its present form. ...

The process by which the Jews became the people of the Book was gradual, and the development is shrouded in the mists of history and tradition. ...

The date of the final compilation of the Pentateuch or Law, which was the first corpus or larger body of literature that came to be regarded by the Jews as authoritative Scripture, is uncertain, although some have conservatively dated it at the time of the Exile in the sixth century. ...

Before the adoption of the Pentateuch as the Law of Moses, there had been compiled and edited in the spirit and diction of the Deuteronomic school the group of books consisting of Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and Kings, in much their present form. ...

Thus the Pentateuch took shape over a long period of time."

NOTES ON GENESIS: "[Genesis] 2.4b-3.24 ... is a different tradition from that in 1.1-2,4a, as evidenced by the flowing style and the different order of events, e.g. man is created before vegetation, animals, and woman. ... 7:16b: The Lord shut him in, a note from the early tradition, which delights in anthropomorphic touches. 7:18-20: The waters covered all the high mountains, thus threatening a confluence of the upper and lower waters (1.6).

Archaeological evidence suggests that traditions of a prehistoric flood covering the whole earth are heightened versions of local inundations, e.g. in the Tigris-Euphrates basin."

NOTES ON JOB: "The ancient folktale of a patient Job (1.1-2.13; 42.7-17; Jas. 5.11) circulated orally among oriental sages in the second millennium B.C. and was probably written down in Hebrew at the time of David and Solomon or a century later (about 1000-800 B.C.)."

NOTES ON PSALM 22: "22:12-13: ... the meaning of the third line [they have pierced my hands and feet] is obscure." [Editor: No, it is not obscure; it is a prophecy of Christs crucifixion!]

NOTES ON ISAIAH: "Only chs. 1-39 can be assigned to Isaiahs time; it is generally accepted that chs. 40-66 come from the time of Cyrus of Persia (539 B.C.) and later, as shown by the differences in historical background, literary style, and theological emphases. ... The contents of this section [chs. 56-66] (sometimes called Third Isaiah) suggest a date between 530 and 510 B.C., perhaps contemporary with Haggai and Zechariah (520-518); chapters 60-62 may be later."

NOTES ON JONAH: "The book is didactic narrative which has taken older material from the realm of popular legend and put it to a new, more consequential use."

INTRODUCTION TO THE NEW TESTAMENT: "Jesus himself left no literary remains; information regarding his words and works comes from his immediate followers (the apostles) and their disciples.

At first this information was circulated orally.

As far as we know today, the first attempt to produce a written Gospel was made by John Mark, who according to tradition was a disciple of the Apostle Peter.

This Gospel, along with a collection of sayings of Jesus and several other special sources, formed the basis of the Gospels attributed to Matthew and Luke." [Editor: The Gospels, like every part of the New Testament, were written by direct inspiration of the Holy Spirit.

This nonsense of trying to find the original source for the Gospels is unbelieving heresy.]

NOTES ON 2 PETER: "The tradition that this letter is the work of the apostle Peter was questioned in early times, and internal indications are almost decisive against it. ...

Most scholars therefore regard the letter as the work of one who was deeply indebted to Peter and who published it under his master’s name early in the second century."

[Editor: Those who believe this nonsense must think the early Christians were fools and the Holy Spirit was on a vacation.]

NOTES FROM "HOW TO READ THE BIBLE WITH UNDERSTANDING":

The opening chapters of the Old Testament deal with human origins.

They are not to be read as history ... These chapters are followed by the stories of the patriarchs, which preserve ancient traditions now known to reflect the conditions of the times of which they tell, though they cannot be treated as strictly historical. ...

it is not for history but for religion that they are preserved ... When we come to the books of Samuel and Kings ... Not all in these books is of the same historical value, and especially in the stories of Elijah and Elisha there are legendary elements. ...

We should always remember the variety of literary forms found in the Bible, and should read a passage in the light of its own particular literary character.

Legend should be read as legend and poetry as poetry, and not with a dull prosaic and literalistic mind."

This is the same type of rationalistic wickedness that appears in Metzgers notes in the Readers Digest Condensed Bible.

This modernistic foolishness, of course, is a lie.

The Pentateuch was written by the hand of God and Moses and completed during the 40 years of wilderness wandering hundreds of years before Samuel and the kings.

The Old Testament did not arise gradually from a matrix of myth and history, but is inspired revelation delivered to holy men of old by Almighty God. The Jews were a "people of the book" from the beginning. The Jewish nation did not form the Bible; the Bible formed the Jewish nation!

In Metzgers "Introduction to the New Testament" in the New Oxford Annotated Bible, he completely ignores the inspiration of the Holy Spirit and claims that the Gospels are composed of material gathered from oral tradition.

The Bible says nothing about this, but Jesus Christ plainly tells us that the Holy Spirit would guide the Apostles into all truth (John 16:7-15). The Gospels are the product of divine revelation, not some happenstance editing of oral tradition.

Bruce Metzger is a Liberal. He piously claims on one hand that the Bible is the inspired Word of God; but out of the other side of the mouth he claims the Bible is filled with myth and lies.

He denies the Bibles history, its miracles, and its authorship, while, in true liberal style, declaring that this denial does not do injustice to the Word of God, for the Bible is not "written for history but for religion" and is not to be read "with a dull prosaic and literalistic mind"!

Metzger has been called an Evangelical by some who should know better, but upon the authority of the man’s own writings, I declare that Bruce Metzger is an unbeliever. He is a false teacher. He is apostate.

He is a heretic.

Those are all Bible terms. Having studied many of the man’s works, I am convinced those are the terms which must be applied to him.

One Baptist writer partially defended Metzger to me with these words he did write a superb pamphlet in 1953 refuting the Jehovah’s Witnesses and defending the full and absolute deity of Christ."

Even the Pope of Rome defends the full and absolute deity of Christ. A man can defend the deity of Christ and still be a false teacher. A man who denies the written Word also denies the Living Word.

They stand or fall together. If the Bible contains error, Christ was a liar. If Christ is perfect Truth, so is the Bible.

In The New Testament, Its Background, Growth, and Content, which appeared in 1965, Metzger claims that "the discipline of form criticism has enlarged our understanding of the conditions which prevailed during the years when the gospel materials circulated by word of mouth" (p. 86). Not so.

Form criticism is that unbelieving discipline which claims that the Gospels were gradually formed out a matrix of tradition and myth.

Form critics hold a wide variety of views (reflecting the unsettled and relativistic nature of the rationalism upon which they stand), but all of them deny that the Gospels are the perfect, verbally inspired, divinely-given, absolutely infallible Word of God.

Metzger says, "What each evangelist has preserved, therefore, is not a photographic reproduction of the words and deeds of Jesus, but an interpretative portrait delineated in accord with the special needs of the early church" (Ibid.).

Metzger is wrong. The Gospel writers have indeed given us, by divine revelation, a photographic reproduction of the words and deeds of Jesus Christ. Praise God for it!

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KURT ALAND (1915- ) has served as coeditor of the Nestle-Aland Greek text since the 1940s. His wife, Barbara, is director of the Institute for New Testament Textual Research, Munster, Westphalia, Germany. As most Bible critics, Aland rejects verbal inspiration.

"This idea of verbal inspiration (i.e., of the literal and inerrant inspiration of the text), which the orthodoxy of both Protestant traditions maintained so vigorously, was applied to the Textus Receptus with all of its errors, including textual modifications of an obviously secondary character (as we recognize them today)" (Aland, The Problem of the New Testament Canon, 1962, pp. 6,7).

"The present state of affairs, of Christianity splintered into different churches and theological schools, is THE wound in the body.

The variety in the actual Canon in its different forms is not only the standard symptom, but simultaneously also the real cause of its illness. This illness which is in blatant conflict with the unity which is fundamental to its nature cannot be tolerated. ...

Along this road [of solving this supposed problem], at any rate, the question of the Canon will make its way to the centre of the theological and ecclesiastical debate. ...

Only he who is ready to question himself and to take the other person seriously can find a way out of the circuus vitiosus in which the question of the Canon is moving today ...

The first thing to be done, then, would be to examine critically ones own selection from the formal Canon and its principles of interpretation, but all the time remaining completely alive to the selection and principles of others. ...

This road will be long and laborious and painful. ...

if we succeed in arriving at a Canon which is common and actual, this means the achievement of the unity of the faith, the unity of the Church" (Aland, The Problem of the New Testament Canon, 1962, pp. 30-33).

Thus we see that Aland does not believe in a settled, authoritative canon of Scripture. Everything is to be questioned; everything is open to change. He believes it is crucial that a new canon be created through ecumenical dialogue. He rejects verbal inspiration.

Friends, beware of of the modern versions. They are largely the product of men who deny the faith once delivered to the saints.

Never can say enough…

EUGENE NIDA is the father of the heretical dynamic equivalency theory of Bible translation.

He believes God's revelation in the Bible "involved limitations" and "is not absolute" and that the words of the Bible "are in a sense nothing in and of themselves" (Nida, Message and Mission, 1960, pp. 222-228).

He does not believe the Bible is written "in a Holy Ghost language."

He believes the record of Jacob wrestling with the Angel was not a literal event.

He denies the substitutionary blood atonement of Christ (Nida, Theory and Practice, 1969, p. 53).

He denies that Christ died to satisfy God's justice. He believes the blood of the cross was merely symbolic of Christ's death and is never used in the Bible "in the sense of propitiation."

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BRUCE METZGER believes Moses did not write the Pentateuch, Deuteronomy was not written until 700 years before Christ, the Old Testament is a mixture of "myth, legend, and history," the record of the worldwide flood of Noah's day is exaggerated, the book of Job is a folktale, the miracle accounts about Elijah and Elisha contain "legendary elements," Isaiah was written by Isaiah plus two or three unknown men who wrote centuries later, the record of Jonah is a "legend," Daniel does not contain supernatural prophecy, Paul did not write the Pastoral Epistles, Peter did not write 2 Peter, etc. All of these unbelieving lies can be found in the notes to the Reader's Digest Condensed Bible, which were written by Metzger, and in the New Oxford Annotated Bible, of which Metzger is a co-editor.

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KURT ALAND denied the verbal inspiration of the Bible and wanted to see all denominations united into one "body" by the acceptance of a new ecumenical canon of Scripture which would take into account the Catholic apocryphal books (The Problem of the New Testament Canon, pp. 6,7,30-33).

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The Leningrad Codex

(or Codex Leningradensis) is one of the oldest manuscripts[citation needed] of the complete Hebrew Bible produced according to the Tiberian mesorah; it is dated 1008[who?] according to its colophon. The Aleppo Codex, against which the Leningrad Codex was corrected, was the first such manuscript and is several decades older, but parts of it have been missing since 1947, making the Leningrad Codex the oldest complete codex of the Tiberian mesorah that has survived intact to this day.

In modern times, the Leningrad Codex is most important as the Hebrew text reproduced in Biblia Hebraica (1937) and Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia (1977). It also serves scholars as a primary source for the recovery of details in the missing parts of the Aleppo Codex.

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The Masoretic Text (MT) is the Hebrew text of the Jewish Bible (Tanakh

). It defines not just the books of the Jewish canon, but also the precise letter-text of the biblical books in Judaism, as well as their vocalization and accentuation for both public reading and private study. The MT is also widely used as the basis for translations of the Old Testament in Protestant Bibles, and in recent decades also for Catholic Bibles.

The MT was primarily copied, edited and distributed by a group of Jews known as the Masoretes between the seventh and tenth centuries AD.

Though the consonants differ little from the text generally accepted in the early second century (and also differ little from some Qumran texts that are even older), it has numerous differences of both greater and lesser significance when compared to (extant 4th century) manuscripts of the Septuagint, a Greek translation (made in the 3rd to 2nd centuries BC) of the Hebrew Scriptures that was in popular use in Egypt and Palestine and that is often quoted in the Christian New Testament.

The Hebrew word mesorah (מסורה, alt. מסורת) refers to the transmission of a tradition.

In a very broad sense it can refer to the entire chain of Jewish tradition (see Oral law), but in reference to the masoretic text the word mesorah has a very specific meaning: the diacritic markings of the text of the Hebrew Bible and concise marginal notes in manuscripts (and later printings) of the Hebrew Bible which note textual details, usually about the precise spelling of words.

The oldest extant fragments of the Masoretic Text date from approximately the ninth century AD,[1] and the Aleppo Codex (the oldest copy of the Masoretic Text, but missing the Torah) dates from the tenth century.

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The Ben Asher text in not the Ben Chayyim text.

Old Testament Texts

In 1516, Daniel Bomberg published a text of the Old Testament under the name "First Rabbinic Bible."

This text was followed in 1524 by a second edition that had been compiled from ancient manuscripts by a Hebrew scholar and converted Jewish Rabbi named Abraham Ben Chayyim.

Today this work is called the Ben Chayyim Masoretic Text, and is the text that underlies the Old Testament of the King James Bible. The word "masoretic" comes from the Hebrew word "mesor" meaning traditional. The Masoretes were the scribes that were given the responsibility of guarding and keeping the text of the Old Testament, and keep it well they surely did, as we shall soon see.

The Ben Chayyim Masoretic text was the uncontested text of the Old Testament for over four hundred years.

The Ben Chayyim text was used in the first two editions of "Biblia Hebraica" by Rudolph Kittel, usually referred to as BHK, published in 1906 and 1912.

However, in 1937, Kittel changed his Hebrew text from the Ben Chayyim to the Ben Asher text.

The Ben Asher text was based on a text call the Leningrad Manuscript (B19a; also called simply L), which was dated around 1008 A. D.

Using the peculiar logic of that day, which believed that older must always be better, Kittel published his 1937 edition based on this "older" text.

His 1937 edition had about 20,000 changes (most of them minor, but changes nevertheless) from the Ben Chayyim text.

Both texts are still referred to as "Masoretic," so care must be taken as to which text is being referred to.

It had apparently not dawned on Kittel that the Ben Asher version was based on very few minor manuscripts similar to B19a, while the Ben Chayyim text followed the vast majority of the manuscripts available.

Why would Kittel throw out the evidence provided by the vast majority of manuscripts to follow only a small minority of texts?

May I suggest, very carefully, that profit may have been the motive?

Kittle had not published a major work for many, many years, he was growing older, funds for his retirement were low, and he was living in the rapidly fading glow of past glory.

One final work would not only propel him back into the limelight of scholarly recognition, but would provide the funds for his impending retirement. He found a large and receptive market in the rapidly growing modernist camp that had grown to hate the traditional texts of both the Old and New Testaments.

In 1966 there was a further revision of Kittel's "Biblia Hebraica" called "Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia," which was also based on the "older" Ben Asher text.

This new edition of Kittel is generally referred to as BHS.

The revision was the work of unbelieving German rationalists, and represents theologically liberal modernism in its worst form.

The 1937 BHK and the newer BHS are not only based on a few minor Hebrew manuscripts which contain many erroneous footnotes, but "corrections" were often made to these already inadequate and corrupt texts by referring to such things as the "Septuagint" or "LXX", which is nothing more than the Hebrew Scriptures translated into the Greek language.

The "Septuagint" is a poor translation at best of the Hebrew due mainly to the fact that it does not follow the verbal and formal rules of translation, but is largely a paraphrase, changing the wording wherever the translators desired, seeking to "clarify" the meaning of the original.

The Syriac Version. This was a version of both the Old and New Testaments translated into the Syriac language. The source language is in doubt, some insisting it was translated by Jews from the Hebrew, and others insisting it was translated by early Christians from the Greek.

The Latin Version was the complete Bible translated into Latin, portions of which may date to the second century A. D.

(Bad version) Jerome is generally credited with the first complete Latin version, called the Latin Vulgate, or Jerome's Vulgate, which dates to the fourth century.

This is the wrong Latin Version

The Old Latin Vulgate must not be confused with Jerome's Vulgate, which was produced over 220 years later in AD 380.

Jerome's Vulgate (also written in Latin for the Roman Church) was rejected by the early Christians for almost a millennium.

"The Old Latin Vulgate was used by the Christians in the churches of the Waldenses, Gauls, Celts, Albegenses and other fundamental groups throughout Europe.

This Latin version became so used and beloved by orthodox Christians and was in such common use by the common people that it assumed the term 'Vulgate' as a name.

Jerome's translation was not used by the true Biblical Christians for almost a millennium after it was translated from corrupted manuscripts by Jerome in 380 A.D.

David Fuller confirms this fact: "It is clearly evident that the Latin Bible of early British Christianity was not the Latin Bible (Vulgate) of the Papacy." (Ref:F9)

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God's appointed guardians of the Old Testament Text were the Jews according to Romans 3:1-2, "What advantage then hath the Jew? or what profit is there in circumcision? Much in every way: chiefly, because that unto them were committed the oracles of God."

The methods used by the Jews in fulfilling their responsibilities as the guardians of these sacred texts is an interesting study. There were eight rules that the Jewish copyists used in the copying of the texts:

1. The parchment must be made from the skin of a clean animal (clean meaning ceremonially clean according to the Old Testament sanitary laws); must be prepared by a Jew only, and the skins must be fastened together by strings taken from clean animals.

2. Each column must have no less than forty-eight, nor more than sixty lines. The entire copy must be first lined.

3. The ink must be of no other color than black, and it must be prepared according to a special recipe.

4. No word nor letter could be written from memory; the scribe must have an authentic copy before him, and he must read and pronounce aloud each word before writing it.

5. He must reverently wipe his pen each time before writing the word for "God" (Elohim), and he must wash his whole body before writing the name "Jehovah" (LORD in our King James Bibles), lest the Holy Name be contaminated.

6. Strict rules were given concerning forms of the letters, spaces between letters, words and sections, the use of the pen, the color of the parchment, etc.

7. The revision (to correct any errors) of a roll must be made within thirty days after the work was finished; otherwise it was worthless. One mistake on a sheet condemned the entire sheet. If three mistakes were found on any page, the entire manuscript was condemned.

8. Every word and every letter was counted, and if a letter was omitted, or if an extra letter was inserted, or if two letters touched one another, the manuscript was condemned and destroyed at once.

NOTE: H. S. Miller, writing in his book "General Biblical Introduction", says: "Some of these rules may appear extreme and absurd, yet they show how sacred the Holy Word of the Old Testament was to its custodians, the Jews, and they give us strong encouragement to believe that we have the real Old Testament, the same one that our Lord had and which was given by inspiration of God."

So then, our only choice is between the traditional Hebrew Masoretic Text that has been the standard text of the Old Testament for well over two thousand years, and is represented by the vast majority of the existing Old Testament manuscripts, or the new, modern text that has only a little minor manuscript support, and leaves out or changes between 20,000 and 30,000 words in the Old Testament.

The choice is obvious, only the Traditional (Ben Chayyim) Text can lay claim to uninterrupted use for all the generations from the time of David (Psalm 12) until now.
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MASORETIC TEXT: A name for the Hebrew text handed down from the Jews and underlying the King James Bible and other faithful non-Catholic versions.

The following is from Dr. D.A. Waite's Defending the King James Bible: A Four-fold Superiority.

Dr. Donald Waite, Director of the Bible for Today ministries and President of the Dean Burgon Society, is a Baptist scholar who has written in the defense of the Received Text.

He has earned a B.A. in classical Greek and Latin; a Th.M. with high honors in New Testament Greek Literature and Exegesis; an M.A. and Ph.D. in Speech; a Th.D. with honors in Bible Exposition; and he holds both New Jersey and Pennsylvania teacher certificates in Greek and Language Arts.

He taught Greek, Hebrew, Bible, Speech, and English for more than 35 years in nine schools. He has produced more than 700 studies on the Bible and other subjects.

"The word `Masoretic' comes from masor, a Hebrew word meaning `traditional.' It means to hand down from person to person.

The Masoretes handed down this text from generation to generation, guarded it and kept it well.

There were families of Hebrew scholars in Babylon, in Palestine, and in Tiberius.

According to most students of these matters, these Masoretes safeguarded the consonantal text.

[According to some fundamentalist writers, the vowels were present in the Hebrew language right from the start.

All the Masoretes had to do was to guard both consonants and vowels.

They may very well be correct in this.] I say `consonantal text' because, as one school of thinking understands it, originally the Hebrew was written only in consonants; there were no vowels.

"The Masoretes flourished from about 500 to 1000 A.D. They were supposed to have standardized the Hebrew O.T. in about 600-700 A.D. by putting in the vowel pointings to aid in the pronunciation of the consonantal text.

Their text is called the Masoretic Text or M.T. if you want to abbreviate it.

"What about the Hebrew text used by the KJV translators? Here is some background on it.

The Daniel Bomberg edition, 1516-17, was called the First Rabbinic Bible. Then in 1524-25, Bomberg published a second edition edited by Abraham Ben Chayyim (or Ben Hayyim) iben Adonijah. This is called the Ben Chayyim edition of the Hebrew text. Daniel Bomberg's edition, on which the KJV is based, was the Ben Chayyim Masoretic Text.

This was called the Second Great Rabbinic Bible. This became the standard Masoretic text for the next 400 years.

"The Ben Chayyim Masoretic Text was used even in the first two editions of Biblia Hebraica by Rudolf Kittel.

The dates on those first two editions were 1906 and 1912. He used the same Hebrew text as the KJV translators.

"The edition we used when I was a student of Dr. Merrill F. Unger at Dallas Theological Seminary (1948-53), was the 1937 edition of the Biblia Hebraica by Kittel. All of a sudden, in 1937, Kittel changed his Hebrew edition and followed what they called the Ben Asher Masoretic Text instead of the Ben Chayyim.

They followed, in that text, the Leningrad manuscript. The date on it was 1008 A.D. This was not the traditional Masoretic Text that was used for 400 years and was the basis of the King James Bible.

They changed it and used this Leningrad manuscript. So even the main text used by the NKJV, NASV, and NIV in the Hebrew is different from that used for the King James Bible.

The footnotes in Kittel's Biblia Hebraica suggest from 20,000 to 30,000 changes throughout the whole Old Testament.

"The reason that most of the Hebrew departments, in colleges, universities, and seminaries who teach Hebrew, use the Ben Asher Hebrew Text instead of the Ben Chayyim Text is the same reason they use the critical Greek text in the N.T. They believe the "oldest" texts, either in Hebrew or in Greek, must always be the best. Not necessarily.

These so-called "old" texts of the N.T., such as `B' (Vatican) and `Aleph' (Sinai) and their some 43 allies were corrupted, I believe, by heretics within the first 100 years after the original N.T. books were written.

Therefore, even though these might be the oldest, they were doctored by heretics and therefore are not the "best."

Other texts, even though they might be later, if they follow the words of the original, must therefore be the ones to use. Those texts which agree with the original documents are those which the KJV has followed.

"Then there was a revision of Kittel's Biblia Hebraica. It was called the Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia, the Stuttgart edition of 1967-77, based also on the same Ben Asher text.

That is based on the Leningrad Codex which is the same one the revised Kittel Bible of 1937 used.

"[In addition to changes based on using the wrong Hebrew base, the modern versions] also make corrections based upon the following spurious criteria: (1) The Septuagint; (2) conjecture; (3) the Syriac version; (4) some Hebrew manuscripts; (5) the Latin Vulgate; (6) the Dead Sea scrolls; (7) Greek O.T. translations such as the Aquila, Symmachus, and Theodotion; (8) the Samaritan Pentateuch; (9) quotations from Jerome; (10) Josephus; (11) an ancient Hebrew scribal tradition; the Targums; (12) the Juxta Hebraica of Jerome for the Psalms; (13) a different set of Hebrew vowels and consonants which create different divisions in the text.

"My conclusion is even if there are seeming contradictions in the traditional Hebrew text, I feel it is imperative to stand by this Text and let the Lord figure out what may seem to be contradictions to us.

Keep what God has given and preserved through the ages.

The King James translators came along and saw what the Hebrew Masoretic text said and simply translated it right over into the English.

They didn't quibble with it; they didn't try to harmonize it. ... Never be ashamed of the traditional Masoretic Hebrew text that underlies the King James Bible!

It was accumulated by the Jews in fulfillment of Ro. 3:1- 2. We agree with Dean John William Burgon who wrote of "the incredible folly of tinkering with the Hebrew text" (from a letter April 8, 1885, appearing in the Guardian, as quoted in John William Burgon, Late Dean of Chichester--A Biography, 1892, by Edward Mayrick Goulburn).

"Not only was the Scripture accumulated by the Jews, but it was authorized by Jesus.

Jesus Christ authorized the traditional Masoretic Hebrew O.T. text (Mt. 4:4; 5:17-18; Lk. 24:27,44). The Lord Jesus Christ never refuted any text, any word, or any letter in the Hebrew O.T.

He didn't say, `Now Moses was misquoted here, it should have been this...'

He offered no textual criticism whatever. Had there been any changes, I'm sure He would have corrected it, but He didn't. It stands written! His stamp of approval is on the Masoretic Hebrew text.

"After much study, thinking, and praying about this subject, I have personally arrived at a strong conviction that I will not budge from the traditional Masoretic Hebrew text on which our King James Bible is based. That is it. I'm not going to move.

I report, you decide

Shalom

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