From before sin even entered this world, Satan has sought to target God’s word. Quoting scripture as a means of deceiving people is not a new strategy of Satan.  He did it with Jesus Christ, while tempting Him in the wilderness, and even before that, sought to quote God’s word in order to tempt Eve – “Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?” (Gen. 3:1).  Satan’s strategy is not to present God’s word for instruction or guidance, but rather to change the meaning of it or cast doubt as to its authenticity. Our only safety is in embracing the unadulterated word of God, as Jesus did.  In response to the Devil’s temptations, Jesus’s response was always to refer to God’s word: “It is written . . .” (Matt. 4:4, 7, 10).  This article exposes a plot to neutralize the Bible and explains why Satan’s target is particularly, the King James Version of the Bible.

Manly Palmer Hall, a Canadian-born author, lecturer, astrologer and mystic, best known for his 1928 work The Secret Teachings of All Ages: An Encyclopedic Outline of Masonic, Hermetic, Qabbalistic and Rosicrucian Symbolical Philosophy (1928), wrote:

“To make things right we will have to undo much that is cherished error. The problem of revising the Bible shows how difficult it is to do this. For the last hundred years we have been trying to get out an edition of the Bible that is reasonably correct; but nobody wants it. What’s wanted is the good old King James version, every jot and tittle of it” – Manly P. Hall, “Asia in the balance of the scales”, Horizon. The magazine of useful and intelligent living. Articles by Manly Palmer Hall Philosopher. Vol. 4,  No. 1, (Spring 1944).

The “last hundred years” from the date of publication of Hall’s article would have been 1844. It is interesting that around that time there were reported activities by the Jesuits, a Roman Catholic order that was created to fight the Protestant Reformation, to pursue an objective to take control of the Bible. The Jesuits were reported as saying:

“Then the Bible, that serpent which, with head erect and eyes flashing fire, threatens us with its venom whilst it trails along the ground, shall be changed again into a rod as soon as we are able to seize it; and what wounds will we not inflict with it upon these hardened Pharaohs and their cunning magicians! what miracles will we not work by its means! Oh , then, mysterious rod! we will not again suffer thee to escape from our hands, and fall to the earth! For you know but too well that, for three centuries past, this cruel asp has left us no repose; you well know with what folds it entwines us, and with what fangs it gnaws us!” – The Jesuit conspiracy. The secret plan of the order. Detected and revealed by The Abbate Leone. With a preface by M. Victor Considerant, member of the National Assembly of France, and of the Municipal Council of the Seine, Page 98 (1848).

The book speaks of a Jesuit meeting held in 1825 in Chieri, Italy.

18 years after the meeting, Constantine von Tischendorf went for a prolonged meeting with the Pope. One year later, (1844) he claimed to have found a Bible manuscript called the Codex Sinaiticus in St. Catherine’s Monastery. He presented it to Pope Pius IX who praised it. This manuscript along with the Codex Vaticanus found in the Vatican Library forms the basis of most modern translations of the Bible.

Two streams of manuscripts

Codex Sinaiticus, Codex Vaticanus and other manuscripts of similar reading, which account for less than 50 out of over 5000 know Bible manuscripts, can be traced back to a stream of manuscripts emanating from Alexandria, Egypt, where critics edited Bible manuscripts.

In contrast, the Textus Receptus (Received Text), which accounts for more than 5000 known manuscripts, can be traced back to a stream of manuscripts emanating from Antioch, Syria, where the disciples were first called Christians (Acts 11:26), and where the Apostle Paul was based.  These have come down through the persecuted church in the wilderness to the Protestant Reformers and through the Reformers to us, in English, as the King James Version (KJV). It was not translated by King James personally, but was done under his authority by a team of 47 (initially, 54) of the best scholars of the day, many of whom were fluent in the original Biblical languages, drawn from Oxford, Cambridge and other institutions of eminent scholarship, thus acquiring the designation also, as the Authorized Version.

Footnotes in the New King James Version (NKJV), which is not the same as the KJV, provide a list of numerous verses that are missing from most modern translations and verses that have been altered, compared to the King James Version.

The NKJV was described by the publishers as a transition Bible for those who are seeking to move from the KJV to a more modern version. Copyright for the NKJV is owned by Thomas Nelson which has now been acquired by HarperCollins Publishers who are also the publishers of The Satanic Bible. Copyright owners have rights to revise the text at any time and have so far published several revisions of the NKJV.

The changes are not inconsequential. Consider, for example, Matt. 5:22. Three words are missing from the NIV compared to the KJV, which makes Jesus “subject to judgment”, based on the NIV. The KJV says “whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment”. The NIV omits “without a cause”, saying “anyone who is angry with his brother will be subject to judgment“. Jesus got angry and chased the money changers out of the temple for a cause and was therefore justified. But the NIV would make Him “subject to judgment” for doing that. The NIV makes no mention of Lucifer but refers to the one who fell from heaven as the “morning star” (Isa. 14:12), a title that is used elsewhere in the same version to refer to Jesus (Rev. 22:16), making Jesus the one who fell from heaven.

The King James Version of the Bible (KJV) is the crowning achievement of the Protestant Reformation, reflecting the collective effort of many reformers such as William Tyndale who was burned at the stake for translating the Bible into English.

The KJV has no copyright owner as it is in the public domain and is not subject to revision. Many persons who have memorized scripture over many years are now being forced to unlearn that which was etched in their memory, by the constant use of modern versions in their churches.

The Bible prophesies that the time will come when the word of God will become scarce – “Behold, the days come, saith the Lord God, that I will send a famine in the land, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the Lord: And they shall wander from sea to sea, and from the north even to the east, they shall run to and fro to seek the word of the Lord, and shall not find it” (Amos 8:11, 12).

Now is the time to memorize the scriptures rather than shift to versions of the Bible that are constantly changing and subject to corporate ownership.  God’s warning is clear, that we should not add to God’s word nor take away from it – “Add thou not unto his words, lest he reprove thee, and thou be found a liar.” (Prov. 30:6); “And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city” (Rev. 22:19).

“He that hath ears to hear, let him hear” (Matt. 11:15).

For further information, please visit Patience of the Saints at http://thecommandmentsofgodandthefaithofjesus.com/

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