Why So Many English
Bible Versions Today?
STRAIGHTWAY | June/July 2005
By Dr. H. T. Spence
In recent weeks the American Bible Society has stated that the
growing number of English Bible versions on the market today has
reached over five hundred. When both Higher and Lower Biblical
Criticism arose over 150 years ago in the Liberal and Modernist
camps, no one would have imagined the rise of hundreds of English
translations vying for the popular market. Who would have thought
that the discovery of a manuscript in a wastebasket of a monastery
at the foot of Mt. Sinai would have caused the Protestant world to
clamor over a text that has become the womb of the new
English-translation movement throughout the English-speaking world?
Not even the contemporary translators have been able to agree upon
that one text—the overwhelming vast majority of the English versions
today have sprung from that one manuscript. When one of these
versions has made its way into the market, another one rises to
declare its uniqueness and peculiarities.
Yet in spite of all these
versions, there is more confusion about the Bible, more questioning
of it, and more doubting of it today than in any other time in
history. This delusion within the ranks of the institutional church
is ever deepening. Most ministers of our contemporary spend much of
their sermon time criticizing the Scripture they read and
questioning whether it should even be in the Bible. They believe
they have been called to be Bible Critics rather than Bible
Proclaimers. Is it not proper to stop and consider the spirit behind
the fevered debate over the multi-English Bible versions?
The Coming
Final Bible Version
God often uses "forerunners" before the final appointments in His
plan. He used John the Baptist to "prepare the way" of the Lord,
making the path straight for His coming. He used "pre-reformers"
before the Reformation's reformers. The same is true in finally
bringing forth the Word of God to the English-speaking world: God
chose the beginnings with the Wycliffe, Tyndale, Geneva versions,
and others to be forerunners to prepare for the coming of a
translation that would be a consummated English translation drawing
from the previous ones. The King James Version became the one upon
which God placed His providential hand preserving it over these past
several centuries in the English-speaking world.
We are now witnessing in the
end time the global falling away of the institutional Christian
Church. The accepted trend of the versions is now rapidly mutating
with every new version providing its own unique contribution. As
there was a moving of God to prepare and pave the way for the coming
appointed English version, is there a "coming version" that will be
the final "Bible" for the final Apostate Church?
Is the multi-version debate
preparing the world for a coming final version? No doubt, this final
version will have all the ingredients needed to be accepted by the
world church. Is the present plethora of English versions merely a
collection of forerunners needed to acclimate "the church" for
diversity of thought and interpretation?
What will the final "version"
be called? Though the New International Version in recent years has
outsold the KJV as the new "accepted" version, what will be on the
horizon next year and the next, and the next? What surprising find
will draw the church scholars into a carnal frenzy and cry, "We have
found the true Bible"? The Church of earth is accepting the trend of
change even in their view of God and His Word, ever changing with
every generation. As the NIV is accepted today by a strong portion
of the New Age Movement, what version out there will be accepted by
all lifestyles, all beliefs, all religions, and all ethnic groups?
The Antichrist will not come at the beginning necessarily denying
the Word of God but simply questioning as the serpent, "Yea, hath
God said?" (Genesis 3:1). This is the great controversy of the
"versions" debate today—it is a serpentine debate.
Our modern English world is now
in the mood for new versions; they are strongly discontent with the
old. It is part of the Neo movement for the final apostate church
that will lead the rest of the religious world to ride the back of
the scarlet colored beast (Rev. 17:3). What will be the "version" to
which all of the English versions today are leading? ...
Preserving The Preserved Word
According to Deuteronomy 17:18 and 31:26, the scroll of Moses'
writing was placed in the "side" [sleeve, or holster] of the Ark of
the Covenant. Future kings of Israel were to make a copy from that
original. This principle has been one of the unique characteristics
of the King James Version: it was copied or prepared for a king. The
later versions have no such biblical identification.
We do not give allegiance to
the "advanced revelation" view or that the beloved King James
Version is as inspired as the original manuscripts. But we do
believe that God has preserved this version for the English-speaking
world. It is not so much the unending debate of scholarship to which
we look, but to the sovereign workings of God throughout its
history. It is too late in the End Time to get another version;
there is no time to try and test it as the KJV has been. The present
popular versions will eventually wane in their "rise to fame" while
another version will have for a season its day in the sun of
depraved humanity. While these others rise with boastings,
popularity, global acceptance, and glamorous endorsements, the
beloved KJV (that God has honored) has been in these final days of
the End Time maligned, hated, intimidated, belittled (as God's
saints will be by the popular church), and retired to never publicly
battle the apostasy again.
No other version has ever been
identified with the battle against the apostasy and Romanism as the
beloved KJV. All of the versions of modern times have been part of
the Neo-Christianity movement; this must be acknowledged. Even the
most "conservative" version elevated today in Fundamentalism and
Evangelicalism has not and is not identified with the battle against
Rome, the End-time Mother Harlot, and the global apostasy of
Protestantism. However, the KJV has been hated by the Church of Rome
over these centuries as well as by the World Council of Churches.
How often you can tell the character of a thing by its enemies . . .
and by its friends.
My dear earthly father (shortly before his death in the year 2000)
gave seven precious principles for teaching others to preserve the
preserved Word of God:
-
Preserve it in Love. This means
to simply preserve it, not prove it.
-
Preserve it by always using it
publicly. This means to publicly preserve, not publicly compare it.
-
Preserve it by defending its
English words publicly. This means to use its English words
paramount to the English audience, not defending it by Biblical
languages as a greater authority for the audience.
-
Preserve it in English Bible
departments in Christian schools. This means teach the Elizabethan
English distinctives of that time of the unity of the KJV in
reaction to the contemporary time in which we live.
-
Preserve it by witnessing and
evangelizing—planting KJV words for evangelism and revival. This
means we teach that God has His Word in our English-speaking world.
-
Preserve it in power. This
means that an English word, under the work of the Holy Spirit, has
the power of the Word of God behind it.
-
Preserve it in the doctrine to
others, too. This means that all the fundamental principles of the
Gospel can be easily found in the KJV.
Let us preserve the Preserved
Word of God by practicing these principles.
Conclusion
Our need is not "better renderings" but rather a "better
understanding" of that which has already been rendered through the
years. As the English-version controversy rages all around us
concerning the KJV, may we not hurt the good and reliable while
purporting that we have found the better. May God have mercy on
Fundamentalism as it has certainly entered into the vestibule of the
"contemporary" with its generic preaching, Neo-Evangelical music,
and scholastic intoxication with the multi-version debate.
[emphasis added]
READ MORE:
'STRAIGHTWAY' magazine, volume 33, Number 5, June/July 2005
Photo right: I scanned the back cover of
Dr. Al Lacy's excellent book titled, “NIV: THE ANTICHRIST'S BIBLE,”
so you can read what the book is about. If you click the photo, you'll get a
bigger photo. 
Isn't that horribly sad? The
Salvation Army
believes that faith and good works are required to stay saved. My friend,
salvation is a miraculous new-birth; not a lifestyle to be lived, nor a
philosophy to ascribe to, nor a business, nor a culture, nor is it joining a
religious organization. If I have to do anything to remain in a state of
salvation, then salvation is by partial faith in Christ plus human effort.
The Word of God teaches clearly that salvation is 100% by completely resting
in the sacrifice of Christ on the cross, Who died and rose up for our
justification. 
Why,
oh why, would anyone tamper with the all-important message of the Gospel of
John? Jesus asked the man if he believed on the Son of God? Most people
believe that a man named Jesus existed in the flesh; but very few people
believe that God came in the flesh (1st Timothy 3:16).
