What about the Italic Bible? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.
We’re going forward in the next step in Bible translation. It’s not a shock that Johnson punts to the devil here to make his case. As always, the original can be found here.
At the same time as the Syrian translation, but in another part of the world; the common language of Italy, France, and Great Britain was not Syrian, but Latin. Thus, for these countries, a Bible was needed in Latin. Therefore, the original Greek Vulgate (The Traditional Majority Text) was translated from Greek into Latin. This is believed to have occurred no later than 157 A.D.
“One of the first of these Latin Bibles was for the Waldenses in northern Italy …” [S4P98]. The Waldenses were: “lineal descendents of the Italic Church” [S4P98-99]. More will be said of the Waldenses later on, but as for the Italic Church suffice it to say that:
This part is a bit confusing. Is he saying one of these Bibles was the first for a group that came about 1,000 years later? It sounds odd really to make a case like that.
“Allix, an outstanding scholar, testifies that enemies had corrupted many manuscripts, while the Italic Church handed them down in their apostolic purity” [S4P98].
The only thing I can find about Allix other than Wiki sources is here. All we have here though is an assertion. No manuscript evidence is given of this. If Allix is also part of the Italic Church it wouldn’t be much of a shock to hear this said.
Augustine, speaking of the Latin Bibles, said: “Now among translations themselves the Italian (Old Itala) is to be preferred to others, for it keeps closer to the words without prejudice to clearness of expression” [S2P208].
I did a search for this quote and I cannot find it which is problematic. Without finding it, it’s hard to know if it is a real quote or not. If it is, I have no idea what the context is.
Dr. Nolan, who acquired fame for his Greek and Latin scholarship, traced the history of the ‘Traditional Majority Text’ to the Waldenses of the Italic Church. He says the Traditional Majority Text was:
“… adopted into the version that prevailed in the Latin Church” [S4P99].
This means:
“… the basis for the King James Bible has been proven to be in harmony with translations which go back to the second century” [S4P99].
Once again, the problem is that I cannot find who Dr. Nolan is exactly. I tried looking for the quotes, but to no avail. Either way, most of us would have no problem saying the KJV was in line with early manuscripts. No one is arguing that the KJV is a bad translation, but that does not mean it is perfect or even the best.
This statement about the Italic Bible of 157 A.D., along with the statement about the Syrian Peshitta Bible of 150 A.D., both date the ‘Traditional Majority Text’ with the earliest Church manuscripts.
For terminology sake we will call this Latin Bible the ‘Old Latin’. And, as history shows, it’s this ‘Old Latin’ Bible which agrees with the ‘Traditional Majority Text’ used in the King James Bible.
This Old Latin Bible saw widespread use. In his book: “An Understandable History of the Bible”, Reverend Gipp says:
“The true gospel was fast spreading all over Europe due to the Old Latin translation …” [S1P82].
He goes on to say that:
“The Old Latin Vulgate was used by the Christians in the churches … 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 … which is Latin for common” [S1P67].
Even if we grant all of this, so what? None of this argues that the text of the KJV is perfect in every way.
S A T A N I S N O T F A R B E H I N D
In the Garden of Eden, after God spoke with Adam, Satan came by to offer his own translation!
It seems to follow; that whenever God makes His original, it’s not long before Satan comes by with a counterfeit.
Satan will offer a counterfeit to God’s original Greek Bible as well as a counterfeit to God’s original ‘Old Latin’ Bible, and on and on.
Which ultimately begs the question. Johnson has provided no evidence of the devil corrupting texts and it seems odd that KJV-onlyists keep insisting God can keep His word pure, but apparently, it can also be easily corrupted.
As David Fuller points out in his book “Which Bible?”: “From the beginning there has been no pause in the assault on God’s Son and God’s Word” [S2P4].
Well since from the beginning, it wasn’t known that there was a second person of the Trinity or that God was even triune nor was there written texts of Scripture then….
The following quote, referring to Christ’s victory at Calvary, summarizes Satan’s actions against God’s Bible:
“Vanquished by The Word Incarnate, Satan next directed his subtle malice against The Word written” [S2P96].
The devil must have been awfully bored until 1611 to have no pure and perfect word to go after. Not only that, I find capitalizing word in the second sentence to be problematic. This puts Jesus and the Bible on an equal level.
We will continue next time.
In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)
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