Spiritual Deception in the Highest 8.1

How far does supposed biblical corruption go? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

So last time we say church history’s favorite whipping boy of Constantine whipped out. As we move on now, once again, Johnson lands on a new villain. Everyone has been involved in this diabolical plot and of course, this time the Pope is involved. We’ll be citing the source material from here.

After Origin, Constantine, and Eusebius:

The “… corruption of God’s Word was taken over by Jerome who was called upon by the Pope to prepare a Bible that would favor the Roman Catholic teaching” [S7P8]. “Jerome was furnished with all the funds that he needed and was assisted by many scribes and copyists” [S2P217].

I highly question this seeing Johnson doesn’t even realize that Origen believed that Jesus lived physically on Earth. However, one could accept this and still say Jerome strived to copy the text faithfully. So far, as far as I have seen, Johnson’s only sources are other KJV-onlyists, hardly convincing to those on the outside.

“Jerome in his early years had been brought up with an enmity to the Received text, then universally known as the Greek Vulgate … The hostility of Jerome to the Received Text made him necessary to the Papacy” [S2P219].

Color me skeptical that the Papacy this early was opposed to one version of the Bible. We have none of Jerome’s actual words cited, which considering he wrote a lot, would be easy enough. All we are getting is at best thirdhand information.

“Jerome was devotedly committed to the textural criticism of Origin, an admirer of Origen’s critical principles …” [S2P218]. To corrupt the Bible, Jerome went to “… the famous library of Eusebius … where the voluminous manuscripts of Origin had been preserved” [S2P218].

It would be nice to know what is missing in these ellipses. However, since Origen did the most work before this in the area of textual criticism, it’s not a shock if Jerome would want to utilize that. It would actually be foolish if he didn’t.

As to the manuscripts of Origin and Eusebius, we know that: “it was from this type of manuscript that Jerome translated …” [S2P195]. And we also know that Jerome’s translation “… became the authorized Catholic Bible for all time” [S2P195].

Which shouldn’t be a surprise if true. Again, Origen had done the most work on this at the time. Wouldn’t that make him a proper source to go to?

“… It was through Jerome that … Apocryphal books were placed in the Bible. These were soon accepted by the Roman Catholic Church as authoritative” [S7P8]. “Jerome admitted that these … DID NOT belong with the other writings of the Bible. Nevertheless, the Papacy endorsed them …” [S2P218].

And boys and girls, time to recognize the irony. Which books were included in the original 1611? Ding ding ding! That’s right! The Apocrypha!

https://www.kingjamesbibleonline.org/Apocrypha-Books/

“The apocrypha is a selection of books which were published in the original 1611 King James Bible. These apocryphal books were positioned between the Old and New Testament (it also contained maps and geneologies). The apocrypha was a part of the KJV for 274 years until being removed in 1885 A.D. A portion of these books were called deuterocanonical books by some entities, such as the Catholic church.”

https://1611bible.online/Apocrypha/

So obviously, the original KJV was in the service of Rome. Right?

Note at this it is not my goal to address whether the Apocrypha belong in the text or not. The point is the hypocrisy of it all. If the translation of Jerome is to be called into question for it, then so should the 1611 KJV be called into question.

In his book “An Understandable History Of The Bible” Reverend Gipp tells us that:

“Rome enlisted the help of a loyal subject by the name of Jerome. He quickly translated the corrupt Local Text into Latin. This version included the Apocryphal books … which no Bible believing Christian accepts as authentic” [S1P82].

This is quite a claim since I know a number of Christians who do accept, however, if this is the case, then the original translators of the KJV were not Bible-believing Christians. Why is Johnson defending a Bible that was not translated by Bible-believing Christians? Wouldn’t they be in the service of Satan?

“The Latin version of Jerome, translated by order of the Roman Catholic Church, was published in about 380 A.D. It was rejected by real Christians until approximately 1280 A.D. The Roman Catholic Church chose the name ‘Vulgate’ … for Jerome’s translation in an attempt to deceive loyal Christians into thinking that it was the true common Bible of the people … It would seem that such deception lacks a little in Christian ethics, if not honesty” [S1P68].

It’s amazing how much Gipp thinks he knows about real Christians back then. Also, what happened in 1280 that real Christians could accept it? How did the text change?

But: “The name ‘Vulgate’ on the flyleaf of Jerome’s unreliable translation did little to help sales. The Old Latin Bible, or ‘Italic’ as it is sometimes called, was held fast by all true Christians …” [S1P83]. Thus: “The common people recognized the true Word of God because the Holy Spirit bears witness to it” [S1P82].

So does this mean the Holy Spirit would not bear witness to the original 1611 KJV? After all, it had the Apocrypha. Why not include it in the Satanic plot?

So: “… the people for centuries refused to supplant their old Latin Bibles … The old Latin versions were used longest by the western Christians who would not bow to … Rome” [S1P84]. “True Protestants have always rejected … Roman Catholicism and maintained the very opposite” [S12P103].

One can reject Roman Catholicism without thinking all Catholics are outside of Christianity. There are Protestants who think that they are. I’m not one of them.

This ‘Old Latin’ Bible was:

“… universally accepted by faithful Christians …” [S1P68] and that “… it was responsible for keeping the Roman Catholic Church contained to southern Italy for years. It was not until the Roman Catholic Church successfully eliminated this Book through persecutions, torture, Bible burnings, and murder that it could capture Europe in its web of superstitious paganism” [S1P68].

Again, no sources are cited. Gipp is Samuel C. Gipp who has been on Ankerberg’s show defending the KJV. I find this even worse though since this is someone from a time where more and more of this information is easily accessible and if so, then that means Johnson is from this time as well and yet has chosen to not access this information.

Reverend Gipp says:

“Perhaps we should learn a lesson. Where the … King James Bible reigns, God blesses …. Oh, that America could but look at what has happened to England … Yes, the sun began to set on the British Empire in 1904, when the British Foreign Bible Society changed from the pure Textus Receptus …” [S1P69].

Also, not long after the Apocrypha was removed from the KJV. Maybe that’s why God removed His blessing. At best, we have simply a post hoc fallacy here.

Thus, Satan used Jerome and the Catholic Church to substitute his counterfeit Latin Bible. But, this corruption “… which we will now call Jerome’s translation – did not gain immediate acceptance everywhere. It took nine hundred years to bring that about. Purer Latin Bibles than Jerome’s had already a deep place in the affections in the West. Yet steadily through the years, the Catholic Church has uniformly rejected the Received Text wherever translated from the Greek into Latin and exalted Jerome’s …” [S2P220].

And again, all we have is an assertion.

T W O B I B L E S T R E A M S

In the history of the Bible, we see the development of two ‘streams’ of Bibles: God’s true Word and Satan’s counterfeit. This started in the Garden of Eden and continues today. In fact, every Bible both old and ‘new’, and every Bible in every language, falls into one of these two categories.

We also see that some people are (knowingly or unknowingly) propagating the corruption and some are passing on the original.

In the next chapter we will break from our historical study and look at the personal side of the struggle for God’s Word. We will look at a group of people, within the ‘true Church’, called the Waldenses.

The Waldenses, of the Italian Church, are trying to pass on God’s original Bible.

Their’s is an interesting story. Let’s review the role they played in history.

And so we shall, next time.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)