The Meeting of Mormonism and Biblical Christianity

LIVE! From the “Mecca of Mormonism” Salt Lake City, Utah – THIS . . . is Heart of the MatterTGNN’s original show where Shawn McCraney deconstructed religion and developed fulfilled theology. . . . “Where Mormonism Meets Biblical Christianity Face to Face.” Show 11 The Bible February 23rd, 2010

And I’m your host, Shawn McCraneyFounder of TGNN and developer of the fulfilled perspective—calling people to faith outside of religion.. If you have family or friends who cannot get Heart through television, give them a call and tell them to go to WWW.HOTM.TV, and they can watch through streaming video from anywhere in the world! Hey . . . “I was a Born-Again Mormon.” The manuscript is available online through a downloadable PDF. Go to www.hotm.tv and you can have the book in your hands within minutes. How about joining a weekly verse by verseTGNN’s Bible teaching series—book-by-book, through the lens of fulfillment and spiritual liberty. never denominational Bible Study? Join us at CAMPUS every Sunday at either Utah State in Logan or at the U of U in Salt Lake City. Go to www.calvarycampus.com for more information like times and directions.

And with that, let’s have a word of prayer.

Reliability of Biblical Scripture

Exodus 17:14, it says: “And the LORD said unto Moses, Write this for a memorial in a book, and rehearse it in the ears of Joshua.”

Isaiah 30:8 it reads: “Now go, write it before them in a table, and note it in a book, that it may be for the time to come for ever and ever.”

Jeremiah wrote in chapter 30:2: “Thus speaketh the LORD God of Israel, saying, Write thee all the words that I have spoken unto thee in a book.”

Habakuk 2:2 reports: “And the LORD answered me, and said, Write the vision, and make it plain upon tables, that he may run that readeth it.”

Paul wrote in 1st Corinthians 14:37: “If any man think himself to be a prophet, or spiritual, let him acknowledge that the things that I write unto you are the commandments of the Lord.”

John the Beloved wrote in 1st John 2:13: “I write unto you, fathers, because ye have known him that is from the beginning. I write unto you, young men, because ye have overcome the wicked one. I write unto you, little children, because ye have known the Father.”

Peter wrote in 1st Peter 1:25: “But the word of the Lord endureth for ever. And this is the word which by the gospel is preached unto you.

Peter called Paul’s writings “scripture” in 2nd Peter 3:16.

Jesus Himself said to John in Revelation 1:11: “I am Alpha and Omega, the first and the last: and, What thou seest, write in a book, and send it unto the seven churches which are in Asia.”

Unchallenged Authority of the Bible

I have a question: Why did God tell all of these men, all the way back 4000 or so years, to write? Why does Jesus say (Mt 24:35) Heaven and earth shall pass away, but “my words” shall not pass away? Why did the Psalmist write that God “magnifies His Word above His own name?” How can God expect people to “keep His commandments” if the record of His commandments are not reliable? Is the God who created everything from nothing, who measures the heavens with the span of his hand, who controls all things, powerful enough to bring the words He commanded men to write forward to this day and age unscathed? These are just a few – of the hundreds – of questions I have regarding the certainty of God’s holy word known as the Bible.

There seems to be a couple central themes enemies of Christianity go after when it comes to attacking the faith. The first is when they go after the deity, person, and story of Jesus, but in close second – which we are going to talk about tonight – is the reliability and exclusivity of the Bible as God’s Holy Word.

We have long maintained that if someone can remove a person’s trust in the Bible as reliable and/or get them to believe that other writings are just as valid (if not more), then you can get anyone to believe anything you want. It happens all the time. One remarkable fact about the Bible is that in and of itself it has no “owner” here on earth. Have you ever thought of that? In and of itself, within its covers, it has everything necessary to lead any person to salvation and to then serve as a guide to the Christian walk. The same cannot be said of other proprietary religious books like “Dianetics,” “A Course in Miracles,” “The Koran,” and/or “The Book of Mormon.” And yet so many people who are willing to place their faith and trust in books like these insist on labeling the Bible as faulty, fiction, or the manipulation of men . . . which naturally

The Influence of Alternative Religious Writings on Biblical Interpretation

In this past month alone I have personally broke break bread with two very intelligent men BOTH of whom completely and fully reject the Bible as reliable and trustworthy and/or as God’s inspired word to man, but who BOTH, fully, completely, and without even knowing each other are certain that alien life-forces are not only here on earth right now, but assign the creation of heaven, earth, and humanity into these alien hands as well! Reject the trustworthiness of the Bible and you can get searching men and women to embrace almost anything. One man who understood this premise very well was one Joseph Smith, Jr.

Joseph Smith's Influence and the Book of Mormon

Back in 1827 through 1829 Joseph had been telling people in his wooded community that he was visited by an angel (on the eve of the Autumnal equinox, no less) who revealed to him that there were some buried golden plates hidden in a hill near his home. Over the course of around seven years Joseph had been promising to bring forth this new book once he had translated it and he assured many that this was going to be a new book of ancient scripture.

Once the book known as the Book of Mormon was published, a reader could open it up and within thirty pages begin reading built-in attacks on the Bible:

1st Nephi 13:38 states:

“Wherefore thou seest that after the book (meaning the Bible) hath gone forth through the hands of the great and abominable church (meaning the Catholics) that there are MANY PLAIN AND PRECIOUS THINGS TAKEN AWAY FROM THE BOOK which is the book of the Lamb of God.”

In other words, the Bible cannot be trusted.

Not too many pages later, in 2nd Nephi, the Book of Mormon presents a built-in justification for its own existence relative to the Bible, by stating:

“Wherefore, because you have a Bible ye need not suppose that it contains all my words; neither need ye suppose that I have not caused more to be written.” (2nd Nephi 29:6)

So right in the founding writings of Mormonism we discover the two-pronged method of attacking God’s Word: State that it cannot be trusted, and that there are other writings that can. This method is used by scientologists, Christian scientists, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Muslims, and almost every single religious group centered on the ideas and thoughts of Man instead of what men of God were told to write.

The Question of Biblical Reliability

As time passed, Joseph Smith continued to subtly demean the reliability of the Bible. In an LDS article of Faith, he said:

“We believe the Bible to be the Word of God as far as it is translated correctly.”

Unfortunately, the way and method that the LDS determine if a biblical verse has been “translated correctly or not” is not through scholarship and the study of ancient language but WHETHER the Bible passage in question supports Mormon doctrine or not! I’m not kidding.

Founding prophet Joseph Smith is quoted (in TOTPJS page 310) as also saying:

“There are many things in the Bible which do not, as they now stand, accord with the revelations of the Holy Ghost to me.”

From this little collection of subtle statements Joseph Smith released against the Bible while alive, a giant dismissive snowball against trusting God’s Holy Word began to roll from Latter-day Saints.

Late LDS Apostle – APOSTLE! – Orson Pratt said:

“Who, in his right mind, could, for one moment, suppose the Bible in its present form to be a perfect guide? Who knows that even one verse of the Bible has escaped pollution?”

APOSTLE Bruce McConkie (APOSTLE) wrote that:

“Satan guided his servants in taking many plain and precious things, and many covenants of the Lord, from the Bible, SO THAT MEN WOULD STUMBLE AND FALL AND LOSE THEIR SOULS!”

In 1991, Brigham Young University (ahem) Professor, Robert Matthews, wrote:

“Soon after the New Testament was written there were persons among the Gentiles who systematically, with wicked motives and evil intent, removed portions of the sacred Word, and took from the Bible much very important doctrinal information.”

Conclusion

So even though the LDS include the Bible in the four books they call scripture, the bottom-line reality is the Bible, within Mormonism proper, is considered unreliable, especially compared to the BOM. It is considered corrupt to some degree or another. The Bible is NOT taught but is truly only reviewed in a sense, highlighting areas that support LDS thought and teachings, and is inferior to other LDS scripture and modern-day revelation.

I suggest to you here and now, that the SINGLE most damaging doctrine, teaching, and attitude in Mormonism…

The Reliability of the Bible

Today is not their strange and esoteric teachings, not their history, not their temple rites and rituals. These things are all the result of the single most damaging doctrine Joseph ever introduced to these people, which is that the Bible cannot be trusted and the Bible is not enough.

I’d like to take a few minutes and sort of lay out the best I can a set of thoughts for you to consider, thoughts we hope will lend to your seeing the Bible as the authentic, singular, reliable wonder from God that it is.

The Origin of the Bible

First, I think it is important to review how the Bible actually came to be. Now there are excellent and far more exhaustive books available on this subject – especially stuff from Norman Giesler – so this is just a thumbnail sketch. Anyway, some religious romantics would like to believe that true and real messages from God ought to come in singular events, you know, like a revelation sent it down to us via heavenly fax. It is appealing to our flesh to think Holy writings come to us in both fantastic and singular fashions and I think natural men and women are far more inclined to receive books like the Book of Mormon – which supposedly came from buried treasure and/or books like the Koran, which were produced by single people like Mohammed – than to receive a book that took more than 1500 years to produce and compile into one volume.

But this is part of the miracle. God has historically shown that His ways are not ours. He works through us over time, through real, historical, and actual ways, from real actual historical people and places. The Bible was written about over a great span of time, through different human beings, who had different lifestyles, purposes, languages, backgrounds, insights, and countries of origin. Many of them did not know each other, which made collusion impossible. It consists of sixty-six different books, written by forty-plus different human writers, who lived on at least three different continents, and spoke in at least three different languages, writing over the course of no less than a period of one thousand five hundred years. That is powerful, magnificent, real stuff.

Integrity and Accuracy of Scripture

And then within this compiled book of writings there are not only NO contradictions – with the exception of a couple of dates and numbers – but the separate writings actually interweave and support each other! It is singularly the most amazing book on earth. Now ask yourself again, “Why did Moses write?” So we could only consider it untrustworthy later on down the road? Why did God have prophets record their revelations? So believers could read it and wonder whether it was from Him or not? So we could question every word? So we could doubt it? So we could think God is incapable of bringing us His Word over time?

In Matthew chapter four, Jesus had just finished fasting forty days in the wilderness and was hungry. Fittingly, Satan came to tempt Him with three specific temptations. Each of Satan’s offers to Jesus was met with rejection. Each of these rejections was prefaced by Jesus saying, “It is written.” To what was Jesus referring when he said, “It is written?” The Old Testament! And how could Jesus trust such ancient writings that were just as old to Him as some of the New Testament writings are to us? And, and, and why didn’t Satan ever question Jesus about the reliability of what he was quoting? Why didn’t Satan say, “It is written? Ha! Jesus! Are you telling me you trust those ancient writings? Ha! That foolish book wasn’t translated correctly.” Not even Satan made such an accusation.

SECOND, and without going into great detail because of time, Old Testament scribes and scholars were exacting, tedious, and relentless in transcribing the Word of God. If a mistake was made, the whole parchment or scroll was tossed away immediately. Older manuscripts – and this is important – were burned as newer ones were completed, NOT because of changes, but because of wear and tear, and to make sure only the MOST correct parchments were in use. To them, the NEWER copies were the more reliable, not the reverse. This is one reason mss evidence is so sparse. Then around 285 B.C. seventy Jewish scholars came to Alexandria and under the direction of the Ptolomies translated the Old Testament (what the Jews call the TANACK) from Hebrew and into Koine Greek. The resulting translation is called the Septuagint – referring

Understanding the Septuagint and the Testament

To the seventy scholars who worked on it. The Septuagint provides us with a tremendous bridge between the Hebrew and Greek worlds and by New Testament times it was the most widely used edition of the Old Testament. The existence of the Septuagint essentially solidified the existence of the Old Testament books 285 years before Jesus was even born!

So that is the Old Testament. The terms “Old Testament and “New Testament” originated with the Prophet Jeremiah (Jeremiah 31:31). The word “testament” means covenant and Jesus, being the long awaited Messiah, made the “New Covenant” with God’s people. The Old Covenant contains – amidst history and poetry – many prophecies pointing to Jesus. The New Covenant, amidst parables and historical events, provides the fulfillment of these Old Testament prophecies.

Prophecy and Fulfillment

One of the MAJOR factors in proving the Bible valid and reliable is its sound and unfailing prophetic nature. Hundreds of prophecies have come true and those that remain will come true in their appropriated by God time. No prophecy that was supposed to have come to pass failed to come to pass. The prophecies regarding the coming of Jesus the Messiah included.

Now the Gospels of the New Testament – Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John – are actually a continuation of the Old Testament. They speak of Jesus coming to earth, His ministry among God’s chosen people, and their rejection of Him. Jesus came to show them that He was the ONLY way because He was the only one righteous. His words made all men and women sinners. His words condemn each of us, hopefully resigning us to the fact that we NEED Him. The actual New Testament doesn’t really begin until Chapter Two of the book of Acts (which is the Day of Pentecost).

And after the Day of Pentecost, those firsthand witnesses of the Lord Jesus and those closely associated with them, wrote letters and revelations as inspired by the Holy Spirit to help govern and guide His New Church. Before these writings were ever collected and included in what we call the New Testament they were considered inspired. These men were called to write BECAUSE they were first hand witnesses, and what they wrote was considered scripture JUST like the Old Testament! Remember in 2nd Peter 3:15, Peter equates Paul’s letters to scripture, saying:

2nd Peter 3:15-16 . . . even as our beloved brother Paul also according to the wisdom given unto him hath written unto you; as also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things; in which are some things hard to be understood, which they that are unlearned and unstable wrest, as they do also the other scriptures, unto their own destruction.

Canonical Criteria

Once the last apostle John the Beloved passed, the first hand witnesses of Jesus, having written and recorded both the fulfillment of Jesus and directives to His Church, were gone, and the Old Covenant and the New were fulfilled. And the Holy Spirit continued to inspire and grow the Church in miraculous and wonderful ways. Nothing more in terms of writing is needed as the Word from Genesis to Revelation wholly completes it all with the Old Testament foretelling of His coming, the Gospels testifying that He came, the epistles directing the new Church and Revelation completing all end-time prophecy. What else need be said?

It’s not that God has stopped speaking to men and women today. Of course He speaks to us – by His Spirit and His Word. But CANONICAL writings are another thing and His inspirations to us must be supported by such scripture. The Word Canon, in classical Greek, is properly understood as a straight rod, "a rule" in the widest sense – "the rule of the Church," "the rule of faith," "the rule of truth." When the canon or “rule of truth” is complete what is the need for more? Especially, ESPECIALLY when additions are in OPPOSITION to the proven, existing, historically accurate texts of God?

So the New Testament texts were written by virtue of the Holy Spirit working on the Lord’s firsthand witnesses. There were several factors early Christian leaders took into consideration when it came to include or exclude New Testament writings in “the rule of truth” or canon.

Canonical Considerations

Here are the major considerations:

The book had to have a history of being included in Christian worship.

The book had to have a connection to an apostle or firsthand witness of Christ.

The book had to evidence power in the lives of believers.

The book had to maintain a “consistency of doctrine.”

Let me give you an example on this. In the Gnostic Gospel of Thomas,

Compilation of New Testament Books

It quotes Jesus as saying:
“Lucky is the lion that the human will eat, so that the lion will become human. And foul is human that the lion will eat, and the lion still will become human.”

Doesn’t sound like consistent doctrine relative to the rest of God’s word, does it? So it was excluded. The book also had to ratify Christian virtue and spiritual values. And the books had to be in harmony/unity regardless of its prose or style.

Quoting again from verse 14 in the Gnostic Gospel of Thomas it reads:
“If you fast, you bring sinMissing the mark of faith and love—no punishment, just lost growth or peace. upon yourselves, and if you pray, you will be condemned, and if you give to charity, you will harm your spirits.”

Obviously, this clap-trap is outside the “harmony and unity of the other inspired books . . . so it was excluded.

Tertullian, a very early church father, states that by 150 A.D., the Church in Rome had compiled a list of New Testament books that matches what we would call the Bible today. This is HUNDREDS of YEARS before Councils at Nicea were formed. The Muratonian Canon fragment dating from 170 A.D. lists the same New Testament books that we have in the Protestant Bible today.

Authenticity of Biblical Texts

If we take all the writings of the early Church fathers: Irenaeus, Justin Martyr, Polycarp, Ignatius, and Clement, all but eleven verses of our PRESENT NEW TESTAMENT can be reconstructed and compiled through their writings alone. In other words, the entire New Testament text, with the exception of eleven verses, is quoted in the early church writer’s writings. This is not constructed or prefabricated stuff, like critics would like you to believe, my friends.

Additionally, the individual books of the Bible did not derive their “authority” and “authenticity” as being of God because they were selected to be included in the Bible. This is the idea the LDS attempt to convey at times. Each of the books in the Word are from God and simply sat waiting to be gathered and included in His Holy Book – just like what was done in the Old Testament.

The purpose of the Bible is to point people to Jesus, the salvation He offers, and the Christian walk He prescribes. To state or infer that the Bible is polluted, fallible, or unreliable, is to create doubt in the minds of anyone who has considered or embraced such a position.

Repercussions of Doubting the Bible

So getting back to the point, what is the result of Joseph Smith and those who followed him saying that the Bible is not to be completely trusted? Every time a Latter-day Saint reads the Bible, they discount it in their heart if not their mind. Every time they read a passage that causes them to think, they put it in the “not correctly translated bin.” Every time the Word causes them to wonder about their own faith, they think of corrupted texts, evil copyists, and the uninspired philosophies of men. And what is the result? A bastardized view of Jesus, of the salvations He offers, and of the Christian Walk He prescribes.

It is high time for Latter-day Saints – especially if they want to be considered Christian, to take their QUAD’S or “four in one books of scripture and rip three of those books out, toss them in the garbage, and search the only book of the four that was written by God Himself – the Bible. Jesus said in Mark 13:31:
“HEAVEN AND EARTH WILL PASS AWAY BUT MY WORD WILL NEVER PASS AWAY”

The “not” pass away – “ou me” – is a double negative which strengthens the statement to its utmost, meaning:
“it will never-ever, not ever, in no way ever, impossible for it to ever, cannot ever pass away.” In this I trust. Let’s open up the phone lines:
(801) 973-8820
(801) 973-TV20

First time callers and LDS callers please. While operators take your calls, let’s take a look at these important spots.

OTHER THOUGHTS

There are NO ORIGINAL MANUSCRIPTS OF THE BIBLE LEFT TODAY. To many, this is a delightful fact because with it they attempt to build a case against the validity, authenticity, and trustworthiness of the Bible. But to put this in the proper perspective, imagine that the ORIGNAL constitution of the United States of America was suddenly destroyed. Would this mean we wouldn’t have a clue as to its contents? HARDLY, because from the replications, the commentaries, the particles, and the condemnations of this historical document, the whole could easily and accurately be reconstructed. The same is true of the

The Bible's Historical Journey

From handwritten documents, scholarly references, papyrus scrolls, uncials, miniscuals, the Dead Sea Scrolls, and the dozens of thousands of fragmentary pieces of Holy writ, the Bible can and has been authenticated. It’s historically supported. It’s genetically proven. Its diverse and expansive commentaries are in complete harmony with all other books therein.

The oldest copy of the complete New Testament, written in Greek, dates to about 350 A.D. and is called the Codex Sinaiticus. Jerome took the established books of the Old and New Covenants at around 385 A.D. and translated them into the Latin Vulgate. Sometime before 1228, Steven Langdon created chapter divisions. In 1384, John Wycliffe translated the Latin Bible into English. The Catholic church denounced Wycliffe as heretical because it was forbidden to translate the Bible.

Major Translations and Editions

In 1455 the first reproduction of the Bible was made. It was called the Guttenberg Bible. Forty-eight still exist today. Around 1530, William Tyndale believed everyone should have a chance to read the Bible, not just the few who understood Latin. So he translated it into English and had it reproduced. His Bible was burned as untrue, and he was arrested and imprisoned as a heretic before being executed by strangulation in Antwerp before they burned his body at the stake in 1536. The Miles Coverdale Bible was the first to move the Apocryphal books to a separate section called “noncannonical” in 1535. The Geneva Bible, in 1560, began to include some chapter and verse divisions.

The first Bible printed in the United States was the Aiken Bible, which Congress authorized in 1781. In 1928, an American printer decided to put the direct quotations of Jesus in red ink, coining the term “it’s a red letter day” in American nomenclature. In 1952 The Revised Standard Version came out and modernized the King James Version using current biblical scholarship to determine the underlying Greek and Hebrew texts.

Not much has changed in this wonderful, beautiful, life-altering Word of God through all the millennia, through all the translations, through all the copying, and amidst all the attempts to kill it dead. Jesus said in John 10:35

“. . . the scripture cannot be broken.”

Praise God. It is either true or it is not.

Critical Views from LDS Sources

1. The most reliable way to measure the accuracy of any biblical passage is not by comparing different texts, but by comparison with the Book of Mormon and modern-day revelations. — First Presidency, LDS Church News, June 20, 1992. p. 3.

Add all this imperfect information to the uncertainty of the translation, and who, in his right mind, could, for one moment, suppose the Bible in its present form to be a perfect guide? Who knows that even one verse of the whole Bible has escaped pollution, so as to convey the same sense that it did in the original. – Orson Pratt, LDS Apostle, The Bible as an Insufficient Guide, 1851, p. 47.

The Bible bears true witness of God and His gospel as far as it is translated correctly. Many plain and precious things have been deleted, however, and the Book of Mormon is the means, provided by divine wisdom, to pour forth the gospel word as it was given in perfection to the ancients. It has come to preserve and sustain the Bible, not distort or dilute its message. Satan guided his servants in taking many plain and precious things, and many of the covenants of the Lord, from the Bible, so that men would stumble and fall and lose their souls. When these truths and doctrines and covenants are restored through the Book of Mormon, what may we expect from Satan and from his servants? Their natural reaction – their craft is in danger! – will be to poison the minds of men against the Nephite scripture, so they will continue to stumble as they rely on the Bible alone. — Bruce R. McConkie, Millennial Messiah (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book. 1982) pp. 160-161, 164.

The Significance of the Bible's Names

The Bible is the name given to the revelation of God to man contained in sixty-six books or pamphlets, bound together and forming one book and only one, for it has in reality one author and one purpose and plan, and is the development of one scheme of the redemption of man. I. ITS NAMES.–

See Names

(1) The Bible, i.e. The Book, from the Greek "ta biblia," the books. The word is derived from a root designating the inner bark of the linden tree, on which the

The Bible: Its Composition and Unity

The ancients wrote their books. It is the book as being superior to all other books. But the application of the word BIBLE to the collected books of the Old and New Testaments is not to be traced farther back than the fifth century of our era.

(2) The Scriptures, i.e. the writings, as recording what was spoken by God.

(3) The Oracles, i.e. the things spoken, because the Bible is what God spoke to man, and hence also called

(4) The Word.

(5) The Testaments or Covenants, because it is the testimony of God to man, the truths to which God bears witness; and is also the covenant or agreement of God with man for his salvation.

(6) The Law, to express that it contains God's commands to men.

Composition of the Bible

II. COMPOSITION.–The Bible consists of two great parts, called the Old and New Testaments, separated by an interval of nearly four hundred years. These Testaments are further divided into sixty-six books, thirty-nine in the Old Testament and twenty-seven in the New. These books are a library in themselves being written in every known form old literature. Twenty-two of them are historical, five are poetical, eighteen are prophetical, twenty-one are epistolary. They contain logical arguments, poetry, songs and hymns, history, biography, stories, parables, fables, eloquence, law, letters, and philosophy. There are at least thirty-six different authors, who wrote in three continents, in many countries, in three languages, and from every possible human standpoint. Among these authors were kings, farmers, mechanics, scientific men, lawyers, generals, fishermen, ministers and priests, a tax-collector, a doctor, some rich, some poor, some city-bred, some country born—thus touching all the experiences of men extending over 1500 years.

Unity of the Bible

III. UNITY.–And yet the Bible is but one book, because God was its real author, and therefore, though he added new revelations as men could receive them, he never had to change what was once revealed. The Bible is a unit, because

(1) It has but one purpose, the salvation of men.

(2) The character of God is the same.

(3) The moral law is the same.

(4) It contains the development of one great scheme of salvation.

Original Languages and Ancient Manuscripts

IV. ORIGINAL LANGUAGES.–The Old Testament was written in Hebrew, a Shemitic language, except that parts of the books of Ezra Ezr 5:8; 6:12; 7:12-26 and of Daniel Da 2:4-7,28 and one verse in Jeremiah Jer 10:11 were written in the Chaldee language. The New Testament is written wholly in Greek.

V. ANCIENT MANUSCRIPTS OF THE ORIGINAL.–There are no ancient Hebrew manuscripts older than the tenth century, but we know that these are in the main correct, because we have a translation of the Hebrew into Greek, called the Septuagint, made nearly three hundred years before Christ. Our Hebrew Bibles are a reprint from what is called the Masoretic text. The ancient Hebrew had only the consonant printed, and the vowels were vocalized in pronunciation, but were not written. Some Jewish scholars living at Tiberias, and at Sora by the Euphrates, from the sixth to the twelfth century, punctuated the Hebrew text, and wrote is the vowel points and other tone-marks to aid in the reading of the Hebrew; and these, together with notes of various kinds, they called Masora (tradition), hence the name Masoretic text.

0f the Greek of the New Testament there are a number of ancient manuscripts They are divided into two kinds, the Uncials, written wholly in capitals, and the Cursives, written in a running hand. The chief of these are–

(1) the Alexandrian (codex Alexandrinus, marked A), so named because it was found in Aiexandria in Egypt, in 1628. It date back to A.D. 350, and is now in the British Museum.

(2) The Vatican (codex Vaticanus, B), named from the Vatican library at Rome, where it is kept. Its date is A.D. 300 to 325.

(3) The Sinaitic (codex Sinaiticus) so called from the convent of St. Catherine on Mount Sinai, there it was discovered by or Tichendorf in 1844. It is now at St. Petersburg Russia. This is one of the earliest best of all the manuscripts.

VI. TRANSLATIONS.–The Old Testament was translated into Greek by a company of learned Jews at Alexandria, who began their labor about the year B.C. 286. It is called the Septuagint, i.e. the seventy, from the tradition that it was translated by seventy (more exactly seventy-two) translators. The Vulgate, or translation of the Bible

Historical Development

The translation of the Bible into Latin by Jerome, A.D. 385-405, is the authorized version of the Roman Catholic Church. The first English translation of the whole Bible was by John de Wickliffe (1324-1384). Then followed that of William Tyndale (1525) and several others. As the sum and fruit of all these appeared our present Authorized Version, or King James Version, in 1611. It was made by forty-seven learned men, in two years and nine months, with a second revision which took nine months longer. These forty-seven formed themselves into six companies, two of whom met at Westminster, two at Oxford and two at Cambridge. The present English edition is an improvement, in typographical and grammatical correctness, upon this revision, and in these respects is nearly perfect. [See VERSIONS]

See Versions, Authorized

Revised Versions and Modern Translations

A REVISED VERSION of this authorized edition was made by a group of American and English scholars, and in 1881 the Revised New Testament was published simultaneously in the United States and England. Then followed the Revised Old Testament in 1885, and the Apocrypha in 1894. The American revision committee was permitted to publish its own revision, which appeared in 1901 as the American Standard Version. Modern-speech translations have been made from time to time between 1898-1945. Among these were Moulton's Modern Reader's Bible, the Twentieth century New Testament, Weymouth's, Moffatt's, and the American translation. As a result of the modern-speech translations that have appeared and been widely received, the American Revision Committee set to work again, and in 1946 the Revised Standard Version of the New Testament was published.

Divisions into Chapters and Verses

VII. DIVISIONS INTO CHAPTERS AND VERSES.–The present division of the whole Bible into chapters was made by Cardinal Hugo de St. Gher about 1250. The present division into verses was introduced by Robert Stephens in his Greek Testament, published in 1551, in his edition of the Vulgate, in 1555. The first English Bible printed with these chapters and verses was the Geneva Bible, in 1560.

Circulation of the Bible

VIII. CIRCULATION OF THE BIBLE.–The first book ever printed was the Bible; and more Bibles have been printed than any other book. It has been translated, in its entirety or in part, into more than a thousand languages and dialects and various systems for the blind. The American Bible Society (founded in 1816) alone has published over 356 million volumes of Scripture.