Hey guys!
Welcome back to video number eight of our series called,
"Can we trust the Bible?"
In the previous video,
we looked at The Bible translations.
And I talked about how they put the Bible together,
in the Canon,
and then how they started to translate the Bible.
And we also touched a little bit
on the Apocrypha books of the Bible.
Now, in this video we're gonna start to look at,
how we got the English Bible.
The English translations,
and also a few other things.
So let's jump right into the video.
All right
So we talked about how the Bible was translated
Into Latin,
and it was called the Vulgate.
Now, if we go back into a history when we look at the West.
The churches in the West,
were branches of the Roman Catholic Church.
and the Vulgate,
was the only Bible translation available to them
and this was a huge problem,
because a lot of people in the West
didn't understand Latin.
And then John Wycliffe was used by God,
to translate the Bible into English.
This was between
1330 and 1384.
And he translated the Bible directly from the Latin Vulgate
into English,
because that was the only translation that he had available to him,
to translate it.
Now just a little bit of a
history here.
You have to remember that at the time,
The Roman Catholic Church was very, very powerful.
And John Wycliff started to challenge
the authority,
and the doctrines
of the Roman Catholic Church.
Now, this was of course in England that's where he was from,
and he basically told them that he they should not
Just follow their own rules,
but they should follow
the rules of the Bible.
Now, John Wycliff, you have to remember.
He knew that the Roman Catholic Church,
some parts of it at times
Used the power they had in the wrong way,
and one of the reasons why they had so much power,
Was because the common man, at that time,
could not read the Bible.
They could not read the truth, for themselves.
Now, Whycliff had enough of it,
and he told the Pope,
and the rest of the church
That they are subject, to God,
and scripture not over it.
They are not
Over the teaching of the Bible,
or even equal to it.
They are subject to God and Scripture.
And of course they hated him for it,
and they didn't listen to him.
So he started to translate the Bible into English,
For the common man.
But this was a huge problem for the church,
because they did not want the ordinary man to read the Bible.
Why not?
Because then they would lose their power.
So they hated Whycliff.
They condemned the English Bible that he translated,
and they persecuted him,
and all those who followed him.
And sadly, many people were burned at the stake.
Just because they wanted to read the Bible for themselves,
And shockingly they were burned with the Wycliffe Bible
Around their necks,
but finally
The Bible was out and people could start to read it for themselves.
Whycliff died in 1384,
And his followers called lollards continued his work,
and they spread even into places like Bohemia.
Which is modern-day Czech Republic.
The Roman Catholic Church couldn't stop it.
So they declared the English Bible as
illegal in 1408.
And it was illegal for around 130 years.
And no one could translate a Bible in this time,
Unless,
a bishop
gave them authority.
Now, while all of this was happening in England.
God started to prepare the way for the Reformation,
which would happen in the 16th century.
Constantinople, was the headquarters of the Greek church.
Today,
Constantinople is called Istanbul, which is in Turkey.
In 1453 the Muslims conquered the Roman city,
and many Christians fled to the west,
and guess what they brought with them?
The manuscripts of the Greek New Testament.
And you know in this time,
there was a big cultural change.
In the West,
known as the Renaissance,
and the Greek language was brought to life.
Which was awesome,
because then they started to spread,
the new Greek Testament
like wildfire.
How did they do it?
Through Johannes Gutenberg,
he invented or perfected the printing press.
The first Greek New Testament,
was made by Johannes Froman of Basel,
In 1516,
and it was called the Novum Instrumentum,
And Erasmus of Rotterdam
Edited the Greek New Testament,
and he used five or six old
Manuscript copies to do it.
Now these text types from Constantinople,
Is known as the Byzantine text type.
And it basically dominated for around three hundred and fifty years.
William Tyndale set out to translate that edited Greek texts into English.
Now remember, the Roman Catholic Church was still against this.
So they persecuted him,
and at the end they burned him at the stake.
And while it was burning he cried out,
"Lord,
Open the king of England's eyes,
And then he also gave others the courage to also translate the Bible.
In this time
We also know about Martin Luther,
that translated the Bible.
And then in 1633
This text type was still used
when the Elsevier's of the Netherlands published a beautiful Greek new
Translation.
And it said the following in its introduction,
"The reader now has the text received by all
in which we give nothing
changed,
or corrupted."
Now, this translation was very important,
because it became known as
the Textus Receptus.
And the King James Version also came
from the Texas Receptus.
Okay, so that was a lot to take in.
Alright, so just
Breath,
let it sink in a little bit.
Shake it off.
Ready?
Alright, let me try to make it a little bit more simpler for you.
John Wycliffe was the first man that translated the Bible into English,
so that a common man could read it.
But it was translated from the latin vulgate,
and then William Tyndale came who was the first person,
That translated the scriptures from
the original Greek and Hebrew.
Tyndale's New Testament was printed in
1525
and he was busy with translating the Old Testament,
when the Roman Catholic Church
Murdered him.
But Tyndales work inspired many,
and the Catholic Church could not stop it.
Suddenly, a lot of translations started to come up.
1533 the Coverdale's Bible
1537 Matthew's Bible
1539 Taverners, and also the Great Bible
1560 the Geneva Bible
1568 the Bishop's bible
1611 the Authorised Bible.
So William Tyndale's
translation of the English Bible,
was the first Bible that was based on the original Hebrew and Greek texts.
and more than 80% of it is still preserved
Today in the Bible,
that we know as the King James version.
And he gave his life for it.
The King James Bible came out in 1611.
It is of course a revision,
and for many people they view it as the
final book of the Bible.
The final book of God's Word.
There's still a lot of people who view it as such,
even today.
I see a lot of people still in the comments of some of my videos.
Who still claim that only the King James Version is the only holy book,
and all the other books are just
from the Antichrist.
But let me tell you.
No translation is ever final.
There's always room for improvement
Why?
Because language change over time.
For example,
My first language is not English.
When I read the King James Version
It is so difficult for me to understand what they're really saying.
Anyway.
So, Language change over time.
The second reason is they found new Greek
manuscripts.
And when they found these new manuscripts.
They found weaknesses in the King James Version.
So,
They said it is time for revisions.
Let me just explain this very quickly.
The King James Version comes from
the Texas Receptus.
Right, as I mentioned before.
And many people felt uncertain about the Texas Receptus,
because when
Erasmus translated the Bible he only had five or six
Manuscripts to do it,
and here's the thing.
All those manuscripts were only from the 10th and 11th centuries.
But then suddenly they found older
manuscripts.
They discovered the old unkilled manuscripts in Egypt,
and this new text type.
I became known as the Alexandrian text.
Among these old manuscripts were the
Codex Sinaiticus
and the codex Vaticanus.
Now, this is very, very important.
So, listen up.
The codex Sinaiticus,
is the oldest and dated to
350 AD
And it is not, just a small piece of the New Testament.
This manuscript
Was the whole New Testament.
The Greek New Testament
And then when they study the Alexandrian text type.
When they compared it to Texas Receptus,
it was mostly the same.
But they found a few differences.
So it was very clear that as the number of the old Greek
manuscripts.
When they found more, and more, and more of them,
And they compared it with only those five,
or six that they had,
from Constantinople.
A lot of people called for a revision of the Bible.
A new edition and it was done in
1881
published by Cambridge University Press,
and
edited by Bishop Brook Foss Westcott,
and
Fenton John Anthony Hort in 1881
Wow, these guys had a lot of names,
but anyway,
this new version was called,
The critical Greek New Testament.
Now remember
I told you they found a few weaknesses in the King James Version,
That made it necessary for revision.
Well, now I'm going to tell you a few of those weaknesses,
and all of you that believe that the King James
Version is the only
Holy book of God.
This is very important for you,
to also listen up.
Because you have to remember,
as I said in the previous video
that the Bible was never written
in English.
But it was written in
Hebrew,
and in
Greek.
So I'm going to tell you something interesting,
So listen up.
So the first weakness,
Is that the King James Version comes from Erasmus edited Greek New Testament.
Which he did from five or six old manuscripts dated to
the 10th
or 11th centuries.
And it did have a few scribal mistakes.
Like 1 John 5 or 7 that they
Included in the Bible,
and it was only found in one,
or two of the 10th,
or 11th century manuscripts
but not one of the manuscripts older than the 6th century had this verse in it,
and that is also why other
translations are different,
and they don't have this verse in it,
and second the King James version has many
Misleading words in it.
Because it uses words from the 17th century.
That means something different, from what it means today.
For example,
The word
Alleged
was used for proof.
Communicate for share,
suffer for allow,
and allow for approve.
Let for hinder,
prevent for prolute.
Conversation for conduct,
and so forth.
Now for those whose first language is not English,
the King James version
is very, very hard to understand.
By the way,
My first language is Afrikaans.
Which sounds a little bit more like Dutch,
which is where it originally comes from.
But some of the words that doesn't make sense to me,
Are words like,
Howbeit,
Holden
Per adventure,
Thee,
thou,
Thy,
Thine,
and many others..
Third the King James Version also includes a few translation errors.
Now, you've got to remember that
Greek and
Also Hebrew,
both were subjects that they only started to seriously study at that time,
and then made a few mistakes.
for example
Mark 6:20 the King James Version says
That Herod put John the Baptist in prison and
Observed him,
but correctly translated
It means
that he kept him safe.
And then another example is,
1 Thessalonians 5:22 the King James Version says,
"Abstain from all appearance of evil."
but correctly translated.
It should be,
"abstained from every form of evil."
So you see there's a few small errors in a Bible,
but it's nothing to do with the
Fundamental doctrines of Scripture.
So it doesn't take anything away from the
main message of Scripture
So with all that said if you ask me.
Is the King James Version a good translation?
I would say yes, of course.
I mean
There are a lot of bad translations out there, as well.
But there's also a lot of good ones.
But another issue that I have the King James Version,
is that it creates
distinctions in places where
they shouldn't be,
because it's not found in the Greek.
For example
Acts 17:19 mentions,
"Areopagus",
and verse 22 says,
Mars hill,
but the greek word here is actually the same.
So it's talking about the same place here,
and so other
translations they got it,
right.
But then again,
in other parts the King James Version fails preserve,
the distinctions made in the Greek.
A good example,
is the persistent use of the word hell,
for both
Hades,
and Gehenna.
I actually only learned about this recently.
In Revelation 20:14
"It sounds like death and hell are made to be thrown into the lake of fire."
But correctly translated,
the word Hades should be used here.
Now,there's more examples and I can also talk about other translations.
I probably will in another video.
But this was a lot for now.
So let me just finish this off by saying one more thing.
What is interesting,
Is that most people, who criticize the Bible.
They say and think that the Bible got worse over time.
because it's translated from one translation,
to another,
and to another,
and so so on, and so forth,
but now you
Know the truth because as time went on
It actually got more accurate.
Because they found more
of the older Greek,
and Hebrew manuscripts
especially the thousands of Dead Sea Scrolls.
Dated to 408 BC - 318 AC
So it means that you can trust God's Word.
Now, in the next video.
We're gonna continue this and I'm gonna tell you the exact Bible versions.
Translations as well,
that I believe that you can read,
and that you can trust to be God's Word.
Now remember,
God loves you,
and I love you, too.
Bye
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