Part 2 — Different Versions of the Same Book Differ.

No two versions of the same book are alike. The Samaritan Pentateuch does not agree with the Hebrew Pentateuch; the Septuagint Pentateuch agrees with neither.

The Hebrew and the Septuagint have both been accepted by Christians as authoritative. In a single chapter may be found a dozen important variations:

Hebrew.—“And Arphaxad lived five and thirty years and begat Salah” (Gen. xi, 12).

Septuagint.—“And Arphaxad lived a hundred and thirty-five years and begat Cainan.”

Hebrew.—“And Arphaxad lived after he begat Salah four hundred and three years” (13).

Septuagint.—“And Cainan lived a hundred and thirty years and he begat Salah, and he lived after the birth of Salah three hundred and thirty years.”

Hebrew.—“And Salah lived thirty years and begat Eber” (14).

Septuagint.—“And Salah lived a hundred and thirty years and begat Eber.”

Hebrew.—“And Salah lived after he begat Eber four hundred and three years” (15).

Septuagint.—“And Salah lived after he begat Eber three hundred and thirty years.”

Hebrew.—“And Eber lived four and thirty years and begat Peleg” (16).

Septuagint.—“And Eber lived a hundred and thirty-four years and begat Peleg.”

Hebrew.—“And Eber lived after he begat Peleg four hundred and thirty years” (17).

Septuagint.—“And Eber lived after he begat Peleg two hundred and seventy years.”

Hebrew.—“And Peleg lived thirty years and begat Reu” (18).

Septuagint.—“And Peleg lived a hundred and thirty years and begat Ragad.”

Hebrew.—“And Reu lived two and thirty years and begat Serug” (20).

Septuagint.—“And Ragad lived a hundred and thirty-two years and begat Serug.”

Hebrew.—“And Serug lived thirty years and begat Nahor” (22).

Septuagint.—“And Serug lived a hundred and thirty years and begat Nahor.”

Hebrew.—“And Nahor lived nine and twenty years and begot Terah” (24).

Septuagint.—“And Nahor lived a hundred and seventy-nine years and begat Terah.”

Hebrew.—“And Nahor lived after he begat Terah an hundred and nineteen years” (25).

Septuagint.—“And Nahor lived after he begat Terah a hundred and twenty-five years.”

Hebrew.—“And Terah took Abram his son and Lot the son of Haran, his son’s son, and Sarai his daughter-in-law, his son Abram’s wife” (31).

Septuagint.—“And Terah took Abram and Nahor his sons, and Lot the son of Haran his son’s son, and Sarai and Melcha, his daughters-in-law, the wives of his sons Abram and Nahor.”

The early Christian versions and manuscripts contain an immense number of different readings, at least 150,000. Dr. Mill discovered 80,000 different readings in the New Testament alone.

Origen, writing in the third century, says: “There is a vast difference betwixt the several editions of the scripture, happening either through the carelessness of the transcribers, or else the forwardness of some who pretend to correct and adulterate the scripture” (Commentary on St. Matthew).

Modern versions do not agree. The readings of the Catholic and Protestant versions are quite unlike: The Protestant versions themselves contain a great variety of readings. The New Version is supposed to be simply a revision of the Authorized Version. The committee that prepared it was governed by this rule: “To introduce as few alterations as possible into the text of the Authorized Version consistent with faithfulness.”

How many alterations were made? More than one hundred thousand!

The following are some of the changes made in the New Testament:

Old Version.—“All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine,” etc. (2 Tim. iii, 16).

New Version.—“Every scripture inspired of God is also profitable for teaching,” etc.

Old.—“And Joseph and his mother marveled at those things which were spoken of him” (Luke ii, 33).

New.—“And his father and his mother were marveling at the things which were spoken concerning him.”

Old.—“These things were done in Bethabara beyond Jordan” (John i, 28).

New.—“These things were done in Bethany beyond Jordan.”

Old.—“God was manifest in the flesh” (1 Tim. iii, 16).

New.—“He [Christ] who was manifested in the flesh.”

Old.—“No man, when he hath lighted a candle, putteth it in a secret place” (Luke xi, 33).

New.—“No man, when he hath lighted a lamp, putteth it in a cellar.”

Old.—“Because strait is the gate and narrow is the way which leadeth unto life” (Matt, vii, 14).

New.—“For narrow is the gate and straitened the way that leadeth unto life.”

Old.—“Our Father, which art in heaven. Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors, and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil: For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen” (Matt, vi, 9–13).

New.—“Our father, which art in heaven. Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done, as in heaven, so on earth. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And bring us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.”

One would suppose that if Christians preserved any part of the Bible free from corruption it would be the prayer of their Lord, a little prayer containing but a few lines. And yet they have not. The so-called Lord’s Prayer that our mother’s taught us is not the Lord’s Prayer. The prayer we learned contains sixty-six words. The Lord’s Prayer contains but fifty-five. The revisers have expunged fifteen words, added some, and altered others.

The last twelve verses of Mark, the first eleven verses of John viii, and 1 John v, 8, three important passages, are all admitted to be forgeries.

Different Copies of the Same Version Differ.

Different copies of the same version contain different readings. St. Jerome’s version was declared a forgery, because it differed so much from the Italic version then in use. Jerome anticipated the charge and met the objection in his preface addressed to Pope Damasus:

“Two things are my comfort under such a reproach: First, that ’tis you, the Supreme Pontiff, that have put me upon the task; and secondly, that by the confession even of the most envious, there needs be some falsity where there is so much variety. If they say that the Latin copies are to be credited, let them tell me which. For there are almost as many different copies as there are manuscripts.”

Prof. Wilbur F. Steele, a noted Christian scholar, relates the following relative to our own version: “In 1848 there was such confusion in the office of the American Bible Society, and such impossibility of telling what should be the reading in many places, that a man was set to work to bring order out of chaos. He took four Bibles from as many leading Bible houses of England, a copy of the American Bible Society, and a copy of the original edition of 1611, all claiming to be the same. These were carefully compared throughout; every variation, no matter how minute, was noted. The number of these variations was about 24,000” (Central Christian Advocate). Twenty-four thousand variations found in six copies of the same version!

Thus we see that different versions of the Bible do not contain the same books; different versions of the same book do not contain the same readings, while even different copies of the same versions disagree. Which is the word of God?

If the Bible had originally consisted of authentic and credible documents its credibility would have been greatly impaired by these wholesale corruptions of the transcribers and translators. But if we had the originals, it is doubtful whether their credibility would be much greater than these distorted copies. Enough remains to show the general character of them, and this is bad. They consist mostly of historical and biographical narratives, interwoven with legends, myths, and fables; crude poetical compositions; the ravings of diseased religious minds, called prophecies and revelations; and theological dissertations, no two of which agree in their doctrines. A few of the books possess genuine merit and deserve a place among the literary treasures of the world, but all of them are fallible.

Remarkable, as coming from a theological professor, but fraught with truth and confirmatory of the statements made in this chapter, are these words of Professor Steele:

“Evidently every letter of the English Bible has not been miraculously watched over. He who has neither eyes nor conscience may affirm it, but persons provided with these can not. If the affirmer hedges by saying he did not refer to translations but to the ‘original,’ we note that (1) translations are the only thing most people have to go to heaven on; and (2) that scholars of truth and conscience find equally as much fault with the ‘original.’”

“There are hundreds, if not thousands, of places in which the scholar finds conflicting testimony.”

In discussing the credibility of the Bible the question of authenticity will, for the most part, be waived. With Christians all of its books are genuine—the writings of those to whom they are ascribed—and for the sake of argument, as well as convenience, these ascribed authors will be recognized.