What time is it?
by: Guest
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Word Count: 3149
What time is it?
When my son, Patrick, was about 10-years old, he liked to collect the sort of junk that’s only interesting to little boys. One of his favorite collections was watches. He had over a dozen at one time as I recall.
Most of these watches were cereal box cheapos, but a few were moderately expensive watches, including my Army “field” watch. Unlike the others, this old watch was rather unsightly with its OD green face all scratched up and its OD green canvas band frayed and soiled from use. Still, though you had to wind it yourself, my old watch gave you the correct time every time. The others, some digital, some windup, were all unreliable, though some more than others. With so many new watches to choose from, I thought it was funny that the oldest, least attractive watch in his whole collection was the only one that gave the correct time.
The current collection of bibles found in Christian book stores today is much like my son’s watch collection. You’ll find the old standard, King James Version Bible and lots of new, modern bibles, many of which include the word "new" in their name – New International Version, New American Standard Version, New World Translation, New Living Translation, even New King James Version and hundreds of others.
I’m not a Bible scholar. I’m not even a scholar. I’m just a Christian. But this Christian has learned some things about all modern bibles every Christian ought to know. The bibles that I speak of are in essence the ones known to Baptists and Protestants, which include the 39 books of the Old Testament and the 27 books of the New Testament but none of the apocryphal books.
Please note that none of the Old Testament era apocryphal books were part of the Jewish canon though they were included in the Septuagint, a Koine Greek translation of the Old Testament riddled with copyist errors that was supposedly completed in Alexandria, Egypt in the 1st Century B.C. In fact, many of the Old and New Testament era apocryphal books have an Alexandrian connection. Likewise, all modern bibles are based on manuscripts that also originated in Alexandria, Egypt.
Remarkably, with the exception of the apocryphal books their bible includes as Scripture, the Catholic bible is more likely to agree with the King James Version Bible than any modern bible. This point is curious, since a Jesuit priest [not to mention, neo-Gnostic Unitarians] sat on the revision committees that produced most modern bibles. It’s almost like the Catholic Church is still trying to make sure the “toy of the laity” is safe [not for the laity but for the Catholic Church].
The Catholic bible is based on Jerome’s revised Latin Vulgate, completed around 400 A.D. Although his Latin Vulgate reveals doctrinal tampering [Compare Genesis 3:15 or Luke 3:3&8 in a Catholic bible with any other bible, and try to guess at the doctrinal implications of the changes.], I think there’s a very good reason Jerome chose not to rely heavily on any of the available Alexandrian manuscripts: Gnosticism.
From the Greek word "gnosis," meaning knowledge, Gnostics believe a lot of weird and sometimes disgusting stuff. For example, since they preach a salvation through knowledge, many Gnostics claim to be Christians because they admire the wisdom in Jesus’ teachings – but not His blood atonement for our sins.
One reason for this doctrine is that Gnostics also have an issue with the concept of sin. They say only that which is immaterial or spiritual matters, so whatever we do in our material or physical bodies is irrelevant. For a Gnostic, morality is relative. Sound familiar? Do you suppose it’s simply coincidental that modern bibles remove or replace words like whore, whoremonger, sodomite, effeminate and fornication? Do a quick Google search of "hieros gamos" and "Borborites" then look for these sex sins in any modern bible [e.g., Deuteronomy 23:17, 1 Kings 14:24, and Romans 1:22-32].
Another reason Gnostics don’t believe in Christ’s blood atonement is that Gnostics don’t believe Jesus is God. Do you think it’s just coincidental modern bibles remove or revise verses that support Christ’s deity? Compare the following doctrines clearly found in the KJV with any modern bible: Jesus the Creator in Genesis 1 & 2 or Ephesians 3:9; Jesus’ virgin birth in Isaiah 7:14 and Luke 2:33 & 43; His blood atonement in Colossians 1:14 and Revelation 5:9; and especially Christ’s deity in Zechariah 13:6, Micah 5:2, Matthew 20:20, Mark 16:9-20, Luke 23:42, John 6:47 and 1 Timothy 3:16. Other dumbed-down doctrines can be found by comparing John 7:53-8:11, Acts 8:37, Romans 6:17, Philippians 2:5&6 or Colossians 2:8-10 in the KJV with any modern bible.
I don’t believe in coincidence. The verses mentioned above represent only a fraction of the thousands of words and verses deleted or changed in all modern bibles, and all these deletions and changes reflect Gnostic doctrines [i.e., Doceticism, Mandaeism, Sabellianism, Basilideanism, Valentianism, Marcionism, Manichaeism, Arianism, Nestorianism, New Ageism, etc.]. As I said earlier, it’s just too coincidental that all modern bibles are based on a few – very few – manuscripts found in or around Alexandria, Egypt, dating to the 4th Century.
And, coincidentally, Alexandria was the Mecca of Gnosticism from before the 1st through the 7th Century. I suppose it’s also coincidental that most Gnostics went underground in the 7th Century, which hailed the start of Islam, which, coincidentally, also denies the deity of Jesus. With such a basic doctrine in common, most Gnostics were probably absorbed by Islam though many apparently hid themselves among Bible-believing Christians. Here’s a brief summary of Alexandrian Gnosticism:
• In the 1st Century, you have the apostles writing against early Gnosticism [doceticism] in various Pauline epistles and the books of James, 2nd Peter, 1st, 2nd and 3rd John and Jude. While trying to establish a church there, the young minister Mark [Gospel of Mark] is martyred in the streets of Alexandria.
• Also in the 1st Century, Alexandria is the home of the Hellenistic Jewish philosopher Philo, who runs a school of philosophy that is far more in tune with Greek mythology, Stoicism and Platonism than Jewish scripture. Oh, and he’s really big on allegory.
• By the early part of the 2nd Century, you have one of the first named Gnostic, Carpocrates of Alexandria. Carpocrates not only denies Christ’s deity, his followers’ reputation for whoremongering and buggery leads church father, Irenaeous, to say they did "all those things which we dare not either speak or hear of."
• Also in the 2nd Century, you have Basilides, an anti-Christ, Alexandrian Gnostic teacher who starts a school and writes some 24 books on the Gospel, with a Gnostic slant, of course.
• Still another 2nd Century Alexandrian Gnostic is Valentinus. He starts his own particular brand of Gnostic schools in both Alexandria and Rome. In fact, Valentinus is almost elected bishop of Rome. One of the other losing candidates for that quasi-political office was a fellow Gnostic, Marcion, who becomes famous for compiling his own version of the New Testament, which he dutifully edits to fit Gnostic doctrines. One of Valentinus’ followers, Tatian, leaves Rome for Alexandria, where he does some writing of his own while teaching Gnosticism at his master’s old school.
• The 3rd Century begins with Clement of Alexandria, who is a student of Pantaenus, a Stoic philosopher, and the already mentioned Tatian, a bona fide Gnostic. Tatian’s student becomes well known for his ability to infuse astrology, the Greek pantheon and Gnostic doctrine with Christianity. Although he claims to reject Gnosticism, Clement incorporates Gnostic thought into his teachings and writings through various New Testament era apocryphal books [i.e., Gospel of Peter, Gospel of Thomas, Gospel of Judas, Apocryphal of John, etc.], which he often quotes as Scripture. Oh, Clement believes Scripture should be read allegorically, not literally. Sound familiar?
• Clement’s most noted pupil is anther 3rd Century Gnostic, Origen of Alexandria. Among various other heresies, Origen is most remembered for introducing the concepts of the preexistence of souls, universal salvation, progressive purification of souls [purgatory] and a hierarchical concept of the Trinity [e.g., God the Son is less than God the Father but greater than God the Holy Spirit]. Hmmmm.
• The 4th Century gives us the most infamous Alexandrian Gnostic of them all, Arius. Like all Gnostics before him, Arius gets himself in a little trouble for teaching that Jesus is not pre-eternal and not co-equal with God the Father, that in fact, Jesus was a created being. Arius’ heretical teachings not only lead to his being excommunicated but become the number one topic on the agenda at the first Council at Nicaea near Constantinople in 325 A.D. One of Arius’ strongest supporters is his old school buddy, Eusebius of Nicomedia, who just happens to be Emperor Constantine’s spiritual advisor. The plot thickens.
• The Arian controversy continues throughout the 4th Century. Athanasius, bishop of Alexandria, and staunch Arian opponent, is deposed by Constantine for refusing to accept Arius back into the church. In 336 A.D., Arius dies under very mysterious circumstances as does Constantine the following year. Through manipulations by Eusebius of Nicomedia, who is now bishop of Constantinople, an Arian Gnostic priest, Gregory of Cappodocia, is installed as bishop of Alexandria around 440 A.D. Another Arian Gnostic priest, the notorious George of Cappodocia, is made bishop of Alexandria around 456 A.D. Still a third Arian Gnostic priest, Pistus, is installed as bishop of Alexandria around 461 A.D. During this tumultuous period [420 to 470 A.D.], a few copies of bible manuscripts are produced in and around Alexandria that disagree with the majority of older Bible manuscripts [i.e., Old Latin Vulgate, Italic, Peshitta, etc.] in thousands of words and verses, while yet agreeing with Gnostic doctrines. It’s just too coincidental!!
Though Eusebius of Nicomedia got himself into trouble for his support of Arius, he later persuaded Constantine to accept him back and even managed to get himself appointed as bishop of Constantinople, the emperor’s residence. He was also able to convince the emperor to forgive Arius. Hmmmm.
I should mention by this point that the head of the church in Rome, Constantinople, Alexandria and all the larger churches was no longer Christ but the emperor. Nearly 300 years of bloody persecution couldn’t stop the spread of Christianity, but political compromise ebbed the tide of evangelism for the next 1,200 years. The church in Rome married itself to the government of Rome, which soon swallowed up most of the other churches within Roman jurisdiction. And by corrupting certain New Testament ordinances and making them into sacraments, soon the Roman, Greek and Coptic Catholic Churches became filled with non-regenerate members, thus taking the world into the Dark Ages.
There remained, of course, several smaller church groups and believers who did not submit to Rome and continued to practice the independence of the local church, the priesthood of believers [but no office of priest], baptism by immersion as a testimony of faith in the death, burial and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ while rejecting the concept of infant baptism – all through the authority of the Bible as taught in the New Testament. These "Anabaptists" [re-baptizers], as they were called by their enemies had been persecuted by Roman pagans; now they would be persecuted by Roman, Greek and Coptic Catholics. But that’s another essay. If you’d like more information on the history of Baptists, I recommend Dr. J.M. Carroll’s "Trail of Blood" and James Beller’s "America in Crimson Red" or "The Coming Destruction of the Baptist People."
Getting back to Eusebius of Nicomedia, he and his Gnostic buddy, Arius, had an ally in Eusebius of Caesarea, the Catholic historian. According to tradition, one of the Eusebiuses provided Emperor Constantine with 50 copies of the Bible. Because it was written on vellum [as if it was for some special recipient], the "Codex Vaticanus" – discovered in the Vatican in the 15th Century but dated to the 4th Century and originating in Alexandria – is believed to be one of those 50 bibles.
Now, just because both Eusebiuses supported Arianism, you don’t suppose either of them would have been tempted to provide their good emperor with a bible that had been infected with Arius’ Gnostic doctrines? Nah. The other infamous Alexandria text, "Codex Sinaiticus," also written on vellum, was stolen from a convent at Mt. Sinai in the 19th Century. The nuns there were using this Gnostic trash for what it was truly useful – to start fires. Though these two Alexandrian texts disagree with each other in thousands of places, they agree to disagree with the KJV tens of thousands of times, always at key words and verses that otherwise support Christ’s deity and absolute moral standards.
Here are the basic facts: of the over 5,200 known bible manuscript fragments, the majority [over 90 percent or roughly 4700 manuscripts] agrees with the KJV. Over 5 percent agree mostly with the KJV, while less than 5 percent agree with the doctrinally dumbed-down modern bibles, which were based exclusively on these minority manuscripts, all of which are from Alexandria [a.k.a., Gnostic Headquarters]. We’re told by so-called bible scholars it’s just coincidental that these new bibles only disagree with the overwhelming majority of bible manuscripts where key words, verses or entire chapters deleted or changed in their bibles would otherwise contradict Gnostic doctrines. I don’t think so. Do you?
I believe what we find in all modern bibles is a neo-Gnostic revival that began in the 16th Century with German Rationalism. Coincidentally, historians tell us the followers of Arius continued to flourish among the Germanic tribes in the region that is now France, Austria, Germany, Scandinavia, Eastern Europe and the Balkans well into the 7th Century. Catholic leaders falsely accused various Anabaptist groups of the Gnostic heresy during the next 1000 years. This charge was probably made as justification for murdering Donatists, Paulicians, Waldensians, Petrobrussians, Henricians, Lollards and others by the tens of millions because they trusted the Bible as their authority, rather than the hierarchal church establishment.
Because most of their writings were destroyed along with them, it’s difficult to ascertain exactly what any non-Catholic Christian community believed, particularly against the backdrop of lies propagandized by their murderers. And though there’s some evidence of dualist beliefs attributed to otherwise Bible-believing Christians [i.e., Bogomils, Cathars, and others], the real Gnostics were probably hiding themselves among these believers and are thus partly responsible for their slaughter. They were the tares among the wheat. After the Protestant Reformation was underway, these real Gnostic serpents felt free to slither out from under their rocks and espouse their heresy with greater liberty than the aforementioned Anabaptists, who found themselves now persecuted by the new hierarchal churches.
And what did German Rationalism give us? By the 17th Century, it had given us a revival of pre-Socratic Naturalism, Humanism, Secularism, Deism and Socinianism/ Unitarianism. Hmmmm. After festering a while among these neo-Gnostics, the 19th Century gave us Jehovah’s Witnesses and Mormons, along with the heresies of Darwinism, Communism, Freudism and biblical criticism. By the 20th Century, the latter movement was giving us our wonderful modern bibles, which can proudly look back to Alexandrian Gnostics as their author.
I recall Pastor Brooks Grimes, Jr. of Northview Baptist Church reading a newspaper article to his congregation, as he often does in order to inform us of what’s happening in “religious” news. The article, by Dr. Billy Graham, admitted the hundreds of new bibles are "confusing" but claimed they’re all "basically" the same. That’s not true, Mr. Graham. As surely as God is not the author of confusion, He’s not the author of these modern Gnostic bibles either! These doctrinally dumbed-down bibles fulfill Paul’s warnings to the young minister, Timothy:
“Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils” (1 Timothy 4:1)… “Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine. For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables” (2 Timothy 4:2-4).
Gnosticism didn’t originate in 1st or 4th Century Alexandria. It’s true author is the father of lies. With knowledge as the enticement in the Garden and today, Satan, the father of Gnosticism still tempts us with a lie, saying, “ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.” Modern day Gnostic authors like Dan Brown and Kathleen McGowan aren’t teaching anything new, though millions seem to think so. And yet, the fact that so many have bitten into this Gnostic lie today says so much about where we are on God’s dispensational clock.
The most important knowledge missing from all modern bibles is fear of the Lord. And with each new generation of modern bibles, even more knowledge – truth – comes up missing. All bibles, therefore, are not the same, for like my son’s watch collection, only one Bible will give you true knowledge and the correct time, or signs of the times – the KJV. Does your bible teach sound doctrine or the doctrine of Gnostic devils? Can you answer the question, "What time is it?"
For more specific information about the bible version controversy, I recommend the faithful scholarship of Dr. Doug Stauffer, One Book Stands Alone and The Da Vinci CON, Dr. Mickey Carter, Things That Are Different Are Not the Same, and Dr. G.A. Riplinger, New Age Bible Versions.
About the Author
RC Murray is a former paratrooper now disabled veteran who left a good job as a technical writer for a satellite manufacturing plant to teach high school English. He soon learned he couldn't require his students to read their literature assignments, that he was instead to read to/for them. Essays and other projects had to be done in a small group setting so his "diverse" learners could be assisted [copy the work of] by academically gifted kids forced to be in the same dumbed down class via a policy called "mixed ability grouping." For his refusal to "address the needs of diverse learners," Murray was constantly harassed by both parents and administrators for his "low class averages" and "high failing rates." Their constant harassment caused him to have a stroke at the start of his third year teaching then a mini-stroke only five days before he quit teaching. After leaving the classroom, Murray returned to being a technical writer, but he has dedicated the rest of his life to warning parents about what's really going on in public schools. His book, "Legally STUPiD: Why Johnny doesn't have to read," and his website, www.voicefromthepews.com, are his primary means of informing the public. However, with the support of various conservative organizations, like the Exodus Mandate Group, Issues in Education, NewsWithViews.com and others, the information he has to share is getting out there. As he says throughout his book, someone wants to control knowledge, all knowledge -- academica and biblical knowledge.
Rating: 5.00
Comments
Thank you! You are the man!
Amen!