A New Look at the Text of the Bible

A New Look Regarding the Original Text of the Bible
a History of the Text and the Church

THE HISTORY OF CHRISTENDOM

Throughout the Middle Ages, both the Orthodox and the Roman Catholic religions continued to be heavily involved in politics, worldly intrigues, and wars. Did the Protestant Reformation of the 16th century mark a return to true Christianity, separate from the world?

We read in The New Encyclopedia Britannica: "The Protestant Reformers of the Lutheran, Calvinist, and Anglican traditions . . . remained firmly attached to the views of Augustine, for whose theology they felt a particular affinity. . . . Each of the three main Protestant traditions of 16th-century Europe . . . found support from the secular authorities in Saxony [central Germany], Switzerland, and England and remained in the same position vis-a-vis the state as had the medieval church."

Rather than bring about a return to genuine Christianity, the Reformation brought forth a host of national or territorial churches that have curried favor with the political states and actively supported them in their wars. In fact, both the Catholic and the Protestant churches have fomented religious wars. In his book An Historian's Approach to Religion, Arnold Toynbee wrote concerning such wars: "They exhibited Catholics and Protestants in France, the Netherlands, Germany, and Ireland, and rival sects of Protestants in England and Scotland, in the brutal act of trying to suppress one another by force of arms." The present-day conflicts that are dividing Ireland and the former Yugoslavia show that the Roman Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant churches are still deeply involved in the affairs of this world.

Christendom's clergy are more reprehensible in shedding blood than other religious leaders. Why? Because in addition to taking God's name upon themselves, they have taken Christ's too. They thereby obligated themselves to follow the teachings of Jesus. (John 15:10-14) But they have not followed those teachings, thus bringing great reproach upon both God and Christ. The responsibility for bloodshed by the clergy has been both direct, in the Crusades, other religious wars, inquisitions, and persecutions, and indirect, in condoning wars in which members of the churches killed their fellowman in other lands. For example, from the 11th to the 13th century, the clergy of Christendom introduced the Crusades. These resulted in horrible bloodshed and pillage in the name of God and of Christ. Hundreds of thousands were killed. The Crusades included the senseless slaughter of thousands of children who were induced to participate in the Children's Crusade of the year 1212.

In the 13th century, the Roman Catholic Church officially sanctioned another God-dishonoring horror-the Inquisition. It began in Europe and spread to the Americas, lasting for over six centuries. Originated and backed by the papacy, it was a murderous attempt to torture and stamp out all who disagreed with the church. While the church had previously persecuted non- Catholics, the Inquisition was far more extensive in scope. Peter De Rosa, who states that he is a "patriotic Catholic," says in his recent book Vicars of Christ-The Dark Side of the Papacy: "The church was responsible for persecuting Jews, for the Inquisition, for slaughtering heretics by the thousand, for reintroducing torture into Europe as part of the judicial process. . . . Popes appointed and sacked even emperors, demanded that they impose Christianity on their subjects under the threat of torture and death. . . . The cost to the Gospel message was horrendous." The only "crime" of some who were murdered was that they possessed a Bible.

Regarding Pope Innocent III of the early 13th century, De Rosa states: "It has been reckoned that in the last and most savage persecution under [Roman] Emperor Diocletian [third century] about two thousand Christians perished, worldwide. In the first vicious incident of Pope Innocent's Crusade [against "heretics" in France] ten times that number of people were slaughtered. . . . It comes as a shock to discover that, at a stroke, a pope killed far more Christians than Diocletian. . . . [Innocent] had no qualms about using Christ's name to do everything Christ objected to." De Rosa notes that "in the pope's name, [the inquisitors] were responsible for the most savage and sustained onslaught on human decency in the history of the race." Of Dominican inquisitor Torquemada in Spain, he says: "Appointed in 1483, he ruled tyrannically for fifteen years. His victims numbered over 114,000 of whom 10,220 were burned."

This writer concludes: "The record of the Inquisition would be embarrassing for any organization; for the Catholic church, it is devastating. . . . What history shows is that, for more than six centuries without a break, the papacy was the sworn enemy of elementary justice. Of eighty popes in a line from the thirteenth century on, not one of them disapproved of the theology and apparatus of Inquisition. On the contrary, one after another added his own cruel touches to the workings of this deadly machine. The mystery is: how could popes continue in this practical heresy for generation after generation? How could they deny at every point the Gospel of Jesus?" He answers: "Pontiffs preferred to contradict the Gospel than an 'inerrant' predecessor, for that would bring down the papacy itself." Also lawless was the part that the clergy played in the violent institution of slavery. The nations of Christendom kidnapped many thousands of Africans, took them far from their own lands, and for centuries brutalized them physically and mentally as slaves. Relatively few of the clergy class actively opposed. Some of them even claimed that it was God's will.-See Matthew 7:12.

It was in the year 1095 that Pope Urban II convened the council of Clermont. By that time the land of ancient Palestine had fallen into the hands of people who did not profess Christianity. Therefore, the pope, in what is called "one of the most effective talks in history," urged the vast congregation at Clermont to wage war upon the "infidels" who now held the "holy land." Urban exhorted the crowd:” Christian warriors . . . go and fight against the barbarians, go and fight for the deliverance of the holy places . . . bathe your hands in the blood of the infidels. . . . become soldiers of the living God! When Jesus Christ summons you to his defense, let no base affections detain you in your homes."

Thus the Crusades, or so-called "holy wars," were inaugurated, and continued during the two succeeding centuries. "The pulpits of Europe resounded with exhortations to the Crusades," a historian observes. Another writes: "Bishops went to their dioceses preaching this military Christianity. . . . Monks ordered swords to be made. . . . Europe was now an agitated sea, throwing wave after wave upon Syrian shores." The terrible warfare that thus resulted almost defies description. "All the warlike lusts of the age were set at liberty under the sanction of religion and retributive justice," one historian observed. The deeds of the crusaders include some of the worst massacres, senseless plunderings and wicked atrocities to be read in the pages of history-all perpetrated in the name of Christ! Professor Roland H. Bainton writes: "Here was a war inaugurated by the Church. . . . Crucifixion, ripping open those who had swallowed coins, mutilation-Bohemond of Antioch sent to the Greek Emperor a whole cargo of noses and thumbs sliced from the Saracens-such exploits the chronicles of the crusades recount without qualm. . . . The mood was strangely compounded of barbarian lust for combat and Christian zeal for the faith.” In the Middle Ages professed Christians also fought among themselves, and often with the pope's blessing! Regarding such internal wars of Christendom, the historian J. C. Ridpath said: "The papal sanction was an important factor in all the conflicts of the Middle Ages, and to obtain this the secular princes were wont to bid against each other as in a market."

Later, beginning about 1517, the religious revolt that produced Protestantism increased the fighting and killing among the peoples professing Christianity. G. M. Trevelyan, as professor of history at Cambridge, wrote:"Religion was in that age almost the sole intellectual and moral influence, [yet] . . . humanity was no part of its special teaching. It must indeed be allowed that religion was then associated with the rack, the stake, the burning town, the massacre of women and children, the hate that never dies, the wrongs that can never be avenged. The greatest mass of mental suffering and physical pain that Europe has undergone since the barbaric ages was brought about by the partially successful struggle of the Catholic reaction to recover revolted Christendom." The Roman Catholic Church fought savagely to bring protesters, or Protestants, back within the fold. Protestants strongly resisted. Antwerp, for example, was besieged in 1576, and one history says: "Those gentle messengers of Holy Mother Church, the Spanish soldiers, went into the fight with these cries upon their lips, 'Saint James, Spain, blood, flesh, fire, sack!' Eight thousand men, women and children were murdered."

The Thirty Years' War (1618-1648) between Catholics and Protestants was especially terrible. During it Germany lost some three fourths of its population. Augsburg dropped from 80,000 to 18,000 inhabitants. And only about one quarter of the people of Bohemia remained. The fall of the Protestant city of Magdeburg illustrates the savagery of the fighting. German historian Frederick Schiller writes: "Here commenced a scene of horrors for which history has no language-poetry no pencil. Neither innocent childhood, nor helpless old age; neither youth, sex, rank, nor beauty, could disarm the fury of the conquerors. Wives were abused in the arms of their husbands, daughters at the feet of their parents; and the defenseless sex exposed to the double sacrifice of virtue and life."

BIBLICAL HISTORY OF APOSTASY

These are the facts of history and anyone who tries to play them down or to justify them in the name of religion is just fooling himself. There is only one explanation that fits this period in history. If we look to our Bibles we can see this same history revealed other times. It is a fact of Biblical history that whenever true worship of Jehovah is set up, shortly after that it falls away into complete apostasy. Take for example Adam and Eve where the first true worship was setup. But this did not last long, they sinned and over a period of a few hundred years the whole earth was full of evil and violence. A total worldwide apostasy, except for a small line of true followers such as Able, Enoch and Noah. Then God brought destruction on the world but saved Noah. Then once more true worship was setup with Noah, but shortly again, most of the world fell into apostasy and worship of false gods. Then the small line of true followers were Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Moses. Now a little change, God leaves the rest of the world in their apostate state but forms the nation of Israel out of this small line of true followers with Moses as their first leader. But as anyone knows who has read the Bible, this nation basically became a nation of apostates most of it's existence except for a small line of true followers such as Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, David and the prophets to name a few. And this apostate nation continued up until the appearance of Jesus when true worship was once more setup. Moreover, shortly after that the apostate nation of Israel was destroyed in 70 C.E. So here, we are with the true worship setup by Jesus Christ. But can anyone really believe that after seeing the history of man concerning true worship; believe that this time man was able to keep true worship going for 2,000 years nonstop?

No, the truth of the matter is true worship started to fade after the death of the Apostles, then the greatest degree of apostasy set in with Constantine the Great in the early 4th century, from then on it became a world wide apostasy of true Christian worship with just a small line of faithful followers. Then it only makes sense that we are to look to Jesus' return to setup true worship once more for a final time before the end of the system of this world. Therefore, for anyone including Mr. Hill to say the true church has been here since the days of the apostles is just fooling himself and does not know Biblical history.

CONCLUSION

Then the conclusion of the matter of a true Bible or of true manuscripts is that there is no True Bible or manuscript text without flaw. God did preserve his word in the combination of all manuscripts and the textual criticism of the later years has helped to clear some of the difficulties out of the way. Then what is left is not as important as some want to think. Does it really change everything if we have two manuscripts where one says "Jesus Christ the son of man" and another says at the same place "Jesus Christ the son of God" when these to forms are used through out the books of the four gospels. However, God's true word is preserved in what we have today, we do not need a perfect word for word replication of the originals to learn about God and Jesus to be saved. Moreover, as some proof of this fact, what Greek Text did the people use who lived from 33 C.E. to the completion of the writings around 100 C.E.? Most of them had no written New Testament, as they were taught orally, not from inspired Bible writers directly, So what words did they use to teach with? Were they the exact words that would be used in the writing of the Greek Scriptures that had not even been written yet? It is the message conveyed that is important, not the literal words.