Battle of the Bibles - Present Truth

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We shall now proceed to follow the early Christian Church and see how Origenism came to flood the emerging Roman Catholic Church through Eusebius and Jerome in the fourth century; and how that very distinguished Catholic theologian of the mid-nineteenth century, Cardinal Newman, was able to show what a powerful hold Origen still held over the philosophy of Catholicism: "I love ... the name Origen. I will not listen to the notion that so great a soul was lost" (Newman, "Apologia pro vita sua", Chapter VII, 3rd Edition p 282). Chapter Thirteen Early Christian Missionaries It is easy for present-day Christians to forget that the first Christians, as with Jesus and His disciples, were Jews. With the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD there was a great migration to Syria, including the area around Antioch where the followers of Christ were first called "Christians". The writings of the apostles, which were in Koine Greek (or the common language of the day), were carefully collected and taken to Antioch where they were translated into Syriac about the year 150 AD. This translation came to be known as the Peshitta, or common language Bible (See Hort, "Introduction", p 143). Copies of this Bible were eagerly sought by the expanding Syrian Church and were taken by its missionaries eastward into Persia, India and even into China! But there was also a great need for a Latin translation, for it must be remembered that at the time, the Roman Empire included Asia Minor (now the Western portion of Turkey), Greece, Italy, Southern Europe and parts of Britain. Paul and Barnabas had already introduced Christianity to the Jews and the pagans of Galatia, which was then a Roman province. The Galatians were descendants of a fiery Celtic race of Gauls who occupied an area in what is now known as France. They had subdued Italy over four centuries earlier, and then, being driven out by the emerging Roman Empire, had remained isolated in Asia Minor. Hence the name "Galatia" (Ridgeway, "The Early Age of Greece", Vol. I p 356). The Galatians still maintained links with the Gauls and although they used the Latin language of the Roman Empire, they also retained their Gallic language. They were ideally suited to take Christianity westward. To suit their needs the Koine Greek manuscripts from which the Peshitta originated, were translated into Latin in 157 AD. This was a forerunner of what came to be known as the Itala Bible. It was eventually carried westward by Celtic missionaries as far as Britain, for these people also had come to know Latin from their Roman conquerors. It will be recalled that, after leaving Galatia, Paul continued his missionary journey to Greece. Such places as Athens, Philippi, Thessalonica and Corinth are inseparably connected with early New Testament history. The letters which Paul wrote to the believers were in Greek, so they had received much of the New Testament Canon first-hand. In God's providence, within the lifetime of the generation following the apostles, the civilised world had the benefit of the gospel recorded in Greek, Latin and Syriac languages. In the middle of the third century, there was born in Antioch one who was to have a lasting influence on Christianity. His name was Lucian. Antioch by this time was a thriving Roman metropolis, but it was also a centre of Greek life and culture. 4
Perhaps more importantly, it had, by Lucian's time, superseded Jerusalem as the centre of Christianity. When he was about ten years of age, Lucian was brought face to face with the realities of imperial politics when Shapur I, the Persian Monarch, waged war against Rome and took the Emperor captive. Antioch now came under Persian rule. Many Syrian Christians were taken to Persia as captives and with them they took their Peshitta Bibles. But it was not long before the Roman Empire was revitalised by an energetic Emperor named Aurelian. He regained most of the lost territories, including Antioch. By this time Lucian was a very well-educated man in his early twenties. Erelong, Roman and Alexandrian Bishops arrived, and began pressing their Romanised doctrines onto the Bishop of Antioch. Lucian noticed that the Scriptures which they used were substantially different from those being used by Syrian Christians. Being a committed Christian in the apostolic tradition, he determined to resist the Gnostic philosophy that characterised these Bibles, and to reject the growing notion of the supremacy of the Bishop of Rome who was exalting his position by using deceptive writings of an Apocryphal nature which supported the primacy of Peter (Source - Shotwell and Loumis, "The See of Peter", p 122. Cited by Wilkinson in: "Truth Triumphant", pp 49, 50). Lucian was associated with the creation of a theological school in Antioch in which he taught and where he strove to protect the Apostolic Church from the inroads of heresy. Wilkinson cites Gilly, Fisher and Eusebius who tell us that in Lucian's day there "Were at least eighty heretical sects all striving for supremacy" and that "Mutilations of the Sacred Scriptures abounded because each took unwarranted licence in removing or adding pages to the Bible manuscripts" ("Truth Triumphant", p 50). As a counter to spurious Scriptures, Lucian determined to certify the Apostolic New Testament by editing the Peshitta and he also translated the Hebrew Old Testament into Greek. According to Nolan, this version held sway in Constantinople and in most of the East ("The Integrity of the Greek Vulgate", p 72). Thus we can attribute to this Christian scholar the honour of producing a complete Bible, which established what has become known as the Traditional or Byzantine Text from which eventually came the Textus Receptus Bibles (Received Text) of the Protestant Reformation. (See the "Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church", 1958 p 826). Like so many of the following champions of the Traditional and Received Text, Lucian met a martyr's death in 312 AD. Chapter Fourteen Dividers of the Faith The Christians of the early fourth century must have welcomed the news of Emperor Constantine's conversion to Christianity (circa 313 AD). For long and weary years, they had felt the oppressive heel of Diocletian, the pagan Roman Emperor, who used the forces of the State in a cruel but futile effort to crush their faith. Did those Christians realise that Constantine's "conversion" was merely a political ploy to unite his Christian and pagan subjects under a form of government that espoused an acceptable mixture of their two philosophies? Where persecution had failed to check the spread of Christianity, it was thought that compromise would bring about peace and unity. Constantine looked around for a form of spiritual authority by which he could control the hearts and minds of both parties. What better authority than a Bible contaminated by Origen's penchant for allegorising Bible events or a Bible that could be interpreted to suit both pagan and Christian philosophies! 5
Page 1 and 2: Table of Contents By way of introdu
Page 3 and 4: Section One Chapters One to Eleven
Page 5 and 6: Wycliffe's unpretentious priests gl
Page 7 and 8: Chapter Two Colet and Erasmus Desid
Page 9 and 10: friends rallied around him and with
Page 11 and 12: day but they have taken on a more v
Page 13 and 14: With Erasmus's translation, Tyndale
Page 15 and 16: Jane Seymour, the third of Henry's
Page 17 and 18: On March 27, 1555, at the tender ag
Page 19 and 20: attacked and destroyed monasteries
Page 21 and 22: convenient to quit his position as
Page 23 and 24: This was the apogee of Philip's rei
Page 25 and 26: • That Scripture can only be inte
Page 27 and 28: Finisterre in North Western Spain t
Page 29 and 30: negotiated with winds not always fa
Page 31 and 32: for Protestantism to bring forth a
Page 33 and 34: Section Two Chapters Twelve to Fift
Page 35: which they themselves have shortene
Page 39 and 40: Wilkinson sees this as proof that e
Page 41 and 42: "Having continued his labours in Sc
Page 43 and 44: John, in his final years, assisted
Page 45 and 46: (By the late nineteenth century, th
Page 47 and 48: they not the fathers of the Roman C
Page 49 and 50: It is very important that the signi
Page 51 and 52: Hort's friend, Westcott, had no pro
Page 53 and 54: family, the original of which is re
Page 55 and 56: A relatively small minority, repres
Page 57 and 58: sales were very good, this was enti
Page 59 and 60: 17 Dr Schaff's attitude to Matthew
Page 61 and 62: was formed, known as the Trinitaria
Page 63 and 64: BATTLE OF THE BIBLES 2C H. H. MEYER
Page 65 and 66: So, the leaders of the SDA Church t
Page 67 and 68: It was not long before wishful-thin
Page 69 and 70: "One of the important advancements
Page 71 and 72: BATTLE OF THE BIBLES 2D H. H. MEYER
Page 73 and 74: the Bible and the Bible only. Inexp
Page 75 and 76: "When the Western world was flounde
Page 77 and 78: The following year an editorial in
Page 79 and 80: many young seminarians trained by t
Page 81 and 82: The laity were still not impressed.
Page 83 and 84: BATTLE OF THE BIBLES 2E Chapter Twe
Page 85 and 86: Isaiah 7:14 "Behold a virgin shall
Page 87 and 88:
"A son of God" does not equate with
Page 89 and 90:
him". Luke 2:33 "And Joseph and his
Page 91 and 92:
Here we have further evidence of Ro
Page 93 and 94:
JB "Christ, our, passover, has been
Page 95 and 96:
Here, and in most other passages of
Page 97 and 98:
handed to the revisers stipulated t
Page 99 and 100:
the Protestant Bible. Having achiev
Page 101 and 102:
So, once more, as in the days of Co
Page 103 and 104:
while making a futile attempt to ga
Page 105 and 106:
1560. Goa (Indian) Inquisition esta
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Battle of the Bibles - Present Truth

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