Battle of the Bibles - Present Truth

17 Dr Schaff's attitude to Matthew 16:18 is still alive and well among so-called
Protestants. A senior theology lecturer at Avondale College writes for the Seventh-day
Adventist out-reach journal in Australasia, "Signs of the Times".
"The name Peter, in both Aramaic and Greek means 'rock' .... Jesus wisely
declared that he would establish His community on a firm foundation. 'You are Peter and
on this rock I will build my church' (Matthew 16:18). ...
"Jesus however, didn't intend to build his community on Peter as such - but on
Peter as the first of those who would recognise Him as Messiah.
"It was Peter's confession, 'you are the Christ, the Son of the living God'
(Matthew 16:16), that made him the suitable person from which to begin to build the
Messianic community" ("Signs", Vol 107, No 8, 1992).
Such statements clash with true Protestantism as expressed in the Seventh-day
Adventist Bible Commentary: "The name peter is derived from the Greek petros, a stone,
generally from a small slab of stone. The word 'rock' is the Greek petra, the large mass
of rock itself ....
"It [Peter's affirmation] is incidental, not fundamental, that Peter was the first to
recognise and declare his faith .... But Jesus is ever and only the 'Rock' on which the
entire [Church] structure rests" ("SDA Bible Commentary", vol 5, pp 430, 431).
An example of Schaff's domineering efforts to reflect Romanism in the text of the
American Revision is seen in his insistence that the Committee alter the rendering of
Acts 20:28 to read "bishops" instead of "overseers".
As with the English revisers, there was a Unitarian on the American Committee.
His name was Dr Ezra Abbott. Hence it was not unexpected that he should argue
strongly to portray Romans 5:9 as a doxology to God, rather than to Christ. He
succeeded in expressing his view in the margin (See Riddle, "Story of the American
Revised Version", p 32).
Briefly, we have seen how the pagan and papal leprosy of Origen and Jerome
seeped into England and America through the Higher Critical theology of Germany via
two traitors to Protestantism, Newman and Schaff. Thus Rome had sought to stem the
tide of Protestantism's Reform which was flowing from the English-speaking world like a
veritable flood of lifegiving truth.
At the forefront of the tremendous efforts exerted by English-speaking
Protestants in disseminating the King James Bible and translations into foreign
languages was the British and Foreign Bible Society. Formed in 1804 by Protestants for
the spread of Bibles based only on the Received Text, it was shortly to be followed by
other Bible Societies such as The New York Bible Society in 1809 (Now New York Bible
Society, International), and the American Bible Society founded in 1816.
When the Revised Version of 1881 came out in England, the Society immediately
recognised it for what it was - a Roman inspired Bible and refused to distribute it. It was
only logical then, that the Protestant Bible Societies should receive the attention of
Rome, for only a devitalised society could be expected to distribute a devitalised Bible.
In the following chapters we shall briefly trace the history of the Bible Societies
and document their relationship to the Received Text.
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