Battle of the Bibles - Present Truth

the facts of history. Having acknowledged that the Westcott and Hort text "Leans
towards the Vulgate" it claimed:
"This in itself is not a blemish, for it is reasonable to believe that Jerome, when
he was working out that standard Latin version, had access to older manuscripts than
any that were available to the translators of the Authorised Version" (M.E. Olsen, "The
Prose of Our King James Version", p 186).
Such a statement would do credit to the most ardent Roman defender of the
Vulgate and is supportive of the claim that the Roman Catholic Church has been the
guardian of God's Word. It also ignores the fact that the Catholic Latin Version (Vulgate)
has always been in conflict with the Waldensian Bibles (Traditional Text) whose
pedigree dates back to the apostolic area of the Antioch church. The martyr Reformers
would not be impressed!
Here indeed, is an intriguing mystery. Wilkinson's own "received him not". At first
they denounced him and finally ignored him. Yet Dr Fuller, in his preamble to the section
of his book featuring Wilkinson, was able to say that although Dr Wilkinson is practically
unknown to scholars, a careful study of his book reveals his thorough knowledge of his
subject which shows him to be: "A scholar of the first rank" ("Which Bible?", p 174). 19
(19 The author has been told that when Wilkinson's work is occasionally
mentioned by students in the Seventh-day Adventist Colleges and Seminaries, his
efforts are curtly dismissed with the statement that the denomination has long since
Proven his arguments to be worthless. The facts are quite different!)
In 1930 a General Conference committee, appointed to review Wilkinson's book,
delivered a blistering attack on his "unauthorised" work. The author fortunately has a
copy of Wilkinson's reply in which he methodically proceeds to dismantle the
committee's feeble and puerile arguments. Never again did the General Conference risk
another thrashing by attempting to gainsay his book - so it was just ignored.
Furthermore, even as Dr Fuller had decided to arrange his book around
Wilkinson's masterful defence of the King James Version, the Seventh-day Adventist
Church had decided to launch into a career, which can be described as, "Rome's Little
Helper". Far from being content to mal-advise their own church members to "Use the
version of their choice" ("Problems in Translation", 1954, p 75), they now launched a
campaign of public education in which they indiscriminately promoted the modern
versions.
Throughout their history, Seventh-day Adventists have placed great reliance on
the printed word for the spreading of their concept of the gospel - a gospel which they
prefer to describe as "The everlasting gospel", as found in Revelation 14. It is because
they insist on following the Bible as their only guide and rule of faith that their pioneers
arrived at some beliefs that are practically, if not totally, unique to Seventh-day
Adventism.
In order to spread their beliefs they have built up a sizeable publishing business
and a system of door-to-door distribution of books through a large network of supervised
colporteurs.
One such project was a profusely-illustrated book published in 1959 by the
denominationally owned Review and Herald Publishing Association in Washington D.C.,
titled, "Your Bible and You". It has become well known over the intervening a years, not
only to Seventh-day Adventists, but to scores of thousands who recognised the author,
Arthur S. Maxwell, as Uncle Arthur of "Bedtime Story" fame.
"Your Bible and You", as the name implies, sets out to give people confidence in
the Bible as the true Word of God, and it then proceeds to present Adventist beliefs from
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