Battle of the Bibles - Present Truth

handed to the revisers stipulated that changes were to be limited to "plain and clear"
errors, the finished revision brought forth a staggering 36,000 changes in the English of
the KJV and close to 6,000 in the Greek Text.
Canon Cook had no doubts as to the origin of those changes:
"By far the greatest number of innovations, including those which give the
severest shocks to our minds, are adopted on the authority of two manuscripts, or even
one manuscript, against the distinct testimony of all other manuscripts, uncial and
cursive .... The Vatican Codex, ... sometimes alone, generally in accord with the Sinaitic,
is responsible for nine-tenths of the most striking innovations in the Revised Versions"
(Cook, "Revised Version", pp 227, 231; cited in "Our Authorised Bible Vindicated", pp
175, 176).
It should be a matter of great concern for all honest Christians that the vast
majority of succeeding revisers have enthusiastically followed the fraudulent example of
Westcott and Hort.
A quick glance over the foregoing analysis shows a decided trend on the part of
modern versions to emulate and build upon the doubt fostering suggestions and
depravations of the Revised Version.
Yet, another very significant observation is pertinent. Glancing back over the
foregoing comparison of Scripture, one is struck by the frequent absence of conflict
between the Douay and the King James Version, especially in those texts which deal
with the divinity of Christ and His incarnation. Why is it that the Douay stays closer to the
KJV than most later versions? Is it, as claimed by the Roman Church, because the
translators of the KJV relied heavily on the Catholic Vulgate? The short answer is no!
And, here are two reasons. First, let us hark back to the times of Constantine, Eusebius
and Jerome, that have been discussed in Section two, Chapter fourteen.
Both the Sinaiticus and the Vaticanus manuscripts are thought to be surviving
copies of the fifty Bibles, which Constantine commissioned Eusebius to produce. Being
written on vellum (animal skins), and later being made redundant with the official
adoption by Rome of Jerome's Latin Bible, it is not surprising that they have survived in
isolation.
We have noted how Jerome was sensitive to the criticism of the Milan
(Waldensian) scholars who used the Itala type Bible (later branded by Rome as the
Waldensian Bible). This early Bible was known as the Latin Vulgate or popular Bible. As
a measure of the esteem in which the Itala (Vulgate) was held, even by the Roman
clergy, let us be reminded of what the celebrated Augustine (354-430 AD) had to say:
"Now among translations themselves, the Italian (Itala) is to be preferred to the
others, for it keeps closer to the words without prejudice to clearness of expression "
("Nicene and Post Nicene Fathers", [Christian Lit Ed] Vol. II p 542).
As noted in chapter fourteen, in the interests of professional credibility Jerome
also consulted early Greek manuscripts (such as would have been available to Lucian),
and so ended up with a Bible that was closer to the Itala than Constantine's Bible
produced by Eusebius. This is not to say that Jerome's Bible did not contain error. It did,
for it was a compromise! Today, his Bible could be described as an ecumenical version
in the language of the common people.
However, it took centuries for Jerome's Bible to gain popularity and eventually it
assumed the name first given to the Itala, "the Vulgate". Even so, a full millennium later,
at a time when the return of Greek literature and learning were dispelling the gloom of
the Dark Ages, notable Catholic scholars were still denigrating Jerome's Catholic
Vulgate.
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