Doubt in the Bible Behind Cultural Decay

For Bible believers who are looking for a reason for the current cultural crisis, they need look no further than the modern Bible versions.

A recent study indicates that there is a growing number of people who call themselves Christians yet don`t really believe the Bible to be God`s Word. News makers have labeled them the "Christian left," or "progressives." Research indicates that they are very short on beliefs that match the biblical doctrines. Over 82 percent of those who identified themselves as conservative or the "Christian right" opposed same-sex marriage; 59 percent of the progressives were in favor of it.

While the conservative Christians believe that the cause of America`s problems is moral decay, progressive Christians consider poverty and discrimination  to be the causes.

Sixty-seven percent of conservatives agreed that: "If enough people were brought to Christ, social ills would take care of themselves." Only 15 percent disagreed. Progressives were almost exactly opposite with 61 percent disagreeing and only 13 percent agreeing. The heart of the matter came out in their views on the Bible. Eighty-four percent of conservatives and only 22 percent of progressives viewed the Bible as the "Word of God." Twenty-one percent of progressives viewed the Bible as simply "one important source of wisdom," and 36 percent stated that it only "contains" the Words of God.

Linguist David W. Daniels, author of Look What`s Missing and several other books on Bible versions, sees a direct connection between the modern versions and this loss of faith in the Bible.

For instance, he was amazed to find that the very doctrines that are being systematically removed from the modern Bibles are the same ones progressives are ignoring. For example, "sodomites" no longer appears in modem versions, replaced by "shrine or temple prostitutes" or even "immoral persons." Specific verses regarding the deity of Christ, like 1 Timothy 3: 16, have taken away the fact that Christ is God become man. It is no coincidence that people have started disbelieving in the Trinity after the removal of crucial words from 1 John 5:7. In Look What`s Missing, Daniels details over 250 scripture verses in 40 modern Bible versions where words, phrases or whole verses are omitted.

He draws comparisons that show that some versions even contradict each other. He shows how footnotes and bracketed verses only raise more doubt in the reader. If the translators couldn`t decide what God really wanted to say, how is the reader going to figure out what is truth?

In Matthew 24:35, Jesus promised His words would remain even if heaven and earth passed away. Daniels asks, "If Jesus made this promise, then where should we look to find them?" So-called "textual scholars" try to tell us that only the original manuscripts were perfect. If so, then Jesus did not keep His word. If we are not sure we have God`s preserved words, then we can pick and choose what we like from the flawed copies of the Bible. From that we get the "Christian left," who believe our salvation is in the government, not in God.

Daniels finishes by pointing the reader to the one version that comes from over 5,000 manuscripts that substantially agree and were faithfully copied and translated. "Jesus did keep His promise," says Daniels. "Honest research points to the King James Bible as God`s preserved words for the English speaking world."


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