Chapter 10: If It Looks Like a Duck...

MY STORY

By Author David W. Daniels

On August 24th, 1980 “I repented of my sins and won the victory.” Back then I had two Bibles: a Lamsa Bible, a popular seller in the occultic churches and a gigantic, mule-choking King James Family Tree Bible.

I quickly abandoned the Lamsa and faithfully read my King James daily, starting in both Genesis and Matthew. As big as it was, I knew where my faith lay, and I carried that Book with me everywhere.

A well-meaning friend who had talked to me about Christ wanted to relieve me of some of my burden. So, after I was baptized in October of that year, he gave me a gift: a beautiful, brand-new, smaller, easier-to-hold Bible.

I was so excited. Then I looked at the cover: New American Standard.

“What is that?”

“It’s more literal. And it’s easier to understand than your other Bible.”

Though neither of us knew it at the time, my new Bible started me down the path of doubt that this Bible —or any other on earth— could actually be God’s words.

Let me tell you how it happened.

As a newly baptized, repentant believer I longed to understand my new Bible better, so I bought a genuine-leather Ryrie Study Bible, New American Standard. I loved my “Ryrie.” I read all the study notes, outlines and indexes faithfully.

A few months later I started going to Bible college. I was on a high. But everything started going downhill after I got my Ryrie. Here’s why.

Ryrie’s notes often “corrected” the New American Standard, offering a “better” translation. That made it hard to know which to trust: Ryrie or the New American Standard.

At one point I grabbed a Ryrie KJV to see if he liked that translation any better. No way. Ryrie disagreed even more with the KJV. So I stuck with my NAS and pressed on.

When I got to Bible college, one of the first things my professors basically said was:

“God’s words are perfect. But He entrusted His words to imperfect men. Those words are in writings called the “original autographs.” Then men made copies of God’s inspired words. But because men aren’t perfect, lots of mistakes crept in. But don’t worry. The original autographs are perfect and inspired and have no errors. The only thing is, they don’t exist anymore. But have no fear: because of the great work of textual scholars of ancient Alexandria and brilliant men from the 1800s to the present, the text that you now have is certified 99 and 44/100% pure. Besides, all Bibles, even the worst copies, are 99% the same.”

Oh, there were so many questions in my head I should have asked. But come on, who was I? I was just a “new believer,” as they called me.

I was at a disadvantage. I wasn’t raised as a Christian like all these other guys. I wasn’t trained up like these professors. I figured I was just ignorant or missing something, so I kept my questions to myself. But they didn’t go away. Here are some of them:

• If only the “original autographs” are inspired, why didn’t God just keep them on earth? People said that we would commit “Bibliolatry” and worship the Bible —but that’s a flimsy excuse to me. God had the power to inspire His written words. Couldn’t He keep them on earth if they’re the only way we can learn the complete truth about God, faith, salvation, heaven and hell?
• If no one has the “original autographs” to check, then how can we know that what we have is “99 and 44/100%” pure? What if all we have are lousy copies?
• If no one has the “original autographs,” how can we know we have all the books of the Bible? Or how can we know we don’t have one book too many?
• If all the versions of the Bible are “basically the same,” why did people hate the King James Bible so much?

Even though one version completely disagreed with another, we were taught to “weigh” the Bibles against each other and “come to our own understanding” of what we thought each verse said. But there was a catch. Wherever it led us was fine, as long as it wasn’t to the King James Bible.

I had so many conflicts in my mind that first semester that I came close to flunking out of every class. But in the fall semester, I returned dedicated to be a “good student” and studied my heart out.

I learned that we please our professors by spouting the “party line.” And pleasing our professors was how we got good grades. But even though I knew all this, soon I was hooked. I did believe my professors. I became a “true believer” in my favorite teachers, just like other “A” students.

Over the years I moved from the NAS to the ASV, RSV, NEB, NJB and NIV. But I was determined never to trust the KJV. “All Bibles are pretty much as good as one another; except the King James.”

Never again would I simply take any Bible at its word. Instead, I carried around a backpack full of Greek study helps and Bible versions in English, Greek and Hebrew. When I did “Bible study” in the New Testament, it got to where I investigated every word, weighing the “authority” of each ancient text, before I would—tentatively—believe I understood a single verse of the Bible.

Brothers and sisters, that’s not faith. That is doubt, pure and simple. I have not found a single Bible verse that says we are blessed for doubting God.

Years later, another caring Christian asked some very good questions that sent me on a search for the truth. And within a decade, I was forced to admit from the evidence that God had preserved His words through history, and those preserved words in English are the King James Bible —the same Bible I had started with back in 1980.

Now when I walk around, I don’t need a backpack anymore. I just carry God’s preserved words in English, the King James Bible —and I know I can believe every word.

It took 18 years to undo the work of that one well-meaning Christian. Let this be an example to you, the next time you feel tempted to “make it easier” on a new believer in Christ by giving him or her a corrupted Bible.

WHAT'S MISSING FROM THE NEW AMERICAN STANDARD?

Just from my sample of verses in Chapter 17 (and this is by no means exhaustive) in the New American Standard:

• “Lord” is missing 15 times.
• “Jesus” is missing 9 times.
• “Christ” is missing 30 times.
• “Jesus Christ” or “Christ Jesus” is missing 4 times
• “Lord Jesus Christ” is missing 3 times

People not raised on the KJV are growing to doubt that Jesus Christ is God, that Christ is Lord and even the clear Bible doctrine that He is the only way to heaven. You cannot deny it: the Devil’s plan is working.

Remember this: Satan doesn’t want every word omitted; it would be too obvious. Instead, he wants to fuel your doubts about the doctrines of the verses that are left. As Frank Logsdon put it, “It is done so subtly that very few would discover it.”

Does it work? The proof is all around you. Look at the church today. What doctrines are more Evangelicals and others having the greatest problems believing? They are the very doctrines that Satan meant to chip away at, by taking out words, phrases and verses in ancient Alexandrian and modern Bibles.

Here are some more examples from our sampling of verses:

• In Luke 4:8, Jesus’ command to the devil, “Get thee behind me, Satan,” is missing.
• In Mark 9:29; Acts 10:30 and 1 Corinthians 7:5 “fasting” is missing.
• In Matthew 17:21, “prayer and fasting” are both missing.
• “Hell” has almost disappeared, reduced from 54 verses to only 13. Words from Mark 9:45 and all of 9:44 and 46, where Christ repeated Himself in exclaiming the dangers of hell, have been removed as well.

Is it any wonder that doctrines about Satan, prayer, fasting, and the existence and nature of hell, are questioned and doubted by modern preachers, teachers and youth?

• In Luke 24:51, the statement about Jesus’ ascension, “and [was] carried up into heaven,” is missing. But Luke himself, by the inspiration of God, told us he wrote these words. In Acts 1:1-2 Luke wrote: “The former treatise have I made” (referring to the Gospel of Luke) “of all that Jesus began both to do and to teach …until the day in which he was taken up….” How could God make it more obvious that these words belong? But the NAS translators trusted Westcott and Hort and their “textual criticism,” relying on one of their favorite texts, Codex Sinaiticus—even though almost every other manuscript in the world has those words. Should we trust these “scholars,” or what God has preserved?