King James, the Most High and Mighty! Really?
I believe the Scriptures as originally written by men who were inspired of the Holy Spirit are free of error. However, we are thousands of years removed from the original autographs of these men, and if you are like me, the Bibles you read today have been translated into a language unknown to the Hebrew and Greek speaking writers. No matter how careful scribes are, or how much integrity men manifest in producing a Bible translation, errors are unavoidable. It is a sad reality, however, that not all who work on copying or translating Scriptures manifest integrity. In this fallen world we have sin and Satan to contend with. It should come as no surprise that Satan has paid special attention to introducing error into the pages of the Bibles that millions of people read.
II Corinthians 11:3-4
But I am afraid, lest as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness, your minds should be led astray from the simplicity and purity of devotion to Christ. For if one comes and preaches another Jesus whom we have not preached, or you receive a different spirit which you have not received, or a different gospel which you have not accepted, you bear this beautifully.
As much as Christians may protest, the fact remains that the very thing Paul warned against in the verses above has occurred. The serpent by his craftiness has led millions astray from the simplicity and purity of devotion to Christ. One need only observe how the church has lost all practical knowledge of the feast days of Yahweh and have substituted the idolatrous celebrations of Christmas and Easter in their place. In this, they are no different than Jeroboam who erected an altar and golden calf in both Dan and Beersheba as a substitute for the true worship of Yahweh. One can also observe how many churches refer to Sunday as the “Sabbath Day.” The Biblical Sabbath has always been the 7th day of the week. It begins at sundown on Friday and runs until sundown on Saturday. Sunday is the first day of the week, and it is never called the “Sabbath” in the pages of Scripture. Yet the substitution of dates and holy days is merely the tip of the iceberg. So extensive has been Satan’s work in introducing falsehood and corruption to the church that there is hardly an area of doctrine or church life that has not suffered profound alteration. The apostle Paul prophesied the following regarding the state of the church in the last days in which we now live.
II Timothy 4:1, 3-4
But the Spirit explicitly says that in later times some will fall away from the faith, paying attention to deceitful spirits and doctrines of demons... For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires; and will turn away their ears from the truth, and will turn aside to myths.
As one surveys the landscape of Christendom today they will observe thousands of denominations and sects all having embraced discordant beliefs. That great error has permeated the body of Christ is hardly debatable. Millions imbibe the polluted waters of false doctrine weekly as they attend their myriad houses of worship. Seeing that Yahweh has not preserved the church without error, why would believers think that the Bible has escaped unscathed through the millennia? The Scriptures have been in the care of sinful men. They have been copied and translated by people who are subject to all the failings of the sinful flesh. The Bible has been distorted as translators and copyists have been motivated by politics, monetary considerations, sectarian beliefs, and various base impulses.
Does it trouble you to hear one of Christ’s ministers declare that all existing Bible versions contain error today? If it does, perhaps your understanding of the environment that is most suitable for spiritual growth needs correcting. Spiritual beings need an adversarial environment to provide them an opportunity to struggle. It is the struggle that transforms fleshly beings into spiritual. Yahweh in His wisdom has allowed sin to be present in the church, and error to enter into the Scriptures, for He knows that the struggle of each individual to arrive at truth is essential to their attainment of spiritual maturity. Yahweh both tests and judges His children as He observes how they respond to the apostasy that exists in Christendom. Do they struggle against the darkness of error and sin? Or are they complacent, accepting as truth whatever other men and women tell them? In the kingdom of God, it is those who stir themselves up, and prepare themselves to do spiritual battle, who make the most progress. Complacency will consign an individual to become mired in the falsehoods and myths that thousands of years of sin and deceit have produced.
I would exhort Christians to view the presence of myriad and profound errors in the Bibles available to them today as an opportunity to exercise themselves spiritually. Do not think that Christianity cannot exist and flourish without a belief in an inerrant Bible translation today. The fact that the church is leavened with sin and error does not prevent you from walking as an overcomer in Christ. You simply need to rise up, exercise yourself unto godliness, and extricate yourself from the morass that Christendom has fallen into. The fact that all Bibles today contain error, much of it profound, does not prevent you from arriving at the knowledge of the truth. You have the Holy Spirit as your helper, and Yahweh will not withhold truth from those who prove themselves to be lovers of it.
Sir Frederic Kenyon, in his book Our Bible and the Ancient Manuscripts, discusses some of the ways in which error has been introduced into the Scriptures.
Before the invention of the printing press... each separate copy of a book had to be written by hand; and the human hand and brain have not yet been created which could copy the whole of a long work absolutely without error. Often... copies were made hurriedly and without opportunity for minute revision. Mistakes were certain to creep in; and when once in existence they were certain to increase, as fresh copies were made from manuscripts already faulty. If the original manuscripts of the sacred books were still preserved, the errors of later copies would be to us now a matter of indifference; but since the original manuscripts perished long ago, we have to try to arrive at their contents by comparison of later copies, all of which are more or less faulty and all varying from one another...
The Mistakes of Copyists
1. Errors of Hand and Eye - The mistakes of scribes are of many kinds and of varying importance. Sometimes the copyist confuses words of similar sound, as in the English we sometimes find our correspondents write there for their or here for hear. Sometimes he passes over a word by accident; and this is especially likely to happen when two adjoining words end with the same letters. Sometimes this cause of error operates more widely. Two successive lines of the manuscript from which he is copying end with the same or similar words; and the copyist’s eye slips from the first to the second, and the intermediate line is omitted. Sometimes a whole verse, or longer passage, may be omitted owing to the identity of the first or last words with those of an adjoining passage. Sometimes, again, the manuscript from which he is copying has been furnished with short explanatory notes in the margin, and he fails to see where the text ends and the note begins, and so copies the note into the text itself.
2. Errors of Mind - ... Errors of the mind are more dangerous, because they are less easy to detect.
The copyist’s mind wanders a little from the book he is copying, and he writes down words that come mechanically into his head, just as we do nowadays if people talk while we are writing and distract our attention. Some words are familiar in certain phrases, and the familiar phrase runs off the pen of the copyist when the word should be written in some other combination. A form of this error is very common in the manuscripts of the Gospels. The same event is often narrated in two or more of them, in slightly different language; and the copyist, either consciously or unconsciously, alters the words of the one version to make them the same as the other... Thus in Matt. xi.19 the Authorised version has “But wisdom is justified of her children,” as in Luke vii. 35; but the Revised Version tells us that the original text had “works” instead of “children” here, the truth being that the copyists of all but the earliest extant manuscripts have altered it, so as to make it correspond with the account in St. Luke... In Matthew xxiii. 14 a whole verse has probably been inserted from the parallel passages in Mark and Luke, and so with Mark xv. 28. In Luke vi. 48 the concluding words of the parable of the house built on the rock, “because it had been well builded,” have been altered in “many ancient authorities” in accordance with the more striking and familiar phrase in St. Matthew, “for it had been founded upon the rock.” Errors like these increase in the later copies...
3. Errors of Deliberate Alteration - An untrue hand or eye, or an over-true memory may do much harm in a copyist; but worst and most dangerous of all is when the copyist begins to think for himself. The veneration in which the sacred books were held has generally protected them against intentional alteration, but not entirely so. The harmonisation of the Gospel narratives, described in the last paragraph, has certainly in some cases been intentional; and that, no doubt, without the smallest wish to deceive, but simply with the idea of supplementing the one narrative from its equally authentic companion. Sometimes the alterations are more extensive. The earliest Greek translation of the Old Testament contains several passages in the books of Esther and Daniel which are not found in the Hebrew. The long passages, Mark xvi. 9-20 and John vii. 53-viii. 11, which are absent from the oldest manuscripts of the New Testament, must have been either omitted in these, or inserted in others intentionally. If, as is more probably the case, they have been inserted in the later copies, this was no doubt done in order to supplement the Gospel from some other good source, and the narratives are almost certainly authentic, though they may not have been written by the Evangelist in whose Gospel they now appear. There is, however, no reason at all to suppose that additions of this kind have been made in any except a very few cases.
[Source: Our Bible and the Ancient Manuscripts, Sir Frederic Kenyon]
Sir Frederic Kenyon is a bit more optimistic in his view of the extent to which men have deliberately altered the Scriptures than I am. I have found the deliberate alteration of the Scriptures, often to accommodate the errant traditions and orthodoxy of the church, to be quite extensive. It is this latter type of corruption of the Biblical text, errors of deliberate alteration, that concern me the most. The Bible has suffered tremendous alteration in order to satisfy the traditions, beliefs, or agendas of various men. A poignant example of this is observed in the omission of the divine name from the Old Testament. As the title of this series suggests, the Bible is “Yahweh’s Book.” It is a book intended to reveal the Creator to mankind. 6,828 times in the Old Testament the Holy Spirit inspired the prophets to record the memorial name of God. Bible scholars refer to the name of God in the Old Testament as the “Tetragrammaton.” Tetragrammaton is a Greek word meaning “four letters.” In the Hebrew the letters used to spell the name of God are Yod He Vav (Waw) He. This is frequently represented as YHWH or YHVH in English.
Tetragrammaton
Keep in mind that the Hebrew alphabet did not contain vowels. Ancient Hebrew was a consonantal alphabet. This has led to some debate about the proper pronunciation of the Tetragrammaton, with opinions including Jehovah, Yahweh, Yahveh, Yahuweh, and many other variants. Yahweh disclosed His name to Moses when Moses inquired as to whom he should say was sending him to Pharaoh and the Israelite elders.
Exodus 3:14-15
And God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM” (Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh); and He said, “Thus you shall say to the sons of Israel, 'I AM (Ehyeh) has sent me to you.'” And God, furthermore, said to Moses, “Thus you shall say to the sons of Israel, 'Yahweh, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you.' This is My name forever, and this is My memorial-name to all generations.”
The above passage is not the first occurrence of the Tetragrammaton in Scripture. It is first found in Genesis 2:4. “These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created, in the day that Yahweh God (Elohim) made the earth and the heavens...” In fact, the name Yahweh was recorded more than 160 times in the Scriptures preceding Exodus 3:14-15. The name Yahweh should be one of the most frequently occurring words in our English Bibles today. Yet, without exception, all of the most popular Bible versions have removed the memorial name of God from the Scriptures and have replaced it with a titular substitute. In most cases, Yahweh has been replaced with “God,” “Lord,” or “Lord God.” The words Lord and God are NOT names. They are nouns denoting one who is a ruler, and a deity. They are like the word “father.” I am a father, and at times my children may call me “father,” or “dad.” However, neither of these words are my name. They describe my position in the family, but my name is Joseph.
The replacement of the name of Yahweh with a title began with the ancient Hebrews. The Jewish people are renowned for adding to, and taking away from, the word of God. Christ chided them for this 2,000 years ago.
Matthew 15:6
“Thus you have made the commandment of God of no effect by your tradition.”
Mark 7:13
“Making the word of God of no effect through your tradition which you have handed down. And many such things you do.”
The Jewish religious leaders devised what are known as “fence laws.” These were regulations that they devised in order to insure that no man would accidentally transgress a commandment of Yahweh. For example, in the Old Testament Yahweh commanded that a man could not be beaten with more than forty stripes.
Deuteronomy 25:1-3
If there is a dispute between men and they go to court, and the judges decide their case, and they justify the righteous and condemn the wicked, then it shall be if the wicked man deserves to be beaten, the judge shall then make him lie down and be beaten in his presence with the number of stripes according to his guilt. He may beat him forty times but no more, lest he beat him with many more stripes than these, and your brother be degraded in your eyes.
To avoid accidentally transgressing the commandment of Yahweh, the Jewish religious leaders established a law that said a man could only be beaten 39 times. This way they would not accidentally violate Yahweh’s commandment by striking the man one time too many. We see that this “fence law” was practiced in the day in which Paul lived.
II Corinthians 11:24
From the Jews five times I received forty stripes minus one.
One of the more grievous fence laws that the Jews devised was a result of misinterpreting the third of the ten commandments.
Exodus 20:7
“You shall not take the name of Yahweh your God (Elohim) in vain, for Yahweh will not hold him guiltless who takes His name in vain.”
Young’s Literal Translation of the Bible has rendered this verse in the following manner:
Exodus 20:7
“Thou dost not take up the name of Jehovah thy God for a vain thing, for Jehovah acquitteth not him who taketh up His name for a vain thing.”
The Amplified Bible provides this further insight.
Exodus 20:7
You shall not use or repeat the name of the Lord your God in vain [that is, lightly or frivolously, in false affirmations or profanely]; for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes His name in vain.
Apart from bizarrely omitting the actual name of Yahweh from the verse, the Amplified Bible does a good job of relating the sense of this commandment. Yahweh desires that His name be venerated. He wants it to be spoken in a manner that exercises integrity and truth. There are many ways in which a person may vainly utter the name of Yahweh. To make a promise in His name and not keep it is to utter His name in vain. To use His name in jesting, or in the act of cursing, is to use His name in vain. Yet, Yahweh never intended for His people to forbid the utterance of His name. The Holy Spirit surely would not have inspired holy men to record the name Yahweh more than 6,000 times in the Old Testament if He did not want it spoken.
The Jewish leaders, however, created a fence law to make sure that the name of Yahweh was never uttered in an unworthy manner. In essence, they forbid the speaking of the memorial name of God. The ancient Jews were unwilling to alter the Scriptures, so they left the Tetragrammaton in the text of the Old Testament, but they were instructed to speak the word Adonai, which is translated as “Lord.” This was considered less holy, and acceptable to be spoken. Whenever an individual reading the Scriptures in the Temple or the synagogues came across the name of God, they knew to substitute Adonai for Yahweh.
This alteration became further ingrained when the Hebrew Scriptures were translated into Greek. In the Septuagint, there is no indication that Yahweh was ever in the text, for the translators rendered the Tetragrammaton as Kyrios, meaning “Lord.” Thus they followed the tradition of the Jews in substituting Lord for the memorial name of God. This same practice of omitting the name Yahweh became an established tradition due to long practice. The traditions of men have supplanted the divine inspiration of the Creator so that in every one of the most popular English translations sold today, you will no longer find the Tetragrammaton. Whether you read from the King James Version, the New International Version, the Revised Standard Version, the English Standard Version, the New American Standard Version, etc., you will find that the name of Yahweh that the Holy Spirit caused the prophets of old to record nearly 7,000 times has been eradicated from the pages of Scripture. It is hard to imagine a more profound alteration to the word of Yahweh.
The reason that there is so little protest among Christians today regarding this severe deviation from the original text of the Scriptures, is that the popular English Bibles are in accord with the current traditions of the churches. There are a great many Christians today who actually think “God” is the name of the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. They have heard this word uttered all their lives, while never hearing a pastor or fellow Christian use the name of Yahweh. So widespread has this substitution of the divine name become, that a growing number of believers today will no longer spell out the word God. Instead, they write it with an underscore as G_d. In doing so they are perpetuating the tradition of the ancient Jews by creating their own fence law. Mistakenly thinking the noun “God” is holy, they will not even write it out, when in fact this is not the memorial name that Elohim disclosed to Moses.
If Satanic men with evil intent had sat down and said, “Let’s erase Yahweh’s name from the memory of His people by removing it from the Bible,” they could have done no worse than the Jewish religious leaders whose reasoning was corrupted through deceit. If you are reading one of the many Bible versions that have substituted titles for the memorial name of God, then you are reading from a text that has been deliberately altered to conform to the traditions and whims of man. Seeing that not even the name of Yahweh is safe in our Bibles, what else may have been tampered with? As it turns out, quite a bit.
Many corruptions have entered into the Scriptures to perpetuate the religious institutions and doctrines of man. We observe that the translators of the King James Bible received specific instruction to subordinate accuracy and integrity of translation to political and religious considerations. Following are two of the rules set down by King James for those men chosen to produce this Bible translation.
1. The ordinary Bible read in the Church, commonly called the Bishops Bible, to be followed, and as little altered as the truth of the original will permit.
3. The old Ecclesiastical Words to be kept, viz. the Word Church not to be translated Congregation etc.
It is rules such as these which suborn men, causing them to make unfaithful alterations to the Scriptures. One might well ask, “Why was it important for the translators of the King James Bible to use the word Church rather than Congregation?” The Tyndale Bible, the first to be printed in English, was produced in 1526 and used the word Congregation to translate the Greek word Ekklesia. This Greek word occurs 115 times in the New Testament. Ekklesia is a joining of the word “Ek” and “Kaleo.” “Ek” corresponds to our English word “out,” and “kaleo” to the word “call.” The Ekklesia were literally “the called out.”
In Greek society the word Ekklesia was used as a reference to summoning the army for assembly. A crier could go forth and call men to assemble for battle. The term also was employed to refer to other types of public gatherings for special civic purposes, such as to vote on laws. In the latter case only full citizens were invited to participate. Thus, whether it was a call for the army to assemble, or a call for a political assembly, only certain individuals were called out of their communities to assemble together.
Ekklesia is an appropriate Greek word to describe the gathering together of the body of Christ. Those who were disciples of Yahshua were spread throughout their communities. At certain times they would assemble together and the Spirit would minister in and through the various members of the body of Christ. The Matthew’s Bible of 1537 also used the word “congregation” to refer to the assembly of the body of Christ. The word “congregation” derives from the word “congregate,” which means “to gather together.”
It was the Geneva Bible of 1557 that first used the word “church” as a rendering of the Greek word Ekklesia. The Bishop’s Bible of 1568 was a revision of the Geneva Bible, and it also used the word “Church.” The word church comes down to us in English through the German word Kirk. Kirk in turn comes from the Medieval Greek Kurikon, or “Lord’s House.” Those who supported a hierarchical form of church government preferred the word church over congregation or assembly. I should be remembered that the King of England held the position of Supreme Governor of the Church of England. In the year 1536 The Act of Supremacy was passed, coinciding with the English monarchy’s split from the church of Rome. In place of the Pope, the King of England was declared to be the head of the Church of England.
Thus the word “Church,” or “Lord’s House,” bears a double meaning. Note again the inscription printed in the front of all of the King James’ Bibles. “To the Most High and Mighty, Prince James, King of Britain, France, and Ireland... Defender of the Faith.” The King wanted his citizens to bear in mind that he was the head and Supreme Governor of the Church of England, and the word “church” conveyed this idea much better than the more accurate translation of “congregation” or “assembly.”
Another example of deliberate alteration of the text of the Scriptures is observed in the words “baptize” and “baptism” in our English Bibles. These words are translated from variants of the Greek word “baptisma.” This Greek word means “immerse” and indicates a full immersion beneath the water. Baptism serves as a symbol or death to our old sinful life and our resurrection into our new life in Christ. As people are plunged beneath the water they are carrying out a ritual burial, and as they are brought back out of the water they are symbolizing that they have arisen to new life in Christ.
The Church of England, however, followed the Roman Catholic practice of sprinkling water on the forehead of the individual. It was decided, therefore, that the translators of the King James Bible could not translate the Greek word baptisma into English as immerse. This would upset the tradition of the Church of England. It would be a gross error, however, to render the word as “sprinkle,” for this was clearly not the meaning of the Greek. The solution was to not translate the word at all, but rather to transliterate it. This means that the word was carried from Greek to English unchanged and without translation. This meant that the church could then define baptism to mean whatever they wanted it to mean. Instead of immersion, they could define baptism as sprinkling. It would have been difficult to define immersion as sprinkling.
Thus far we have observed how men have made deliberate alterations to the Scriptures, removing the name of Yahweh that occurs nearly 7,000 times; translating the Greek word ekklesia as church rather than congregation or assembly; and intentionally choosing not to translate the Greek word baptisma in order to accommodate their false traditions. All of these actions lead men and women away from the truth.
A further egregious alteration of the text of Scriptures is observed in the inaccurate rendering of the Greek word aeon and its various forms. The Greek word aeon means “an age of varying length.” In the book God’s Plan of the Ages, I have demonstrated how this word has been unfaithfully translated in a variety of inaccurate and often contradictory ways to support the false teaching of eternal torment. Following is an excerpt from that book.
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God's plan of the ages has been transformed (by men in the church) into something that is a gross aberration from the original. Yahweh is shown to be angry forever, and His wrath to be eternal. Those cast into hell and the lake of fire are believed to never escape. The reconciliation of "all things" through Christ is denied by the church. The church does not perceive the end of Christ's reign to come when all things will be subjected to Him that God the Father might be "all in all."
The church fell into error centuries ago. Over time myths and fables have come to be regarded as sacred truth due to their long antiquity. When in more recent centuries men in the church have applied themselves to translate the Scriptures into English, the influence of the mythology of Rome held sway over their minds. The Bible translations adopted by the masses of Christendom have become impregnated with the myths of pagan people. Words were translated to convey that false belief that had been adopted as orthodox theology.
Nowhere do we see this more profoundly than in the confused and errant renderings of the Greek word aion and its variants. Consider the following examples showing the varied and inaccurate manner in which translators have rendered this word. All quotations are from the King James Version of the Bible.
Ephesians 2:7
That in the ages (aions) to come he might shew the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus.
Colossians 1:26
Even the mystery which hath been hid from ages (aions) and from generations, but now is made manifest to his saints...
Ephesians 2:2
Wherein in time past ye walked according to the course (aion) of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience.
Hebrews 1:2
Hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds (aions);
Hebrews 11:3
Through faith we understand that the worlds (aions) were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear.
Galatians 1:4
Who gave himself for our sins, that he might deliver us from this present evil world (aion), according to the will of God and our Father:
Ephesians 6:12
For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world (aion), against spiritual wickedness in high places.
II Corinthians 4:4
In whom the god of this world (aion) hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them.
I Corinthians 2:6
Howbeit we speak wisdom among them that are perfect: yet not the wisdom of this world (aion), nor of the princes of this world, that come to nought:
Luke 16:8
And the lord commended the unjust steward, because he had done wisely: for the children of this world (aion) are in their generation wiser than the children of light.
Mark 4:19
And the cares of this world (aion), and the deceitfulness of riches, and the lusts of other things entering in, choke the word, and it becometh unfruitful.
Mark 10:30
But he shall receive an hundredfold now in this time, houses, and brethren, and sisters, and mothers, and children, and lands, with persecutions; and in the world (aion) to come eternal (aionian) life.
Luke 20:35
But they which shall be accounted worthy to obtain that world (aion), and the resurrection from the dead, neither marry, nor are given in marriage:
Hebrews 6:5
And have tasted the good word of God, and the powers of the world (aion) to come...
John 9:32
Since the world (aion) began was it not heard that any man opened the eyes of one that was born blind.
These verses represent a fair sampling of the many ways in which the Greek word aion has been translated. In other places, the translators have rendered this same word as "eternity," "for ever," "for ever and ever," and "everlasting." Following are a few examples.
Ephesians 3:11
According to the eternal (aionian) purpose which he purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord...
Hebrews 6:2
Of the doctrine of baptisms, and of laying on of hands, and of resurrection of the dead, and of eternal (aionian) judgment.
Revelation 19:2-3
For true and righteous are his judgments: for he hath judged the great whore, which did corrupt the earth with her fornication, and hath avenged the blood of his servants at her hand. And again they said, Alleluia. And her smoke rose up for ever (aions) and ever (aions).
Revelation 20:10
And the devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are, and shall be tormented day and night for ever (aions) and ever (aions).
Matthew 25:41
Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting (aionian) fire, prepared for the devil and his angels...
Jude 6
And the angels which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation, he hath reserved in everlasting (aionian) chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day.
It is evident that in each instance the translators interpreted this word to mean what they thought it should say according to the beliefs they had adopted. In the original KJV Bibles that were released in the 1600s, the translators included a list of restrictions that King James of England had placed upon them. One of these instructions was that the Bible could contain no translation that would upset the orthodoxy of the Church of England. The Anglican Church taught a doctrine of eternal damnation, therefore the scholars working on the King James Bible had to conform their translation to this belief.
It is apparent that the translators were very inconsistent in the interpretation of this word. If the word aion and its variants mean eternal, everlasting, or for ever, then the word should make sense when interpreted this way in the other Scriptures in which it is found. In this, it fails the test. Consider how nonsensical the following Scriptures would be.
Ephesians 2:7
That in the eternities (aions) to come he might shew the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus.
Colossians 1:26
Even the mystery which hath been hid from eternities (aions) and from generations, but now is made manifest to his saints...
Ephesians 2:2
Wherein in time past ye walked according to the eternity (aion) of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience.
Hebrews 1:2
Hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the eternities (aions);
John 9:32
Since the eternity (aion) began was it not heard that any man opened the eyes of one that was born blind.
It is quite obvious that the Greek word aion is not referring to eternity in these and many other verses. The Greek word aion refers to an age that has a beginning and an end. Its variants refer to ages, or as an adjective to that which is age-lasting, or age-abiding. J. Preston Eby in his writing The Savior of the World, shares the following:
And now in reviewing the Scriptures we have just quoted we note that this aion is something which has a king; it has princes; it is in darkness; it had a beginning; it has an ending; it is evil; it has wisdom; it has children who marry; it has cares. The aions we find were made by Christ, simply through His spoken Word, and we also find in Colossians 1:26 that the mystery of Christ in us, the hope of glory, has been hidden from these aions. Now, if AION means ETERNAL, consider how ridiculous the Word of God would be! The Holy Spirit would be found saying, "the mystery which has been hid from eternities;" "the mystery of Christ which in other eternities was not made known;" "in the eternities to come;" "You walked according to the eternity of this world;" "by whom also He made the eternities;" "the rulers of the darkness of this eternity;" "now once in the end of the eternities has He appeared;" "the harvest is the end of the eternity;" "since eternity began;" "in the eternities to come," etc. etc... Suffice it to say here that there have been "aions" in the past, there is this present "aion," and there are "aions" to come. And these all combined make up TIME, encompassing the whole of the progressive plan and program of God for the development of His creation.
[End Quote]
Laying aside the myths of Rome, let us now translate these passages consistently, using the word "age," or "ages" in these same Scriptures. At once, the confusion is resolved, and a consistent teaching regarding the ages of God comes into view.
Eph. 2:7 "in the ages (aions) to come."
Col. 1:26 "the mystery which has been hid from the ages (aions). "
Eph. 2:2 "you walked, according to the age (aion) of this world."
Heb. 1:2 "by whom also He made the ages (aions)."
Heb. 11:3 "the ages (aions) were formed by the Word of God."
Gal. 1:4 "deliver us from this present evil age (aion)."
Eph. 6:12 "the rulers of the darkness of this age (aion)."
II Cor. 4:4 "the god of this age (aion)."
I Cor. 2:6 "the wisdom of this age (aion)."
Lk. 16:8 "the children of this age (aion)."
Mk. 4:19 "the cares of this age (aion)."
Mk. 10:30 "the age (aion) to come."
Lk. 20:35 "but they that shall be accounted worthy to obtain that age (aion)"
Heb. 6:5 "and have tasted the powers of the age (aion) to come."
John. 9:32 "since the age (aion) began."
Eph. 3:11 "according to a plan of the ages (aions)."
Heb. 6:2 "and of age-abiding (aionian) judgment."
Rev. 19:3 "and her smoke rose up to the ages (aions) of the ages (aions).
Rev. 20:10 "tormented day and night to the ages (aions) of the ages (aions)."
Mat. 25:41 "depart from me, ye cursed, into age-abiding (aionian) fire."
Jude 6 "he hath reserved in age-abiding (aionian) chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day."
The Bible has much to say about the ages God has allotted to creation. Before Yahweh ever began to create He had established a master plan for the ages. All would culminate in a great final age of the ages when all would be reconciled to the Father, when sin and death would be no more.
Myths borrowed from pagan societies are no substitute for truth. Though it be a remnant who are able to endure sound doctrine in this hour, let them hold fast the truth by proclaiming the fullness of the reconciling work of Christ, the Savior of the world.
[End Excerpt]
Brothers and sisters, the errors that have crept into your Bibles are myriad, and they are profound. I have set forth just a sampling of the many deliberate alterations of the text of Scriptures that have unfaithfully been foisted upon the body of Christ. How is a disciple of Yahshua to recover from so much error in the church and in the Scriptures? There is only one way. They must take upon themselves the task of laboring diligently as a seeker of truth. Yahweh has allowed truth to be obscured through the introduction of much leaven. In this way He can test and prove those who are sincere lovers of the truth. These ones will pursue truth until they find it. They will manifest that zealous questing for truth described by Solomon in the Proverbs.
Proverbs 2:1-5
My son, if you will receive my sayings, and treasure my commandments within you, make your ear attentive to wisdom, incline your heart to understanding; For if you cry for discernment, lift your voice for understanding; If you seek her as silver, and search for her as for hidden treasures; Then you will discern the fear of Yahweh, and discover the knowledge of God.
Is it time for you to do a truth check-up? How diligent has your quest for truth been? How zealously have you labored to acquire understanding and to arrive at the true knowledge of God? Yahweh has permitted the Bible to be corrupted by error so that those who are passionate for truth and who would acquit themselves as overcomers, might prove themselves by exercising themselves with patience, longsuffering, and perseverance in a lifelong quest for the true knowledge of heaven.
Note: This chapter has touched upon a number of topics that cannot be fully addressed here. Following are links to writings that further expound upon these subjects.
Christmas and Easter
http://www.heart4god.ws/index_htm_files/Removing%20the%20High%20Places.pdf
http://parablesblog.blogspot.com/2009/02/fat-tuesday-mardi-gras-ash-wednesday.html
Divine Names in the Bible
http://www.heart4god.ws/index_htm_files/The%20Usage%20of%20Divine%20Names.pdf
Eternal Torment and the Reconciliation of All Men
http://www.heart4god.ws/index_htm_files/Gods%20Plan%20of%20the%20Ages.pdf
Heart4God Website: http://www.heart4god.ws
Parables Blog: www.parablesblog.blogspot.com
Mailing Address:
Joseph Herrin
P.O. Box 804
Montezuma, GA 31063
