By Helena Lehman of the
Pillar of Enoch Ministry
In the last 20 years, a new heresy has gripped the Church so
strongly that it is causing a great deal of unnecessary fighting and division
among believers. This false doctrine has been promulgated by several authors and
speakers, one of which is Gail Riplinger, who wrote the 1993 book, “New Age
Bible Versions.” Riplinger’s basic premise is that all the newer Bible versions
worded in modern English are not the true Word of God because they omit or
change many key Scriptures in the Bible that define Western Christianity.
Though this assertion by King James Only adherents may appear
to be correct when examining lists of variations between the King James Bible
and the modern, so called “New Age Bible” versions, the main trouble is that these
textual variations in no way change the basic tenants of the faith that are
found in numerous other passages in the Old and New Testaments. In addition, King
James Only adherents ignore the fact that the translators of the King James
Bible did not have access to the earlier and better manuscripts available today.
As a result, they included later corruptions to the text that were inserted
into handwritten copies of the original scriptural documents.
Indeed, many of the variations cited between the King James
Bible and other versions are due to the fact that the translators of the King James
Version or KJV made the mistake of including what once were only marginal notes
in the main body of the biblical texts. Instead of rightfully consigning these
scribal remarks or comparisons to other similar Scriptures to the footnotes
used in every modern Bible translation, the King James Bible translators added
them to the text just as past scribes had done to the Greek translations that
the King James Bible translators used to create their Bible in English! Therefore,
King James Only adherents are unfortunately and heretically supporting the
practice of adding to the Word of God, while they ludicrously claim that the so-called
New Age Bibles such as the New International Version (NIV) and New American
Standard Bible (NASB) are subtracting from the Word of God for leaving these
scribal additions out, or for relegating them to the footnotes - where they rightfully
belong.
In addition to this ridiculous fighting over the wording of
various translations, I find something even more sinister about this debate over
which Bible is the correct one to use. This is the fact that King James Only
adherents are basically consigning all foreign language Bible translations to
the realm of evil falsehoods because they necessarily cannot be worded the same
way as the King James Bible. This means that anyone reading a Bible translated from
the Greek or from an English translation other than the King James Version into
Chinese, Korean, Italian, Spanish, French, Arabic, or any other language can be viewed as NOT reading the true Word of God by King James Only adherents.
By association, King James Only adherents may also view all
foreigners who read a Bible that is worded in any other way than with the King
James English as potentially false “New Age” Christians that don’t worship the
same Messiah. In the eyes of hard-core King James Only
adherents, the many devout believers in Yahshua that are risking their lives to
spread the Gospel of the Kingdom of God in their nations,
and that are increasingly dying as martyrs for their faith, are doing so in
vain because their Bibles are not the authorized King James Version! Due to
this supposed offense, some King James Only adherents have come to view all
non-English-speaking believers as worshiping a different Messiah, and preaching
a different Gospel, although this is a completely false assumption.
This heresy that rejects dozens of versions of the Bible as heretical has not only falsely called foreign language Bibles into question, but stigmatized the work of large groups of Bible-believing, born-again Christians and Messianic Jews that have written and published books and articles containing quotations from the so-called New Age Bibles. In fact, I have found my own Language of God Series books listed as unacceptable reading material because I dared to quote from Bible translations other than the King James Bible! Even though most of my quotations are from the New King James Version of the Bible, which has very few real variations from the original King James Version, I have had people literally return an entire set of my books when they realized that I did not quote from the original KJV Bible in Old English.
Sadly, King James Onlyism has swept through the Church like a virus, and it is so divisive a doctrine that it is destroying what little unity remains in the otherwise doctrinally sound Protestant Churches of the world - and that is exactly what Satan wants! He wants to weaken and destroy the true Church until it can no longer spread the Good News of our salvation through the blood sacrifice of Yahshua Ha Mashiach effectively!
For these reasons, I believe that anyone participating in promoting
this King James Only heresy is unwittingly joining the Devil in his plans to
wipe out every last vestige of true Christianity on this planet in the very
near future. This brings me great sadness, and has stirred my righteous anger.
Therefore, I will condemn this false doctrine with all my might until Yahshua
comes. To that affect, I have included a list of web sites below my closing
with resources that show the discrepancies, inconsistencies and fallacies found in the King
James Only doctrinal position.
In closing, I’d like to say that I
have seen much in the way of the differences in the various Bible translations,
and I know that some translations are really terribly off the mark as far as
being doctrinally sound. I’m not advocating that paraphrased Bibles be relied
upon for doctrinal decisions, for example. But there are many fine English translations
of the Bible out there, and I often refer to two or more different Bibles other
than my preferred New King James when doing Bible Study research in order to
explore their alternative - and at times superior - interpretations for various
words, phrases, and even whole paragraphs.
Though this subject could stand with
a more thorough review, I don’t have time for further discussion of this topic
right now. I only wanted to share my opinion on it because a close friend in
Christ wanted my official position on this doctrine, and so I took some of my
valuable time to give it. This brief response is based on common sense
reasoning, the guidance I’ve been given by the Holy Spirit, and the resources that
I’ve linked to below. In the meantime, I hope this article will be a blessing
to many.
Your Sister in Yahshua,
Helena Lehman of the
Pillar of Enoch Ministry
Resources For Further Study About King James Onlyism:
The King James Only
Movement -
Links To Many
Resources:
The Truth About The
King James Only Controversy
CARM Forum Discussion
of King James Only Debate:
King James Version
Onlyism –
The Paper what will Change
the Course of History
List of major textual
variants in the New Testament
List of Bible verses
not included in modern translations:
