By David W. Daniels

You can know which Bible to trust. A quick look at history will make the choice obvious.

There are two streams of Bible history. One comes straight from the Apostles, with over 5,000 manuscripts - the broad evidence of history - to support it. It agrees with the Bibles of persecuted believers, like the Vaudois in the Alps. They received the Scriptures from Antioch about 120 AD and spent 30 years carefully translating it, word for word. Since they knew the truth, they never joined the Roman Catholic system.

The other stream is polluted. About the time of Christ, Philo of Alexandria, Egypt blended pagan Greek philosophy with Judaism. The so-called "Christians" who lived there after him were no better. They doubted Jesus was eternally God, or that God's miracles were real. The 3rd to 5th century Alexandrian school wrote Bibles after Antioch, changing or removing thousands of words. A handful of some 45 semicomplete Alexandrian Bibles exist. The rest are literally scraps of paper. Among those 45, 3 are important: Sinaiticus, Alexandrinus and Vaticanus. But they don't agree in even two successive verses! In the Lord's Prayer in Luke, they only agree in 13 out of 45 words!

Suppose you ran off over 5,000 copies of a book at the print shop. Out of 5,366 copies, 45 came out missing pages and badly copied. Which will you keep? The answer is obvious.

Most Alexandrian manuscripts were relegated to a desert trashcan. Some tried to fix them, changing words to be more like the other Bibles, but gave up. These confused Bibles lead straight to the Roman Catholic Institution. The Roman Catholics used their Apocrypha and other perversions to make some of their doctrines. This was the Bible of the persecutors. And most of the Bibles on the market today are based on the Alexandrian Bibles, like the NASV, NLT and NIV. The fruit of the perverted Alexandrian texts is obvious: Roman Catholic doctrine, and continued doubt about what God really said.

The Antiochian manuscripts were continually used and copied by faithful Christians, generation after generation. Baptists used them, and they lead straight to the Protestant Reformation. The best English translation is the King James Bible.

The fruit of the KJV is easy to see. The USA was founded by it. Bible-believing churches are known by it. (Ironically, churches and Christians called extreme Fundamentalists are simply churches that did not leave the fundamentals.) Most of the major revivals of the last two centuries were fueled by it.

Yes, there are two streams, and two Bibles. But one careful look and the choice is obvious. May God bless you as you make the right choice.

Additional information on Bible Versions!