Christianity

Recently I was comparing my New American Standard Version of the Bible with the New World Translation of the Watchtower Society. I expected to find some distorted translations and I found many like this one in John 8:58 where they translate "I was" instead of "I am" and in the original greek text it is a PRESENT TENSE to affirm the eternal being of Christ without a begining,just as it is told of God himself in Exodus 3:14 " An God said to Moses:"I AM WHO I AM"; and He said," Thus you shall say to the sons of Israel,'I AM has sent me to you'" Quoted from the New American Standard Bible.They translated a past tense because the present tense reveals the absolute deity of the Son of God as they refuse to admit that. It is a grammatical fraud to mask the Biblical Truth at the eyes of their converts. Moreover, I found that a very crucial word was missing elsewhere in John 5:18. The New world Translation omit to put the reflexive pronoun "Himself" comparatively to the New American Standard Bible, so I looked in the original greek New Testament and there is in fact the reflexive pronoun who is a very emphatic word meaning "Himself". I will cite the whole portion of the text only from the New American Standard Bible so you can juge by yourselves that this omission is willful only to veil the divinity of the Son of God:" For this cause therefore the Jews were seeking all the more to kill Him,because He not only was breaking the Sabbath but also was calling God His own Father, making Himself equal with God." They had replace the emphatic pronoun by a simple pronoun "He" so they can force their thinking on the text saying that it was the perception of the Jews but not that Jesus declared Himself equal with God. The reasoning of the phrase is clear:" was CALLING God His OWN Father, making HIMSELF EQUAL with God." Such omission is not the fruit of ignorance but a cunning way to deceive ignorant people, and is much graver than a distorted interpretation it is a willful fraud to promote their false doctrine. The Lord Jesus said:" Beware of the false prophets who come to you in SHEEP'S CLOTHING but inwardly are RAVENOUS WOLVES." Matthew 7:15

Have you compared the verses to the King James Bible?

John 5:58Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Before Abraham was, I am.

John 5:18Therefore the Jews sought the more to kill him, because he not only had broken the sabbath, but said also that God was his Father, making himself equal with God.

John 5:18 acknowledges His words of "I am" as being God.

Other acknowledgement by Jesus referring to Himself as God by "I am he":

John 8: 23And he said unto them, Ye are from beneath; I am from above: ye are of this world; I am not of this world. 24I said therefore unto you, that ye shall die in your sins: for if ye believe not that I am he, ye shall die in your sins.

The difference is the beginning of the verse as to what the rest of the verse is referring to in John 5:18. The "because" explains why the Jews sought the more to kill him. It is not a purposeful design to deny His deity, and in fact, it is not denying His deity at all, but when the KJB acknowledges His deity plainly elsewhere, then John 5:18 was about explaining why the Jews sought all the more to kill Him.

Just because the pronoun is not capitalize in referencing Jesus or the Holy Spirit in the Bible: it does not mean a denial of the deity. We, today, capitalize the pronoun in referencing God: but the wordings themselves are not denying the deity at all.

As it is: I do not rely on the New American Standard Version nor the New World Translations for the actual meat of God's words: I rely on the Lord Jesus Christ in giving me the wisdom in understanding His words in the King James Bible as kept by those that loved Him and His words as the Received Texts or the Textus Receptus came from Antioch where the disciples met to study in the scripture.

Acts 11: 26And when he had found him, he brought him unto Antioch. And it came to pass, that a whole year they assembled themselves with the church, and taught much people. And the disciples were called Christians first in Antioch.

I have found as far as deceptions goes: modern translations do not keep the actual meaning of His words.

1 Peter 4:19 in all the translations have changed the meaning of Jesus keeping our souls in well doing while we suffer in the King James Bible to believers doing good or committed to doing good while they suffer.

The "well doing" is on Jesus in how He is keeping our souls while we suffer but other translations has the well doing as doing good of the believers while they suffer.

The word "commit" means to roll away as in entrusting another to do the task: 1 Peter 4:19 is entrusting Jesus: our faithful Creator in the keeping of our souls while we suffer.

It is from this that many believers are hoodwinked into taking up boastful commitments in the flesh to Christ and to follow Christ and yet we are to live by faith in the Son of God that He will help us to follow Him as the Good Shepherd He is for whatever is not of faith, is sin:

James 4: 13Go to now, ye that say, To day or to morrow we will go into such a city, and continue there a year, and buy and sell, and get gain: 14Whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away. 15For that ye ought to say, If the Lord will, we shall live, and do this, or that. 16But now ye rejoice in your boastings: all such rejoicing is evil. 17Therefore to him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin.

Believers are even responding to religious altar calls for the assurance of their salvation as if making a commitment to follow Christ and thus keeping that commitment is the way to have that assurance, but it is not. No one will be justified by keeping that commitment for by that commitment is the knowledge of sin.

Therefore standfast in the liberty in which Christ Jesus has set us free and be ye not entangle again in the yoke of bondage: by His grace and by His help, we follow the Son of God by faith in living the christian life: and make no boast of in the flesh and standing apart from the law.

John 6:28Then said they unto him, What shall we do, that we might work the works of God? 29Jesus answered and said unto them, This is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent.

Galatians 2:20I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me. 21I do not frustrate the grace of God: for if righteousness come by the law, then Christ is dead in vain.

Psalm 118:8It is better to trust in the LORD than to put confidence in man.

Philippians 1:6Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ: ..... 9And this I pray, that your love may abound yet more and more in knowledge and in all judgment; 10That ye may approve things that are excellent; that ye may be sincere and without offence till the day of Christ. 11Being filled with the fruits of righteousness, which are by Jesus Christ, unto the glory and praise of God.

So we do not look to keeping our commitments or promises or pledges in living the christian life: but we look to the Son of God by faith that we shall be able to lay aside every weight and sin so we can run that race.

Hebrews 12:1Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, 2Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.

1 John 3:3And every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as he is pure.

Jude 1:24Now unto him that is able to keep you from falling, and to present you faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy, 25To the only wise God our Saviour, be glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and ever. Amen.

So yes: it is important to have the right Bible in discerning good and evil in these latter days. Modern Bibles may contain the Good News, but the King James Bible has the actual meat as in the actual meaning of His words so that we can discern and reprove the works of darkness since keeping the faith in Jesus Christ is the good fight.

So how does one know for sure if they have the right Bible or not?

John 5: 39Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me. 40And ye will not come to me, that ye might have life.

If the modern Bible changes the meaning of His words to turn your hope or your attention elsewhere as in away from Jesus Christ, and placing it on you or on the "Holy Spirit", yet the King James Bible has it on Jesus Christ, then the scripture of John 5:39-40 testifies that the King James Bible is the correct one in keeping with His words to be using for discernment of false teachings and apostate movements as well as for our edification in the knowledge of Him so that our love may abound yet more and more.

Some people say that the entire bible is inerrant. Unfortunately, translators are not inspired; only the words of Yahweh as given through the prophets are inspired and therefore inerrant; Yahweh says so, several times.

The best way to study anything in the old testament is to find an interlinear translation, with a Hebrew-English lexicon. The one I use the most is www.scripture4all.org though you can find other ones on the internet, in books, and in software. You then have the original word in the ancient language, with a very literal rendering. Unfortunately, this is often difficult to read, especially when there are several definitions for a word.

Worse yet, the grammar is entirely different than in English. There are 'stems' and 'moods' that are different than what we have in English. The best thing to do, is to get a Hebrew grammar book; you can download Genesius' grammar for free. Hebrew and Aramaic use one to three letters added to a root word to give number, gender and to tell whether it is first, second or third person; and there are ways of indicating causality and thoroughness and reflexiveness with added letters. These can be approximated by adding several words together in English, sometimes up to five or six words are needed for a single stem and mood. Getting the right idea across is difficult sometimes; especially with an enigmatic saying. And, there are other things that simply do not occur in English. For instance, prophetic statements are made as if it is a 'done deal' in the past, even when the event has not occurred on our time frame.

Translators have the task of choosing between what sounds right and natural to us; or, using a painfully literal translation that may be very difficult to understand. Worse yet, there are idioms that are sometimes unfamiliar, such as 'knees turning to water'. What this means, is 'wetting one's pants in terror'. However, they had robes, not pants; so it looked like water dripping from the knees below the robe.

But worse of all, is that some concepts cannot be translated accurately without fully understanding the phrase; and translators have to guess what is the best one, according to their own understanding. But, with a computer, you can go to the original language and decide for yourself.

One good resource is http://studylight.org/lex/heb/ You can browse through similar words, and look up anything that feels questionable. This can be very useful; each word has a link so that you can view every occurrence of that word throughout scripture; this is 'sola scriptura' at its best. With another resource such as Wikipedia, you can solve other mysteries; for instance, why a tree or vine would be said to be 'circumcised'.

At the same site, the KJV keyed to Strong's Lexicon is very useful. You can instantly get the definition of a word, and find where that word is used elsewhere.

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One problem with the new testament is that it is not clear when Jesus is speaking, and when Yahweh is speaking through him. In one case, 'I' refers to Jesus; in the other case, 'I' refers to Yahweh. (sometimes Jesus says, "it is not I, but the Father who is saying this'.) The OT makes this very clear; the NT does not. Perhaps we will discover the originals of the gospels in Hebrew or Aramaic, just as the Dead Sea scrolls were found. It is certain that Jesus talked in Aramaic or Hebrew, because he used word plays that made no sense in Greek, but were natural in Hebrew.

Remember the parable of the wide gate and the narrow gate?:
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Matthew 7:13 Enter in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and many there are who go that way:
Matthew 7:14 Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way which leads to life, and few there are who find it.
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(So if everyone agrees with you on something in scripture, then it is very possible you are in the express lane to destruction. But if you have inquired of Yahweh, and searched out his word diligently and everyone hates you for this, then you may have found the treasure missed by the crowds headed for oblivion. Did any true prophet ever have an easy time with the authorities or crowds? NO!!)