50 Bibles Compared: The New Testament – Volume 1

By ALMON FACKRELL

There are 100s of versions of the Bible. This study compares only 50 versions of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.

Why are there so many versions? 1) There are 1,000s of copies of Bible manuscripts, some of which have unauthorized changes made by the copyists. The translators can not agree on which copies to use. 2) The translators use different kinds of English, such as: Amplified. Contemporary. Expanded. Inspirational. Literal. Majestic, Plowboy & Unvarnished English. And none of these versions agree with other similar versions: some are Conservative, others Liberal or Radical.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: May 16, 2005
• ISBN: 9781420817218

ALMON FACKRELL

The author has been a Bible student since he was a teenager. He was Born in Idaho and was drafted into the U.S. Army during the Korean conflict. He was assigned to an Atomic Weapons Detachment and stationed at Sandia Base at Albuquerque, NM, and at White Sands Proving Grounds, NM. He attended the University of New Mexico and graduated from the Sandia Engineering Trade School. He married the late Miriam Jeanne Tucker. They have one son and ten daughters. During his 37 years in the Aerospace Industry he worked on Atomic Weapons, Missiles, a Space Station, Commercial Aircraft, Military Fighter Planes, Bombers and Helicopters. He retired as a Senior Support Engineer from Parker Hannifin Corporation in Irvine, CA. He has published two books and working on three more.

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© 2005 ALMON FACKRELL. All Rights Reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

First published by AuthorHouse 04/23/05

ISBN: 1-4208-1721-3 (e)

ISBN: 1-4208-1722-1 (sc)

ISBN: 9781420817218 (ebk)

Printed in the United States of America

Bloomington, Indiana

CONTENTS

PREFACE

50 NEW TESTAMENT

VERSIONS

USED IN THIS STUDY

INTRODUCTION

THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW

THE GOSPEL OF MARK

THE GOSPEL OF LUKE

THE GOSPEL OF JOHN

CONCLUSION

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

PREFACE

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The Bible is the greatest book the world has ever known. It is not just a book but a library of many books. It has been translated and published into more languages than any other book in history - no other publication can be compared with its success.

Millions of people faithfully believe that the Bible is the Word of God. However, there is no other book in the world that has so many variations, and so many versions of the variations, as does the Bible. The Bible means many different things to many different people. There are two major concerns about the Bible:

1. What are the contents of the Bible?

2. Which version of the Bible should we use?

CONCERN NUMBER 1: CONTENTS OF THE BIBLE:

To some people in the world the Bible means only the Five Books of Moses, some call it the Torah, or the Pentateuch; others call it simply, The Law, of The Law and the Prophets in the Old Testament.

To other people the Bible means the complete Old Testament; which includes thirty-nine books, or forty-two books, or forty-seven books; depending upon how much, if any, of the Apocrypha (hidden books), or pieces of the Apocrypha are used.

To most Christians, the Bible means the Old Testament (with or without parts of the Apocrypha) and the New Testament, an additional twenty-seven books. To other Christians it means just the New Testament, without the Old Testament; and to a few others it means just the four Gospels; i.e. Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.

So - the Bible could mean anywhere from a library of four books to a library of seventy-four books, and possibly more.

CONCERN NUMBER 2: VERSIONS OF THE BIBLE:

There are literally hundreds of versions, or translations of the Bible, or portions of the Bible, mostly of the New Testament of the Christian Bible. Only a few of those versions have become very popular, however. And, of course, we are only considering the English versions. Portions of The Bible are printed in hundreds of languages, with an unknown quantity of versions in many of them. Each language, and each version within each language is considered a different, and separate version. There is no such thing, for example, as an Authorized King James Version, or a Revised Standard Version in German or Spanish, or any other language except English; even if they used one of those versions as their source or guide, or even if they have the same name as the English version. Similar words in different languages do not always mean exactly the same thing in other languages.

This study compares nearly 500 verses of scripture from 50 versions of the Bible, showing MAJOR differences of omissions, additions and changes of words and sentences. It does not compare all of the hundreds of thousands of similar, but different word substitutions and similar grammar variations.

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Before I continue with this preface, I must clarify my own personal feelings about the Bible. By now, many of you are probably thinking that I am an unfriendly critic of the Bible, and that I do not believe in it. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Even though I may appear to criticize some of the versions of the Bible, I love the Bible, both the Old Testament and the New Testament. I firmly believe in God, and I believe the Bible contains the Word of God. I do believe there are good versions of the Bible, but I also believe there are some bad versions which degrade the good versions. If it were possible for us to have a pure and unbiased English translation of the original manuscripts as they came from the pens of the Apostles and Prophets, or from their personal scribes: the Bible would undeniably be the infallible Word of God to us. However, under the circumstances, before deciding whether or not the Bible is infallible - I would ask, Which Bible? All of them cannot be infallible because they are all different and contrary to each other.

It is quite obvious that through the centuries there have been many incompetent, and/or biased scribes and translators who have made the many changes that exist in the modern Bibles.

When I think of the warnings about changing the scriptures in both the Old Testament and the New Testament, I am convinced that there are many people who will have many things to explain at the judgment seat of God.

MOSES gave this warning in the OLD TESTAMENT:

"Ye shall not add unto the word which I command you, neither shall ye diminish ought from it, that ye may keep the commandments of the Lord your God which I command you." (Deuteronomy 4:2)

JOHN gave this warning in the NEW TESTAMENT:

"If any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book: And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life." (Revelation 22:18-19)

Thus: Do not Add & Do Not Remove any Words Of God.

After fifty years of collecting and comparing versions of the Bible I feel that interested people should know and understand the noticeable differences between versions. Some Bibles have footnotes which tell of differences among the ancient manuscript copies. For example - In the Lord’s Prayer, in Matthew 6:13, many versions have a shorter prayer than others, and some have a footnote something like this:

"Many old manuscripts add:

‘For thine is the kingdom and the power

and the glory, forever, Amen.’"

Many Christians who have read, quoted or sung The Lord’s Prayer will realize that this missing portion is the traditional ending of the prayer, and they are usually surprised that it is deleted in so many versions of the Bible, especially new versions. In fact, it is omitted in thirty-six of the fifty versions used in this study (see Matt 6:13 [a] & [b] herein). And it is also amazing that this most important "example prayer does not end with, Amen in most versions. I have heard a lot of prayers at many different Churches and many social events, but I have never heard a Christian prayer that did not end with Amen."

TWO MAJOR PROBLEMS cause the differences between the versions of the Bible.

PROBLEM 1 = WHICH MANUSCRIPTS TO USE?

While most Bible readers believe that there are only a few original manuscripts of the scriptures, and that it doesn’t matter which version is used because they are mostly the same, and that the versions are only putting the original language into our modern language. The truth is: there are many copies of copies of manuscripts, some writers have estimated that there are approximately 4,000 copies of all or pieces of New Testament manuscripts, but there is not one single original manuscript in existence in the world today.

Why are some manuscript copies chosen over others by the theologians and linguists as they present to us their versions of the scriptures?

The major reason is: It is older than the others, meaning, it was copied before the others; so it must be the best copy since it is closer in time to the original manuscript.

However not everyone agrees with the dating methods used, nor do they agree with the results, thus, not all theologians choose the same oldest manuscript copies for their versions of the Bible. While some versions agree with some of the oldest manuscripts, none of them agree with all of them.

And even if they do agree that some manuscripts are older than others, they sometimes do not use them because of tradition or doctrinal problems they might cause. To show a good example of this - nearly all theologians know that the Dead Sea Scrolls, which contain every standard book of the Old Testament, except the book of Esther, are the oldest copies of Old Testament manuscripts in existence today - and yet, hardly any of the translators even consider using the Dead Sea Scrolls in their versions of the Old Testament. They usually say it is because the sect which had them is suspected as being radical.

Age is NOT the most important consideration to determine the accuracy of old manuscripts. There are two other things which are much more important than when it was copied:

First - The reliability of the persons who copied the manuscripts. Were some of them radical? Were they competent? Most of them, we know nothing about.

Second - The number of times they have been copied since the original. In other words, what generation copy is it from the original? Each time a manuscript is copied there is an additional chance for errors to occur. Common sense tells us that a three-generation copy would likely be much more accurate than a ten-generation copy, even if the three-generation copy is newer than the ten-generation copy, if all the scribes were honest and competent.

Since we have no clue how many times they have been copied, and since nearly all the Copyists are unknown persons, none of the Revisionists even consider them as important. The unexplained have been ignored by them.

PROBLEM 2 = METHODS OF TRANSLATION?

Translations are made from the Greek into LITERAL English, MAJESTIC English, CONTEMPORARY English, AMPLIFIED English, UNVARNISHED English, PLOWBOY English, EXPANDED English, INSPIRATIONAL English, PARAPHRASED English and many other methods. And in addition, none of the LITERAL or CONTEMPORARY versions agree with other LITERAL and CONTEMPORTY versions, etc., etc., etc. In all of these methods some are conservative, some are liberal and some are radical..

As unexplainable as these problems are, they are by far the most important causes of having so many changes, deletions and additions to the scriptures, and thus, we have major differences in Bible versions.

To repeat what Moses and John said:

DO NOT ADD ANY WORDS !

DO NOT REMOVE ANY WORDS !

FROM ANY OF THE BOOKS OF

THE OLD TESTAMENT OR THE NEW TESTAMENT.

After studying these 50 versions it will be very obvious that many words have been added, removed and changed.

My own personal opinion is: There are too many versions of the Bible. We need no more new versions; unless, of course, a modern authorized Prophet is inspired to produce one.

For God is not the author of confusion…

(1 Cor 14:33)

Satan is the author of confusion and many versions of the Bible cause confusion in Christianity which makes him very happy.

Almon Fackrell

50 NEW TESTAMENT

VERSIONS

USED IN THIS STUDY

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Because of the need for brevity, this study uses only the following abbreviations to identify the versions which agree with, or do not agree with the scripture quotations contained herein.

If you have a version of the New Testament that is not listed among those of this study, just look up the scripture in this study that you are interested in and compare it with your version.

INTRODUCTION

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This study quotes those verses of scripture of the New Testament which contain words or phrases in which the versions disagree. Those words and phrases many times change the meaning of the verse.

All of the basic scripture quotations used in this comparative study are from the Authorized King James Version of the Bible (AKJ). This version is used because it has been described by many writers as follows:

1)   It is public domain with no copyright restrictions.

2)   It is the oldest of the many popular English versions of the Bible. It was first published in 1611 AD.

3)   After 390 years of distribution, it is in many more homes than any other English version of the Bible.

4)   It has more publishers in the world than any others.

5)   A majority of Bible concordances use it.

6)   Most Bible help publications use it.

7)   It is quoted in Church hymns more than any other version.

Also - In alphabetical order it is the first of the 50 versions of the Bible used in this study.

HOW TO INTERPRET THIS STUDY

After each verse is quoted, there is usually one of three categories in which each of the 50 Bible Version in this study is found.

1)   "The UNDERLINED, or its likeness, is in these Bibles:"

This means that the underlined part of the scripture is found in the main text of the version noted, even though it may be found different in a footnote. Footnotes do not count - they are not scripture.

2)   "The UNDERLINED reads like this in these bibles:"

This means that the underlined part of the scripture reads different than that of the main scripture noted. Sometimes the version differences are not identical with the quotation noted, but for brevity it is similar, or like the underlined.

3)   "The UNDERLINED is missing from these bibles:"

This means that the underlined part of the scripture is missing from the main text of the version noted, even-   though it may be referenced in a footnote.

THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW

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Matt 1:1 THE BOOK OF the generation of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham.

The UNDERLINED, or its likeness, is in these Bibles:

AKJ, AMP, ASV, BEB, BEC, CCB, CON, DAR, DOU, EME, FEN, GAU, IGE, ISV, JST, KLV, LAM, MER, MOF, MON, NAB, NAS, NBV, NEB, NET, NIR, NIV, NKJ, NLT, NRS, NWT, RSV, SEB, TEV, WEB, WET & YOU.

The UNDERLINED is missing from these Bibles:

CEV, CLV, GOO, JER, JNT, LIV, MRB, NCV, NNT, REB, TCT, WEY & WIL.

Matt 1:5 And Salmon begat Booz of Rachab; and Booz begat Obed OF RUTH; and Obed begat Jesse;

The UNDERLINED, or its likeness, is in these Bibles:

AKJ, AMP, ASV, BEB, BEC, CCB, CEV, CLV, CON, DAR, DOU, EME, FEN, GAU, GOO, IGE, ISV, JER, JNT, JST, KLV, LAM, LIV, MER, MOF, MON, MRB, NAB, NAS, NBV, NCV, NEB, NET, NIR, NIV, NKJ, NLT, NNT, NRS, NWT, REB, RSV, SEB, TCT, WEB, WET, WEY, WIL & YOU.

The UNDERLINED is missing from this Bible:

TEV.

Matt 1:6 And Jesse begat David the king; and David the king begat Solomon of her that had been the wife of Urias, BATHSHEBA.

The UNDERLINED, or its likeness, is in this Bible:

NLT.

The UNDERLINED is missing from these Bibles:

AKJ, AMP, ASV, BEB, BEC, CCB, CEV, CLV, CON, DAR, DOU, EME, FEN, GAU, GOO, IGE, ISV, JER, JNT, JST, KLV, LAM, LIV, MER, MOF, MON, MRB, NAB, NAS, NBV, NCV, NEB, NET, NIR, NIV, NKJ, NNT, NRS, NWT, REB, RSV, SEB, TCT, TEV, WEB, WET, WEY, WIL & YOU.

Matt 1:18 (a) Now the birth of JESUS Christ was on this wise: When as his mother Mary was espoused to Joseph, before they came together, she was found with child of the Holy Ghost.

The UNDERLINED, or its likeness, is in these Bibles:

AKJ, AMP, ASV, BEB, BEC, CCB, CEV, CLV, DAR, EME, FEN, GAU, GOO, IGE, ISV, JER, JNT, JST, KLV, LAM, LIV, MER, MOF, MON, MRB, NAB, NAS, NBV, NCV, NET, NIR, NIV, NKJ, NLT, NNT, NRS, NWT, REB, RSV, SEB, TCT, TEV, WEB, WET, WEY, WIL & YOU.

The UNDERLINED is missing from these Bibles:

CON, DOU & NEB.

Matt 1:18 (b) Now the birth of Jesus CHRIST was on this wise: When as his mother Mary was espoused to Joseph, before they came together, she was found with child of the Holy Ghost.

The UNDERLINED, or its likeness, is in these Bibles:

AKJ, AMP, ASV, BEB, BEC, CCB, CEV, CON, DAR, DOU, EME, GOO, IGE, ISV, JER, JST, KLV, LAM, LIV, MER, MOF, MON, MRB, NAB, NAS, NBV, NET, NIR, NIV, NKJ, NNT, NWT, REB, RSV, SEB, TCT, TEV, WEB, WET, WEY, WIL & YOU.

The UNDERLINED reads like this in these Bibles:

1)   THE MESSIAH = FEN, JNT, NEB, NLT & NRS.

2)   THE ANOINTED = GAU.

The UNDERLINED is missing from these Bibles:

CLV & NCV.

Matt 1:18 (c) Now the birth of Jesus Christ was on this wise: when as HIS MOTHER Mary was espoused to Joseph, before they came together, she was found with child of the Holy Ghost.

The UNDERLINED, or its likeness, is in these Bibles:

AKJ, AMP, ASV, BEB, BEC, CCB, CLV, CON, DAR, DOU, EME, FEN, GAU, GOO, IGE, ISV, JER, JNT, JST, KLV, LAM, LIV, MOF, MON, MRB, NAB, NAS, NBV, NCV, NEB, NET, NIR, NIV,