Preface

This is information I have found on the internet, and you and I both know there are at least two sides to every story. As for me I have decided to believe a lot of this information. I know for a fact that most Bible translations are interpreted by people who have a predefined image of GOD as being two separate entities, or trinity, or three and believe and teach the dividing of god, instead of the oneness of GOD and that these written translation or bent in that direction. I believe that any translation is understandable if you have the SPIRIT of the one true GOD, who is JESUS, living in your heart. Below are my scripture reference for why I believe what I believe, and if you don't have the first one (ref: Hebrews 10:16), then the rest would describe all who haven't the spirit of the One true GOD.

Heb 10:16 This new plan I'm making with Israel isn't going to be written on paper, isn't going to be chiseled in stone; This time "I'm writing out the plan in them, carving it on the lining of their hearts."

(Jer 8:8-11)"'How can you say, "We know the score. We're the proud owners of GOD's revelation"? Look where it's gotten you--stuck in illusion. Your religious experts have taken you for a ride! Your know-it-alls will be unmasked, caught and shown up for what they are. Look at them! They know everything but GOD's True Reveling Word. Do you call that "knowing"? "'So here's what will happen to the know-it-alls: I'll make them wifeless and homeless. Everyone is after the dishonest dollar, little people and big people alike. Prophets and priests and everyone in-between twist words and doctor truth. My dear Daughter--my people--broken, shattered, and yet you put on band-aids, Saying, "It's not so bad. We will be just fine." But things are not "just fine, are they?

(2Pe 2:1-6)But there were also lying prophets among the people then, just as there will be lying religious teachers among you. They'll smuggle in destructive dividing heresies, pitting you against each other--biting the hand of the One who gave them a chance to have their lives back! They've put themselves on a fast downhill slide to destruction, but not before they recruit a crowd of mixed-up followers who can't tell right from wrong. They give the way of truth a bad name. They're only out for themselves. They'll say anything, anything, that sounds good to exploit you. They won't, of course, get by with it. They'll come to a bad end, for God has never just stood by and let that kind of thing go on. God didn't let the rebel angels off the hook, but spit them out of Heaven until Judgment Day. Neither did he let the ancient ungodly world off. He wiped it out with a flood, rescuing only eight people--Noah, the sole voice of righteousness, was one of them. God decreed destruction for the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. A mound of ashes was all that was left--grim warning to anyone bent on an ungodly life.

(Joh 5:38-42)There is nothing left in your memory of My Message because you do not take My Messenger seriously. "You have your heads in your Bibles constantly because you think you'll find eternal life there. But you miss the forest for the trees. The Scriptures testify all about me, and you read about me, while all along here I am, standing right in front of you, but you aren't willing to receive the life you are looking for. Don't you understand, you must come to me. "I care nothing at all about your dead religion, or crowd approval. And do you know why? Because I know you and your crowds. I know that love, true love, My love, is not on your working agenda.

Back To The Top

If you have the first part (ref: Hebrews 10:16), then this scripture would describe you and me and how we understand all versions ( because all written versions are just what the first pages say, just versions) and what lives in your heart will either be the living WORD of God, or Hell. I know you now ask how can that be? Ask yourself this question, where does Jesus live right now? Answer Heaven right! -Now ask yourself what lives in your heart? Answer Heaven, or Hell!

(2Co 3:3-6)
Jesus himself wrote it--not with ink, but with His living Spirit; not chiseled into stone, but carved into human lives--and we publish it. We couldn't be more sure of ourselves in this--that you, written for God, are our letter of recommendation. We wouldn't think of writing this kind of letter about ourselves. Only God can write such a letter. His letter authorizes us to help carry out this new plan of action. The plan wasn't written out with ink on paper, with pages and pages of legal footnotes, killing your spirit. It's written with Spirit on spirit, his life on our lives!

Who Was King James?

For the last three centuries Protestants have fancied themselves the heirs of the Reformation, the Puritans, the Calvinists, and the Pilgrims who landed at Plymouth Rock. This assumption is one of history's greatest ironies. Today, Protestants laboring under that assumption use the King James Bible. Most of the new Bibles such as the Revised Standard Version are simply updates of the King James.

The irony is that none of the groups named in the preceding paragraph used a King James Bible nor would they have used it if it had been given to them free. The Bible in use by those groups, until it went out of print in 1644, was the Geneva Bible. The first Geneva Bible, both Old and New Testaments, was first published in English in 1560 in what is now Geneva, Switzerland. William Shakespeare, John Bunyan, John Milton, the Pilgrims who landed on Plymouth Rock in 1620, and other luminaries of that era used the Geneva Bible exclusively.
Until he had his own version named after him, so did King James I of England. James I later tried to disclaim any knowledge of the Geneva Bible, though he quoted the Geneva Bible in his own writings. As a Professor Eadie reported it:

             "...his virtual disclaimer of all knowledge up to a late period of the Genevan notes and
             version was simply a bold, unblushing falsehood, a clumsy attempt to sever himself
             and his earlier Scottish beliefs and usage's that he might win favor with his English
             churchmen."

         The irony goes further. King James did not encourage a translation of the Bible in order to enlighten the common people: his sole intent was to deny them the marginal notes of the Geneva Bible. The marginal notes of the Geneva version were what made it so popular with the common
people.
      The King James Bible was, and is for all practical purposes, a government publication. There were several reasons for the King James Bible being a government publication. First, King James I of England was a devout believer in the "divine right of kings," a philosophy
ingrained in him by his mother, Mary Stuart. Mary Stuart may have been having an affair with her Italian secretary, David Rizzio, at the time she conceived James. There is a better than even
chance that James was the product of adultery. Apparently, enough evidence of such conduct on
the part of Mary Stuart and David Rizzio existed to cause various Scot nobles, including Mary's own husband, King Henry, to drag David Rizzio from Mary's supper table and execute him. The Scot nobles hacked and slashed at the screaming Rizzio with knives and swords, and then threw him off a balcony to the courtyard below where he landed with a sickening smack. In the phrase of that day, he had been scotched.
         Mary did have affairs with other men, such as the Earl of Bothwell. She later tried to execute her husband in a gunpowder explosion that shook all of Edinburgh. King Henry survived the explosion only to be suffocated later that same night. The murderers were never discovered. Mary was eventually beheaded at the order of her cousin, Elizabeth I of England.
         To such individuals as James and his mother, Mary, the "divine right of kings" meant that since a king's power came from God, the king then had to answer to no one but God. This lack of responsibility extended to evil kings. The reasoning was that if a king was evil, that was a punishment sent from God. The citizens should then suffer in silence. If a king was good, that was a blessing sent from God.
         This is why the Geneva Bible annoyed King James I. The Geneva Bible had marginal notes that simply didn't conform to that point of view. Those marginal notes had been, to a great extent, placed in the Geneva Bible by the leaders of the Reformation, including John Knox and John Calvin. Knox and Calvin could not and cannot be dismissed lightly or their opinions passed off to the public as the mere ditherings of dissidents.
         First, notes such as, "When tyrants cannot prevail by craft they burst forth into open rage" (Note i, Exodus 1:22) really bothered King James.
         Second, religion in James' time was not what it is today. In that era religion was controlled by the government. If someone lived in Spain at the time, he had three religious "choices:"

           1.Roman Catholicism
           2.Silence
           3.The Inquisition

The third "option" was reserved for "heretics," or people who didn't think the way the government wanted them to. To governments of that era heresy and treason were synonymous.
England wasn't much different. From the time of Henry VIII on, an Englishman had three choices:

           1.The Anglican Church
           2.Silence
           3.The rack, burning at the stake, being drawn and quartered, or some other form of
             persuasion.

         The hapless individuals who fell into the hands of the government for holding religious opinions of their own were simply punished according to the royal whim.
         Henry VIII, once he had appointed himself head of all the English churches, kept the Roman Catholic system of bishops, deacons and the like for a very good reason. That system allowed him a "chain of command" necessary for any bureaucracy to function. This system passed intact to his heirs.
         This system became a little confusing for English citizens when Bloody Mary ascended to the throne. Mary wanted everyone to switch back to Roman Catholicism. Those who proved intransigent and wanted to remain Protestant she burned at the stake ?#128;� about 300 people in all. She intended to burn a lot more, but the rest of her intended victims escaped by leaving the country. A tremendous number of those intended victims settled in Geneva. Religious refugees from other countries in Western Europe, including the French theologian Jean Chauvin, better known as John Calvin, also settled there.
         Mary died and was succeeded in the throne by her Protestant cousin, Elizabeth. The Anglican bureaucracy returned, less a few notables such as Archbishop Cranmer and Hugh Latimer (both having been burned at the stake by Bloody Mary). In Scotland, John Knox led the Reformation. The Reformation prospered in Geneva. Many of those who had fled Bloody Mary started a congregation there. Their greatest effort and contribution to the Reformation was the first Geneva Bible.
         More marginal notes were added to later editions. By the end of the 16th century, the Geneva Bible had about all the marginal notes there was space available to put them in.
Geneva was an anomaly in 16th century Europe. In the days of absolute despotism and constant warfare, Geneva achieved her independence primarily by constant negotiation, playing off one stronger power against another. While other governments allowed lawyers to drag out cases and took months and years to get rid of corrupt officials, the City of Geneva dispatched most civil and criminal cases within a month and threw corrupt officials into jail the day after they were found out. The academy that John Calvin founded there in 1559 later became the University of Geneva. Religious wars wracked Europe. The Spanish fought to restore Roman Catholicism to Western Europe. The Dutch fought for the Reformation and religious freedom. England, a small country with only 4-1/2 million people, managed to stay aloof because of the natural advantage of the English Channel.
         The Dutch declared religious freedom for everybody. Amsterdam became an open city. English Puritans arrived by the boatload. The 1599 Edition of the Geneva Bible was printed in Amsterdam and London in large quantities until well into the 17th century.
          King James, before he became James I of England, made it plain that he had no use for the "Dutch rebels" who had rebelled against their Spanish King. Another irony left to us from the 16th century is that the freedom of religion and freedom of the press did not originate in England, as many people commonly assume today. Those freedoms were first given to Protestants by the Dutch, as the records of that era plainly show. England today does not have freedom of the press the way we understand it. (There are things in England such as the Official Secrets Act that often land journalists in jail.)
          England was relatively peaceful in the time of Elizabeth I. There was the problem of the Spanish Armada, but that was brief. Elizabeth later became known as "Good Queen Bess," not because she was so good, but because her successor was so bad. Elizabeth died in 1603 and her cousin, James Stuart, son of Mary Stuart, who up until that time had been King James VI of Scotland ascended the throne and became known as King James I of England. James ascended the throne of England with the "divine right of kings" firmly embedded in his mind. Unfortunately, that wasn't his only mental problem.
         King James I, among his many other faults, preferred young boys to adult women. He was a flaming homosexual. His activities in that regard have been recorded in numerous books and public records; so much so, that there is no room for debate on the subject. The King was queer.
The very people who use the King James Bible today would be the first ones to throw such a deviant out of the congregations.
        The depravity of King James I didn't end with sodomy. James enjoyed killing animals. He called it "hunting." Once he killed an animal, he would literally roll about in its blood. Some believe that he practiced bestiality while the animal lay dying.
        James was a sadist as well as a sodomite: he enjoyed torturing people. While King of Scotland in 1591, he personally supervised the torture of poor wretches caught up in the witchcraft trials of Scotland. James would even suggest new tortures to the examiners. One "witch," Barbara Napier, was acquitted. That event so angered James that he wrote personally to the court on May 10, 1551, ordering a sentence of death, and had the jury called into custody. To make sure they understood their particular offense, the King himself presided at a new hearing ?#128;� and was gracious enough to release them without punishment when they reversed their verdict.
         History has it that James was also a great coward. On January 7, 1591, the king was in Edinburgh and emerged from the toll booth. A retinue followed that included the Duke of Lennox and Lord Hume. They fell into an argument with the laird of Logie and pulled their swords. James looked behind, saw the steel flashing, and fled into the nearest refuge which turned out to be a skinner's booth. There to his shame, he "fouled his breeches in fear."
         In short, King James I was the kind of despicable creature honorable men loathed, Christians would not associate with, and the Bible itself orders to be put to death (Leviticus 20:13). Knowing what King James was we can easily discern his motives.
         James ascended the English throne in 1603. He wasted no time in ordering a new edition of the Bible in order to deny the common people the marginal notes they so valued in the Geneva Bible. That James I wasn't going to have any marginal notes to annoy him and lead English citizens away from what he wanted them to think is a matter of public record. In an account corrected with his own hand dated February 10, 1604, he ordained:
         That a translation be made of the whole Bible, as consonant as can be to the original Hebrew and Greek, and this to be set out and printed without any marginal notes, and only to be used in all churches of England in time of divine service. James then set up rules that made it impossible for anyone involved in the project to make an honest translation, some of which follow:

1. The ordinary Bible read in the church, commonly called the Bishop's Bible to be followed and as
little altered as the truth of the original will permit.

         Or, since the common people preferred the Geneva Bible to the existing government publication,
         let's see if we can slip a superseding government publication onto their bookshelves, altered as
         little as possible.

3. The old Ecclesiastical words to be kept, viz. the word "church" not to be translated
"congregation," etc.

That is, if a word should be translated a certain way, let's deliberately mistranslate it to make the
people think God still belongs to the Anglican Church ?#128;� exclusively.

6. No marginal notes at all to be affixed, but only for the explanation of the Hebrew or Greek words,
which cannot without some circumlocution, so briefly and fitly be expressed in the text.
All excerpts from Global Insights.

***For verification of King James homosexuality, I got my info from Global Insights. You can also find more info at Otto Scott's "James I: The Fool As King" (Ross House: 1976), pp. 108, 111, 120, 194, 200, 224, 311, 353, 382; King James-VI of Scotland/I of England by Antonia Fraser (Alfred A. Knopf, New York 1975)pp. 36, 37, 38; King James VI and I by David Harris Willson, pp.36, 99; James I by his Contemporaries by Robert Ashton, p114; and A History of England by Samuel Rawson Gardiner, Vol. 4, p.112. Check also A LITERARY HISTORY OF THE BIBLE by Geddes MacGregor who has devoted a whole chapter entitled "QUEEN" JAMES.
In the Beginning, by Alister McGrath, pp. 170-71
The Mammoth Book of Private Lives by Jon E. Lewis, pp. 62,65,66
James White also makes mention of it in his book, THE KING JAMES ONLY CONTROVERSY.
See also King James and the History of Homosexuality by Michael B. Young
and King James and Letters of Homoerotic Desire by David Moore Bergeron, both available on amazon.com
For those people who feel that the above is a result of the attack on King James by the 17th century tobacco industry are ignorant of the fact that his behavior and personal life were quite well known to his contemporaries. " He disdained women and fawned unconscionably on his favorite men." ENCYCLOPEDIA AMERICANA-pp. 674,675

"And shall I then like bird or beast forget
For any storms that threatening heaven can send
The object sweet, where on my heart is set
Whom for to serve my senses all I bend?..."
A poem written by King James to his homosexual love interest . King James-VI of Scotland/I of England, by Antonia Fraser, New York 1975

Back To The Top

The Geneva Bible:
The Forgotten Translation

By: Gary DeMar

When Mary Tudor (Bloody Mary) became queen of England in 1553, she was determined to roll back the Reformation and reinstate Roman Catholicism. Mary had strong ties to Catholic Spain. She married Philip II of Spain and induced the English Parliament to recognize the authority of papal Rome. Mary met with a great deal of resistance from Protestant reformers in her own country. Mary showed no signs of compromise. The persecution of Protestants followed.

The era known as the Marian Exile drove hundreds of English scholars to the Continent with little hope of ever seeing their home and friends again. God used this exodus experience to advance the Reformation. A number of English Protestant divines settled in Calvin's Geneva: Miles Coverdale, John Foxe, Thomas Sampson, and William Whittingham. With the protection of the Genevan civil authorities and the support of John Calvin and the Scottish Reformer John Knox, the Church of Geneva determined to produce an English Bible without the need for the imprimatur of either England or Rome - the Geneva Bible.

Translation Work Begins In 1557

The Geneva translators produced a revised New Testament in English in 1557 that was essentially a revision of Tyndale's revised and corrected 1534 edition. Much of the work was done by William Whittingham, the brother-in-law of John Calvin. The Geneva New Testament was barely off the press when work began on a revision of the entire Bible, a process that took more than two years. The new translation was checked with Theodore Beza's earlier work and the Greek text. In 1560 a complete revised Bible was published, translated according to the Hebrew and Greek, and conferred with the best translations in divers languages, and dedicated to Queen Elizabeth I. After the death of Mary, Elizabeth was crowned queen in 1558, once again moving England toward Protestantism. The Geneva Bible was finally printed in England in 1575 only after the death of Archbishop Matthew Parker, editor of the Bishop's Bible.

Back To The Top

England's Most Popular Bible

While other English translations failed to capture the hearts of the reading public, the Geneva Bible was instantly popular. Between 1560 and 1644 at least 144 editions appeared. For forty years after the publication of the King James Bible, the Geneva Bible continued to be the Bible of the home. Oliver Cromwell used extracts from the Geneva Bible for his Soldier's Pocket Bible which he issued to the army.

A THREAT TO KING JAMES

In 1620 the Pilgrims arrived at Plymouth with their Bibles and a conviction derived from those Bibles of establishing a new nation. The Bible was not the King James Version. When James I became king of England in 1603, there were two translations of the Bible in use; the Geneva Bible was the most popular, and the Bishops' Bible was used for reading in churches.

King James disapproved of the Geneva Bible because of its Calvinistic leanings. He also frowned on what he considered to be seditious marginal notes on key political texts. A marginal note for Exodus 1:9 indicated that the Hebrew midwives were correct in disobeying the Egyptian king's orders, and a note for 2 Chronicles 15:16 said that King Asa should have had his mother executed and not merely deposed for the crime of worshipping an idol. The King James Version of the Bible grew out of the king's distaste for these brief but potent doctrinal commentaries. He considered the marginal notes to be a political threat to his kingdom.

Back To The Top

At a conference at Hampton Court in 1604 with bishops and theologians, the king listened to a suggestion by the Puritan scholar John Reynolds that a new translation of the Bible was needed. Because of his distaste for the Geneva Bible, James was eager for a new translation. "I profess," he said, "I could never yet see a Bible well translated in English; but I think that, of all, that of Geneva is the worst."

A THREAT TO ROME

In addition to being a threat to the king of England, the Geneva Bible was outspokenly anti-Roman Catholic, as one might expect. Rome was still persecuting Protestants in the sixteenth century. Keep in mind that the English translators were exiles from a nation that was returning to the Catholic faith under a queen who was burning Protestants at the stake. The anti-Roman Catholic sentiment is most evident in the Book of Revelation: "The beast that cometh out of the bottomless pit (Rev. 11:7) is the Pope, which hath his power out of hell and cometh thence." In the end, the Geneva Bible was replaced by the King James Version, but not before it helped to settle America.

Back To The Top

Back in Geneva

Calvin knew that the job of reforming a city seemingly bent on destruction would not be easy. "There is no place in the world that I fear more," he confessed. Immorality was at an all-time high, with gambling, street brawls, drunkenness, adultery, and public indecency common everywhere. But not all was dark. When he arrived on September 13, 1541, a change had come over the city. The people actually wanted him to return. The city officials bestowed honors on him and apologized for the way he had been treated. The Council members assured Calvin that they would cooperate with him to restore the Gospel and moral order. The businessmen were equally relieved to learn that Calvin might return. Calvin was overwhelmed by the outward display of affection and decided to return to Geneva. On September 16th he wrote to Farel: "Your wish is granted. I am held fast here. May God give His blessing!

Back To The Top

Calvin's Contributions

Calvin continued his work of reformation, not by a heavy-handed use of the civil magistrate, but with the preaching of God's Word and the building of the Church. Church government was lacking, not only in Geneva, but all over Protestant Europe. Calvin understood that only the Church, not the State, could define orthodox theology and bring about true long-term reform. According to the Bible, the State and the Church were jurisdictionally separate. Each had its God-ordained area of jurisdiction and authority - one civil (the State) and one ecclesiastical (the Church). Even so, Calvin insisted, both Church and State were ordained by God and obligated to follow His laws as they applied to their specific appointed jurisdictions.

Calvin's view that God reigns everywhere and over all things led him to develop the biblical idea that man can serve God in every area of life - church, civil government, education, art, music, business, law, journalism. There was no need to be a priest, a monk, or a nun to get closer to God. God is glorified in everyday work and family life. Calvin's teaching led directly to what has become known as the "Protestant work ethic." Individual initiative leads to economic productivity as Christians work out their faith in their callings before God.

Stricken with tuberculosis, Calvin preached his last sermon on February 6, 1564. Although bedridden until his death on May 27, 1564, Calvin continued to work, extending his legacy in the lives of those who sat under his teaching.

Thanks to the Institutes of the Christian Religion, his printed sermons, the Academy, his commentaries on nearly every book of the Bible (except the Song of Solomon and the Book of Revelation), and his pattern of Church and Civil government, Calvin shaped the thought and motivated the ideals of Protestantism in France, the Netherlands, Poland, Hungry, Scotland, and the English Puritans; many of whom settled in America. The great American historian George Bancroft stated, "He that will not honor the memory, and respect the influence of Calvin, knows but little of the origin of American liberty." The famous German historian, Leopold von Ranke, wrote, "John Calvin was the virtual founder of America." John Adams, the second president of the United States, wrote: "Let not Geneva be forgotten or despised. Religious liberty owes it most respect."

Back To The Top

Jesus

This Website Built, Maintained
and All SEO Work
By HD Pitts
Email: witnesstwo@zoo4u.net