Preservation of Scripture, Pt 1 (05/20/2001)

Please turn with me to mark chapter 13 in verse 9 this morning

Mark chapter 13 in verse 9 and Good good number of Sundays ago

We cut a deal that that I would try to finish our

Series of messages on the preservation of the scriptures with one more Sunday message And so this is it and I want to speak to you this morning on the sovereign preservation of the

Word of God through the blood of the true believers and Read with me if you would mark chapter 13 verse 9

Jesus said but take heed to yourselves for they shall deliver you up to councils and And in the synagogues you shall be beaten and you shall be brought before rulers and kings for my sake for a testimony against them and The gospel must first be published among all nations

But when they shall lead you and deliver you up take no thought beforehand what you shall speak neither do ye

Premeditate but whatsoever shall be given you in that hour that speak ye for it is not ye that speak but the

Holy Ghost now the brother shall betray the brother to death and the father the son and the children shall rise up against their parents and shall cause them to be put to death and Ye shall be hated of all men for my name's sake

But he that shall endure unto the end the same shall be saved Let's pray father.

We ask that you bless this message with anointing from on high That you would bless it in such a way that it would affect the way we live the rest of our days here

We ask it in Jesus name Amen Well, this message Does deal with the

Bible versions as you will see clearly? But it deals a lot with history

It deals a lot with the history of the very believers that Jesus was prophesying about That would be out in the future from his point of view as he made that statement

From our point of view much of that is in our past although there may be some of this coming again

We know that there will be a great deal of it during the tribulation period and there may be some of this even before the rapture of the church

But we can see so much of it in the past I don't know how many of you've ever read this book

Fox's Book of Martyrs But if you ever read it, it'll change your life And it'll change your whole view of Christianity.

It'll change your whole understanding of Roman Catholicism versus Protestantism.

It'll even change your definition of the word Protestant because It's interesting the way that the author of this book defines it

It simply means anyone who protested against the Roman Catholic doctrine. So it included what we call as Protestants who came from Luther, but it also included people who were never from the

Catholic Church Such as the Walden sees and many people going all the way back to the time of the

Apostles They were also called Protestants because they also protested against the

Roman Catholic Church So it uses a broader definition for the word Protestant and I'll probably use that definition for purposes today

Just to make it easier to talk about so the word Protestant will be

Defined in the way that Fox's Book of Martyrs defines it for purposes of this morning It means anybody whether it were an

Anabaptist or Lutheran or anybody who? Protested the

Roman Catholic Church Now, let me go into the scriptures with you This will be a

Bible message, but it'll also include a lot of history The history that Jesus just told us about turn with me to Psalm 119 152 and Follow through these particular verses in the

Psalms Psalm 119 152 concerning thy testimonies.

I have known of old that thou has founded them forever That states two things about the

Word of God number one that it is secure Eternally and number two that it is settled by the counsel of God Before all time it was already settled and then turn to verse 89

Psalm 119 verse 89 It says forever

Oh Lord Thy word is settled in heaven This shows a third thing.

Not only is the Word of God secure eternally Not only is it settled by the counsel of God before all time, but also it was established before time began and it was established in its best state because the word settled found in Psalm 119 verse 89 is the

Hebrew word not sob which means to be established in the best state so it cannot be improved upon and Then we go into Matthew 24 verse 35 you can just listen because we're going to stay in Psalms here

I'm gonna give you a couple of verses from the New Testament And then you can be turning to Psalm 12 in verse 6 while I'm doing that Matthew 24 35

Jesus said heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away

Now notice that there are two ways that we speak of the word in the

New Testament The word can mean the word with a capital W which means the living

Savior the living Christ who is called the word in John chapter 1 in verse 1 But also the word can be used to mean the written word.

So we have the living word in the written word Well now in in Matthew 24 35 we have the living word

Jesus Christ Speaking of the written word and the way we know that he's speaking not of himself

But of the written word is that he uses the plural on the word words So he says heaven and earth shall not pass away, but my words shall not pass away

I'm sorry seven heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away

This tells us that the Word of God is secure eternally. It is settled it established, but it is also

Sure, it will not pass away. It is sure to be here first Peter 1 23 says being born again not of corruptible seed but of incorruptible by the

Word of God which liveth and abideth forever this seed is Incorruptible, which means it is pure So it's secure it established

It's it is settled it is sure and we see that it is the pure Word of God now into Psalm 12 6 and 7 which

Really launches us into the conclusion of this whole idea of the preservation of the

Scriptures Did God preserve the Bible and how if so, how did he do it?

And if if he if he has a method can we discern what that method might be because there are many theories in the world today

In fact the most popular theories that are out there I believe are false and I think we can see why as we move on into this conclusion

Psalm 12 6 the words of the Lord are pure words as silver tried in a furnace of earth

Purified seven times this furnace of earth is a picture of man Sinful man, although saved man.

It is a picture of the fact that the Holy God chose

Because he wanted to to use His people which are sinful people who have been saved and made to be his people

But he chose to use his people We are positionally perfect, but experientially we're not are we don't we make mistakes from time to time

So you could say that humans by the very nature of being human we are accident prone and we are prone to error and That's what this phrase furnace of earth pictures is that God used those of us who are built with dirt from the earth in this process of Giving the

Word of God by inspiration, but also of preserving it down through the generations until today

So man has been used by God and this makes it even more miraculous if you think about it because we are error prone

And yet look what it says in this same passage. The words of the Lord are pure words

They are as silver tried in a furnace of earth, but purified

Seven times who knows what seven means in the scriptures? There's a number of perfection

So it means that God is using human humans human agencies to preserve his word

But that even so God has promised to purify this seven times In his own way now look at verse 7

Thou shalt keep them. So even though humans are involved is God who protects the words

Oh Lord, thou shalt preserve them. That means the words from this generation forever

So we see then that the Word of God by promise of God is secure eternally

It is settled by the counsel of God. It is established in its best state before the foundation of the world

It is the sure Word of God It is the pure Word of God is the protected Word of God and he has promised that it shall be preserved to each generation

We'll discuss the phrase to each generation a little bit later on in the message Let me now kind of sum up the different theories that we've talked about and I'll use three different scholars and use their

Words to describe this the first is a man named Clark who wrote in 1926 his theory was that the

Western type of Manuscript came first and by this he means the those that deal more with the

Roman Catholic type Manuscript that the Western type manuscript came first and the

Alexandrian which if you remember is the Egyptian from the Egyptian scholars like origin who used almost the same scientific scholarly approach that the modern scholars use

But he said that the Western type was first and the Alexandrian scholars copied it omitting some of the

Western readings Now a man named Ropes in 1926 wrote this he said

The Alexandrian type came first and then the Western copied it and added to it

Now, let me ask you how could you prove which one of those two men was right 2 ,000 years later, it'd be difficult and then a man named

Dean Burgeon Well, he was a Dean and his name was

Burgeon Who wrote in 1813 or he lived from 1813 to 1888

He wrote this The Syrian text was first now the

Syrian text is that type of text that is Behind the received text which the

King James Version comes from now in this study, I want to be quick to reemphasize that We are

Talking primarily about the received text the Greek manuscripts not about the English King James Version Because it is a translation in a version

But we're talking about the text behind it Versus the text behind the other versions.

That's what the whole discussion is about now Dean Burgeon is one of the greatest Men that I think the most eloquent men who wrote in favor of the received text which was always favored by the entire world up until his lifetime and then it came in question and So the battle went on at that point

He stated that the Syrian text was first in other words the one that the received text

Comes from that line of manuscripts that it was first and the Alexandrian scribes subtracted from it which gives us our modern

American Standard Version and revised Standard Version and The Roman scribes added to it which gives us our

Latin Vulgate and the Douay and Reims Catholic Bibles that was his theory.

I've read a little bit about all these theories I've probably read the most about the burgeons because I happen to believe his logic is better than everything else that I've read

But those are the three theories now Others such as Scrivener, Miller, Hills and many several from Dallas Theological Seminary are

Also in agreement with Burgeon's position that the received text Stems back from the

Syrian text which came first and that the others changed it Now that is not the modern theory

But that is Burgeon's theory and several modern scholars out of DTS agree with him on that As do

I myself. I Agree that Burgeon if you study what he said

You will find that he never claimed that the received text That he knew for a fact that that was the

Word of God as some of the modern King James only people like to say The Word of God and you know, he never made that claim

What he said was is that you have not proven to me that you have improved on what we've had down through the thousands of years

That's what he told Westcott and Hort You have not proved the burden of proof is on you and you have not proven that your text is better In fact,

Burgeon was very humble in his statement because his books just tore it up If you read his writings, it just tears up the theories of Westcott and Hort and those who gave us our modern

Bibles. Well, it's interesting that the Alexandrian text comes from Egypt that the

Western text comes from Rome and the Syrian text comes from Antioch and I won't go into that because you may think well that has no bearing on it

But if you read what the book of Revelation says about the mother of harlots

Which is the Roman Catholic Church based in Rome and if you read what the scriptures say in many places

But especially reverse like a Revelation 11 8 where it calls Egypt a picture of the world and Then you look you see what the

Bible talks about Antioch and Acts chapter 11 verse 26 It's the place where they were first called

Christians and the first missionaries were sent out from there Also, there are at least three scholars that I have found who claim in their books that the majority of the original autographs, which means the originals

Were in Asia Minor and in this part of the world in the area of Asia Minor in Syria There's a man named

Harnack who wrote a book called the origin of the New Testament who claims this man named Goodspeed who wrote the foundation of the

New Testament who claims this and in Kilpatrick who wrote a book on the origin of the gospel according to Matthew all claimed that the originals ended up in this area of Antioch Where the

Syrian text came from Also found a very interesting article just this week as I continued my study on this

I just keep finding more and more new things and it just literally blows your mind the amount of information that's out there

But I found a very interesting article by a man named dr.

George M Lamsa who speaks about the the

The Syrian Bible that came from this part of the world fascinating article he claims that The originals were not that the originals actually were not written in Greek I have another friend who believes that too sitting on the back pew back there

Because that was not the language that the Jews probably would have written the scriptures in and so All of this debate is we've got to find the

Greek text that goes back to the originals It probably was not even a Greek text But now no one hardly would agree with that, but there are a few scholars out there including a couple of books that have been written indicating that they were more in the

Type of lettering that the Jews wrote in rather than in the Greek. So we have all this huge volumes of information

And what I want to do This morning is number one to prove that this battle is not a new battle.

We could call it the battle of the Bibles It's not a new battle. It is not a battle.

That's primarily between Westcott and Hort and a man named Burgeon It's not a battle.

That's primarily between the Nessel Alland group and the Dallas Theological Seminary scholars who disagree with them

As a matter of fact, it is a battle Between the Catholic Bible of the

Dark Ages and the Protestant and and slash Baptist But really as I said earlier

If you get into some of the scholars who really write on those times, they're all called Protestants But what the word

Protestant did not mean that they came out of the Catholic Church It meant that they simply protested against the

Catholic Church. So it includes all of them and So we get into this it was actually a battle between the

Catholic Bible of the Dark Ages and the Protestant Bible of the Enlightenment Now I aim to prove that this morning and what another thing this is going to do is going to show us that That all that Westcott and Hort did was that they deceitfully

Caused or tricked the Protestant world into accepting a Catholic Bible Are all the modern versions fall in that line that come far closer to matching the do a version

Which is the Catholic Bible which comes from Jerome's Latin Vulgate Which has always been the

Catholic Bible in the modern versions match that more than they do the Protestant Bible it comes down through the ages that will trace in just a moment a

Study of history and a comparison of the do a version of the Bible Which is

Jerome's Latin Vulgate with the King James, which the English version of the old

Latin Which is called the Itala by the scholars is what I aim to use this morning to give further proof proof

So we're going to kind of move away from this because I have found this to be true

No modern scientific approach to textual criticism is going to present us a better Bible than the received text

Now I'm going to show you why I believe that now. I will say that's my personal belief It is not an authoritative statement by your pastor and you're free to disagree with it

And some of you will and that's fine. Some of you won't some of you'll do further study and may agree later

I don't know or or I may do further study and and agree with you later So it cannot be an authoritative statement, but I'm going to tell you after Some hours and hours and days of study this year plus all that I did back in the early 80s

And some of the new material that I've read that wasn't even in existence back then has convinced me that the modern scientific approach to textual criticism

Which all of our modern Bibles came from is not and has not and will never give us a better Bible than what you got in your lap this morning

And I'll tell you why I think that is I don't think that was God's plan for how to preserve the

Bible in Psalm 12 6

He talks about his words He says that they that thou shalt keep them in verse 7

Oh Lord thou shalt preserve them from this generation and forever

Well, it's interesting here that the word Preserve means to guard so it is

God's job to guard his word and preserve it Also the word

Keep means to hedge about and to attend to which means that God has actively played a part

From day to day year to year down through the ages in keeping the Word of God pure He did not just leave it up to men of flesh.

Although he used us But he also Actively was working in it together with us as he does in all things whether it be our prayer life

Whether it be our witnessing whether it be our Bible study in all areas. It's just the same

He used the same method to keep to keep the Word of God Pure through the generations and now

I want us to focus on this word generation just for a moment because this is kind of the reason that I have

Come up with my own theory. I Don't believe the modern scientific approach is what

God used I believe that God said he would promise to keep his words and preserve them from this

Generation. Well, you have to ask when what generation is this speaking of? Well, it was whenever psalm 12 was written

So it certainly goes back before Westcott and Hort. It certainly goes back before burgeon.

It goes back before Trigellus it goes back before all of these great scholars that we've read about It goes back even before the times of Jesus Christ on this earth and his first advent and the

Apostles into the days when David was writing and it says that God promised to guard to attend to and to preserve his word from This generation the gender the word generation in the

Hebrew is door the word door which means a revelation of time

But according to Thayer it literally means those living during that period

So it literally means that God promised to keep his word pure from that generation

Down through the generations. Now if that's true, then that tells me that Westcott and Hort did not invent the perfect Bible Nor did they improve upon it?

He has kept his words for his people. Now. What method do we think that he used?

Well, I think if we look In first Timothy chapter 3 in verse 15 will get a clue

And we look at places like Revelation 5 10 and 2nd Timothy 2 2. I Think a lot of it is a mystery to me at this time

And and I could spend the rest of my life studying this and and I would wonder if at the end of that I would be more sure than I am now.

I Just don't know. It's such a vast amount of information But first Timothy 3 15 says but if I tarry long

That thou mayest know how thou oughtest to behave thyself in the house of God Which is the church of the

Living God the pillar and ground of the truth? I Believe that God has called the church the bride to be the protector of the truth and of his word

Revelation 5 10 says and has made us unto our God Kings and priests and we shall reign on the earth someday 2nd

Timothy 2 2 says that Commit some to faithful men who are able to teach also as Paul instructed

Timothy Commit these things to faithful men who are able to teach also

I think that just as in the Old Testament God used the priestly order to protect the

Old Testament scriptures and notice there's no debate today about that We don't even discuss the

Old Testament much when we talk about the preserved Word of God because everybody knows how God used us the priestly

Scribes to preserve it, but I believe he did the same thing in the New Testament in a different way, though.

I Think he used the priestly order. It's just that there was not a physical priestly order. It was the priesthood of the believers.

I Believe he used his people. I believe God used the church and by that I mean the true born -again

Blood -bought church not anything that claimed to be the church such as much of the Roman Catholic history claimed to be the church

I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about the true church that had real believers in it I believe that's what

God used to preserve his word I believe when they got through preaching from a Bible and it began to get be tattered as it may have been handed down from one man who preached to the next young preacher and it's so tattered that they would take that out and several of them would recopy it and then they bury the old one and The people that say well, this is not the most ancient manuscript is because the ones that got used got buried out of reverence

That's why you're not going to find them. And so to have a theory that says that the truest

Manuscript would be the oldest one that we can find is sort of ridiculous when we look at the history of how the church preserved the word

Now I'd like to trace the word of God Through European history up until today and this won't take as long as you might think it's just a little summary

What was the sovereign providence of God and how did he work to preserve his words specifically the

New Testament? How did he work to preserve a line of Greek manuscripts?

That would bring us a Bible that we can rely upon Today that even those who have translated the

New American Standard have claimed that the King James Version Which is based on the received text is the most accurate

English version there is on the planet Well The received text which is what we'll use to to call

This line of manuscripts now. I don't I want to use it in a in a broad definition

Not a specific one of what the received text actually is, but I want to use this as a broad definition of the line of manuscripts that comes into line with the

King James Bible or the received text behind it and Matches it as opposed to the

Roman Catholic Jerome Latin Vulgate type Bible that the new modern versions match more closely

This received text had authority enough to become either in itself or by its translation the second century

Bible of the great Syrian Church of The Waldensian Church of northern

Italy about 400 AD of the Gallic Church in southern France from 400 to 1000

AD of the Celtic Church in Scotland in Ireland as well as the official Bible of the

Greek Orthodox Church all these churches were in opposition to the

Church of Rome and at a time when the received text and these Bibles the other

Bibles of the Constantine type were rivals and I quote

David Otis Fuller in a book which he wrote called which Bible This Bible was different from the

Bible of the Walden sees he's talking about the Latin Vulgate, which is now the do a version

Of the Catholic Church This Bible was different from the Bible of the

Walden sees so you can go back in history as far back as 1000

AD even back to 400 AD and you can see that the Catholics of that day knew that the

Bible which the Bible believing people were using was a different Bible and I'm going to give you some proof of that as we go this morning and Much of the battle between the two groups centered around the

Bible that was being used the text the Greek text that was being used which was Different.

It was not the same in Fact lies were lost because of it

This Bible was different from the Bible of the Walden sees and as a result of this difference the

Walden sees and later the Scottish And English believers were the object of hatred and cruel persecution at the hands of the

Roman Catholics Certainly wasn't the only reason but it was one of the reasons in history bears this out in Studying this history.

We shall see how The these manuscripts that are behind the Protestant Bible how it was possible for the pure manuscripts

Not only to live but actually to gain ascendancy in the days of the true Apostolic churches and later in the

Protestant world in the face of powerful opposition from the Roman Catholic Church Now, let's trace this a little bit.

Let's go back to the early Greek Church It's interesting that even Hort of Westcott and Hort fame and I'm going to quote him here

But even he agrees that the Syrian text was the received text of the

Protestant world. It is no wonder Mr. Hort says that the traditional

Constantinople Ian text which is this Antioch and received text whether formally

Officially or not was the Antioch and text of the fourth century

It was equally natural that the text recognized at Constantinople Should eventually become in practice the standard

New Testament of the East Now this means that the Eastern Orthodox Church used a different text

Than what Westcott and Hort were about to bring back into the world and different from what the

Roman Catholics used in the Jerome Latin Vulgate Bible Now let's move from the early

Greek Church to the early Syrian Church, which to me is the most fascinating and I'll promise I'm gonna do more private research.

I won't I won't give you the burden of having to to hear much of it At least not anytime soon

But I'm going to be studying the Syrian Church and its manuscripts its versions of the

Greek text It was at Antioch the capital of Syria that believers were first called

Christians and the first Missionaries were sent out and you'll find this in Acts 11 It is generally admitted that the

Bible was translated from the original languages into Syria in about 150 AD Now that was stated

By David Otis Fuller in his book. However There are scholars today who are studying and writing books about the fact that they don't believe it happened that way

They do not believe it was translated from Greek to Syrian about 150 AD they believe that it was in the originals it was in a the

Syrian language or the a Syrian language and their letterings and That that later was translated into Greek the language of the world

Which was not the language that the Jewish scholars would have written in now the

Aramaic language in the Hebrew language if you go back to the roots They're very very similar if you trace it back far enough and the lettering is very similar and so forth many believe that Jesus and the

Apostles spoke and wrote in these types of letterings and probably they did not write in the

Greek or It's a very very good argument But what's interesting about it is it confutes all of the modern scholarship that says you had to have a

Greek original They really don't know if it was Greek But we do know that this

Syrian version is one of the oldest versions of the Bible on the planet it's called the

Pashito or some call it the Pashita and The word Pashita means the correct the simple it generally follows the received text that your

King James Version came from and Is it variance with Jerome's Latin Vulgate which the modern versions tend to match?

the Christianity which first penetrated Syria northern Italy southern France and Great Britain was not

Roman Catholicism, but apostolic Christianity The first missionaries were not

Roman Catholic but were from Palestine and Asia Minor and the Greek New Testament which they brought with them or its translation into Syrian or Latin or of the type of the

Protestant Bibles that are more similar to the King James Bible in the English the

Lutheran German Bible and Others these differed greatly These differed greatly from the

Roman Catholic Latin Vulgate Yusubio origin Greek New Testament This is written by a man named

TV more who wrote a book called the cul -de -church Which goes back and traces these ancient?

Protestant groups and I hate to use the word because to us as Baptist we've read the trail of blood

Which says that Baptists go back through the walled -in seas and all the way back to the apostolic times

Actually, they don't You can trace them back to the Anabaptists But the point is that you can trace a group of believers who were anti Catholic they were

Protestants they protested the Catholic movement and They also

Baptized by immersion not by the sprinkling of the Catholics and later on even

Martin Luther couldn't get away from that and so You can trace these things back and what's interesting is the

Bibles were different Now let's go into early England when the Pope sent

Augustine this is not the same Augustine as the scholar that Martin Luther used to study who?

Predated this there was another Augustine who was sent to England in the year 596 AD He conspired with the pagan

Anglo -saxons in their armies to exterminate the pious Christians We find this in a book called historic memorials of Canterbury by a man named

Stanley Dr. Adam Clark claims that Irish customs reveal elements imported from Asia Minor Did you hear that?

From the Antioch area that part of the world from these early

Christians Dr. Adam Clark in a book called in his commentary on Matthew makes the point that the there are

Irish Customs that can be traced all the way back to Asia Minor not really from England Or from the

Western world in Italy France and Great Britain once provinces of Rome The first translations of the

Bible were Latin these Latin translations of the primitive churches were in existence before Rome sent missionaries toward the

West in 250 AD these people for centuries Refused to exchange their old

Latin Bibles for the Catholic Vulgate, which was Jerome's Bible Now, did you hear that?

There was an old Latin and there was a Jerome's Latin that the

Roman Catholic Church used and they were different and these people refused to give up their old

Latin versions of the Bible Just Jacobus said that Quote the old

Latin versions were used longest by the Western Christians Who would not bow to the authority of Rome?

Do you see how a lot of these persecutions? Dealt with the Bible version they were using a lot of people never mentioned this but and it's not that easy to find

But it is in the literature if you look for example the Donatists the

Irish in Ireland Britain and the continent and the Albigen sees etc.

These people were persecuted for not giving up their ancient Latin versions and refusing to use

Jerome's Latin Versions, this was in a book called the Catholic and Protestant Bibles compared by Jacobus We Let me give you a quote from a book called the influence of the

Bible on civilization. This is an amazing quote We do not enter here into the difficult question of relations between the newly founded

Anglo -saxon Church and the old Iroh Scottish Church Although you can find those difficulties in this book right here

Because difficulty is a nice word for it when you see how they were slaughtered and I'll give you a bit of that in a few moments

We do not enter in here to that discussion Differences of the

Bible text had something to do with the pitiful struggles which arose between the churches and ended in the devastation of the older one

Did you hear that Now that's a direct quote from a book called the influence of the

Bible on civilization and this man didn't have any particular bent either direction on which

Line was the right line. He was not commenting on that He was simply pointing out that much of the persecution of the

Roman Catholic Church Against the Protestants was because the Protestant had a different Bible going way back

Way back in history before what we call Protestants, you know, we when we think of the word Protestant we think of Martin Luther and forward, but there were

Protestants going back all the way to 300 AD because they protested against the

Roman Catholic Church British missionaries carried the light of the gospel to the Netherlands France, Switzerland, Germany Yeah Even into Italy and did more for the conversion of Central Europe Than the half enslaved

Roman Catholic Church ever did That's in a book called the history of the

Sabbath Now let's move from England into France in 177

AD now that goes back pretty far 177 AD only 77 years after the

Apostle John went to heaven The last time he went to heaven In 177

AD the Gallic Christians in France were frightfully masked Massacred by the heathen the survivors wrote a record of the events and sent it not to the

Pope of Rome But to their brethren in Asia Minor the Antioch Syrian part of the world.

Isn't that interesting? these Protestants all the way back to 177

AD Were being slaughtered and they sent letters not to the Pope not to the

Roman Catholic Church But to their brothers in the area of Antioch Now you can go through and you can study the

Virgin areas which date back to a thousand AD which were a group of people who followed a preacher named

Peter Brewis Who wrote a book called the Antichrist and in this book? He said that the

Pope was the Antichrist. He lived in France you can go just a little bit later into history to about 1147 and you see a group called the

Generations who followed a man named Henry of Toulois in France and these people were called the

Apostolic by the Roman Catholics because they were more like the Apostolic Church to me

That's a favorable term But to them it was a hateful term and then that brings us to a man who is most known probably

Named Peter Waldo who lived in Lyon, France? who wrote vigorously against the

Pope and and The Roman Catholic movement and this is where the name

Walden sees came from. They were the followers of this Pastor there was also a famous character who came about this same time period

Named Dominique and how many of you have ever heard of the Dominican friars? And they don't cook fried chicken there.

They're monks Roman Catholic monks down through history They have been the most hateful persecutors of born -again believers slaughtered thousands and thousands of Protestant believers the

Dominicans did Well, he came up to fight against Peter Waldo and first it was a war of words, but they couldn't win that And so then it became a war of slaughter

The Walden sees there's a man named Alex who wrote a book called the history of the

Piedmont He maintains that theologians of north of Italy Maintained pure doctrine from the 4th century until the period of the

Walden sees in the 11th and 12th centuries Alex Leader Gilly Comba and Nolan all scholars agree with this assessment

Comba claims that their doctrines were purer than Rome's because their

Bible was purer than Rome's and The Romans who they say had quote falsified the scriptures

This is in a book called the Walden sees of Italy by Comba Lead your a

Waldensian scholar during the terrible massacres of 1655

Preserved their history in his book called the general history of the evangelical churches of the

Piedmont Valley written in 1669 Call he called the olivetans

French Bible of 1537 which is part of the lineage of the

Protestant Bible That the King James is in line with and the received text this olivetan

French Bible of 1537 He called this Bible quote the entire and pure because all the ancient

Exemplars which formally were found among the papists the Roman Catholics were full of falsifications which caused

Beza to say that one must confess that it was by means of Vaudois of the valleys that France today has the same

Bible in her own language France today has a Protestant Bible and does not go with the

Roman Catholic Bible now who who are these names were Reading like Beza and ledger.

These were associates of John Calvin Of the Protestant of what we call the modern

Protestant movement Olivetan was an associate who was a Frenchman Olivetan in the preface of his translation of the

Bible in the French Recognizes with thanks to God that since the time of the

Apostles the torch of the gospel has been lit among the voodoo Ah or Baudouin are the dwellers of the valleys of the

Alps and has never since been extinguished in The fourth century held videos the scholar of northern

Italy accused Jerome With using corrupt Greek manuscripts now, you understand that the

Roman Catholic Bible came from Jerome Helvetia's the one who obviously had a

Protestant Bible all the way going back as is far into the Syrian Pashita version

He claimed that Jerome's Bible was corrupted by corrupt Greek manuscripts So that the

Bible that the entire Roman Catholic movement has used up to today's do a version in the

English Anyway, that Bible is corrupted and it dates back to this time of Helvetia's who was a

Protestant scholar in northern Italy who was a Waldensian or of that line of thinking? It came before that time but he that's who they came from as The church taught each generation in that part of the world in northern

Italy in southern France Those believers came to be known later as the

Waldensians, etc Isn't it interesting that he points out that far back in the days of Jerome?

That there there we had the same battle between Westcott and Hort and virgin occurred back in the fourth century between Helvetia's and Jerome So we see basically two concepts.

We have a Roman Catholic Bible and we have a Protestant Manuscript that that is more in line with what we have in the

King James Version And we see this battle going all the way back to the fourth century, which is you know, the 300s 80

Now this is interesting. It says when the Jesuits brought forth in an English translation of the

Latin Vulgate Which was an English Catholic Bible. They wrote in the preface of of this

That the Vulgate had been translated in 1300 into Italian and in 1400 into French and here's what they wrote quote to The sooner to shake out of the deceived people's hands the false heretical

Translations of a sect called the Waldensians. Did you hear that? the

Roman Catholics made their Bible from Jerome's Latin Vulgate and Printed it in Italian and French So as to sooner shake out of their hands the manuscripts that they believed were the

Word of God Now you can take this far beyond the modern scholarship and the debates about that it goes back to the fact that there was a

Protestant Bible and there was a Catholic Bible and I'll promise you that what Westcott and Hort did was they tricked the

Protestant world into receiving a new American standard and NIV and several others revised standard that is a

Catholic Bible and More in line with Jerome's Latin Vulgate rather than the

King James which comes from the received text Which is more in line with the Waldensian Bible and all of these

Bibles in southern France northern Italy and all the way back As far as we can go to the Syriac Vashita version and so forth