Old and newer King James Versions and other translations #4 Steps to the women’s bibles

Not having enough background of the Jewish Koine Greek, or Jewish Hellenistic Greek, the variety of Koine Greek (hē koinē dialektos ‘the common language’) or “common Attic”  found in a number of Alexandrian dialect texts of Hellenistic Judaism, most notably the Septuagint translation of the Hebrew Bible which at the time of the King James Bible‘s first edition was not yet available, as well as Greek Jewish texts from Palestine. This made that lots of words for previous Bible translations and the Authorised Version, where not yet understood properly and of some words they thought it were persons (names) instead of things (nouns) and situations.

Important historical sites of Hellenistic and medieval Judaism. – Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.

Words and word elements were adopted and adapted into Latin over c.1,500 years, and passed through Latin into many European and other languages, being used in the main for scholarly and technical purposes. The flow into English was at first very limited and largely religious, such as Old English cirice and its descendant church (from kūriakón dôma the Lord’s house).

Katharina von Bora (1499–1552) one of the most important participants of the Reformation because of her role in helping to define Protestant family life and setting the tone for clergy marriages.

At the beginning this knowledge of languages was a man’s job, but from the 19th century women began to have their say as well. Lots of Christians have the wrong idea that women in the ancient times had nothing to say. Many also think that in Christianity women played no role at all. they should know that the Set Apart or Holy Scriptures  acknowledges and celebrates the priceless value of a virtuous woman (Proverbs 12:4; 31:10; 1 Corinthians 11:7).

Whilst by the Jews there where not so many women teachers or rabbi’s, from the beginning the master teacher Jeshua had a big heart for them and had many women around him, following him everywhere they could and talking about his actions. The Bible teaches women are not only equals with men (Galatians 3:28), but are also set apart for special honour (1 Peter 3:7). Jeshua also knew how in the past the the priceless value of a virtuous woman was celebrated and insisted those around him to respect the woman also. (Proverbs 12:4; 31:10; 1 Corinthians 11:7).  Not only did the master teacher encourage their discipleship by portraying it as something more needful than domestic service and always treated women with the utmost dignity — even women who might otherwise be regarded as outcasts (Matthew 9:20-22; Luke 7:37-50; John 4:7-27).

“1  After this, Jesus travelled about from one town and village to another, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom of God. The Twelve were with him, 2 and also some women who had been cured of evil spirits and diseases: Mary (called Magdalene) from whom seven demons had come out; 3 Joanna the wife of Chuza, the manager of Herod’s household; Susanna; and many others. These women were helping to support them out of their own means.” (Luke 8:1-3 NIV)

“38  As Jesus and his disciples were on their way, he came to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to him. 39 She had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet listening to what he said. 40 But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. She came to him and asked, “Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!” 41 “Martha, Martha,” the Lord answered, “you are worried and upset about many things, 42 but only one thing is needed. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.”” (Luke 10:38-42 NIV)

Clearly the listening to Jesus’ teaching was for the rabbi important, because he would not be long with them. for him it was also important that they would know what they had to talk about when he would be gone, because they had to go out into the world and witness about what he had done, and for telling others about the coming Kingdom of God. All those who wanted to be called a disciple or follower of Christ had to witness for him.

“You will be his witness to all men of what you have seen and heard.” (Acts 22:15 NIV)

Already from the start women where there with Jesus.  Christ’s first recorded, explicit disclosure of His own identity as the true Messiah was made to a Samaritan woman (John 4:25-26). When he was gone there were also women present in the room when the Spirit came over the apostles.  From then onwards they too were not afraid any more to come out with their beliefs. Soon they too took also their role in the preaching and some of them even became renowned.

“In Joppa there was a disciple named Tabitha (which, when translated, is Dorcas), who was always doing good and helping the poor.” (Acts 9:36 NIV)

Often it were women who opened up their house for followers of Christ coming together and to lead the meetings.

“When this had dawned on him, he went to the house of Mary the mother of John, also called Mark, where many people had gathered and were praying.” (Acts 12:12 NIV)

Also when things where not so clear for some they dared to call them with them and explain it so they could better understand the truth. Also women who talked about Jesus but did not know everything well, were helped by the apostles so that they could do a better job.

“13 On the Sabbath we went outside the city gate to the river, where we expected to find a place of prayer. We sat down and began to speak to the women who had gathered there. 14 One of those listening was a woman named Lydia, a dealer in purple cloth from the city of Thyatira, who was a worshipper of God. The Lord opened her heart to respond to Paul’s message. 15 When she and the members of her household were baptised, she invited us to her home. “If you consider me a believer in the Lord,” she said, “come and stay at my house.” And she persuaded us.” (Acts 16:13-15 NIV)

Throughout history there have always been faithful women spreading the Word of God.

It might well be that the energetic monk and young theologian Martin Luther, who felt himself to be “a sinner with an unquiet conscience,” was stimulated by the former Benedictine and Cistercian nun Katharina von Bora, who had fled her convent with several other nuns or ‘vestal virgins’, to Wittenberg, and who became, at the age of 26,  his  wife in 1525 (him being 41) and became known as “die Lutherin”.  She became the “boss of Zulsdorf,” after the name of the farm they owned, and the “morning star of Wittenberg” for her habit of rising at 4 a.m. to take care of her various responsibilities, administering and managing the vast holdings of the monastery, breeding and selling cattle, and running a brewery in order to provide for their family and the steady stream of students who boarded with them and visitors seeking audiences with her husband. It can well be that her being at the site of the prosecuted Luther, made him to continue his translation work of the Bible and not giving up his ideas.

In the two following centuries it were women who often took care that the children got to hear the Word of God at home, whilst they were able to hide this sacred book for the persecutors. Those who fled from the European continent to look for a New World also carried with them the Holy Bible in their language or in Latin.

In the 17th century religious groups found their way to the New World and at certain places founded their own colonies so that they could perfectly practice their own faith. Religious liberty for others — a concept Americans would later take for granted — was not part of the Puritans‘ plan. Instead, founding Governor John Winthrop envisioned a model “Citty [sic] upon a hill,” an example of Christian unity and order. Not incidentally, women were expected to play a submissive and supporting role in this society.

Anne Hutchinson, née Anne Marbury

At the Massachusetts Bay Colony a skilled midwife and herbal healer with her own interpretation of Puritan doctrine, challenged the leaders of this “wilderness theocracy,” as Barbara Ritter Dailey describes it.
Anne Hutchinson  [Anne Marbury Hutchinson (1591-1643)] eldest daughter of a strong-willed Anglican priest who had been imprisoned and removed from office because of his demand for a better-educated clergy, had probably inherited the strong will of her father, taking with her a legacy of biblical scholarship and religious independence.

When the Anglican Church silenced one of her favourite teachers, John Cotton, one of England’s outstanding Puritan ministers, one of New England’s first generation, leader in civil and religious affairs, and a persuasive writer on the theory and practice of Congregationalism, left for the colony of Massachusetts in America, Hutchinson became extremely distraught. She finally persuaded her husband to leave for America, so that she could follow her religious mentor.

William Hutchinson was granted a desirable house lot in Boston, and both husband and wife quickly became church members.
When she was criticized for failing to attend weekly prayer meetings in the homes of parishioners, she responded by holding meetings in her own home. She began by reiterating and explaining the sermons of John Cotton but later added some of her own interpretations, a practice that was to be her undoing. As her meetings became more popular, Hutchinson drew some of Boston’s most influential citizens to her home. Many of these were town merchants and artisans who had been severely criticized for profiteering in prices and wages; they saw in Hutchinson’s stress on grace a greater freedom regarding morality and therefore more certainty of their own salvation. But others came in search of a more meaningful and personal relationship with their God. As she attracted followers and defenders, the orthodox Puritans organized to oppose her doctrines and her advocates.

Cotton was chiefly responsible for the exile of Anne Hutchinson, because of her antinomian doctrines, and for the expulsion of Roger Williams.They continued to preach and used their own words. Quoting from the Bible in a non literal way became common practice and would be later taken up in presenting fragments or stories from the Bible. This free telling of Bible stories was also taken up in other languages and was breeding ground for children’s Bibles and freely quoted or paraphrased Bible translations.

The Ritual Dance of the Shakers, Shaker Historical Society

The priests and male clerics mostly kept the bible in their hand and sometimes read some phrases out of it. They still were in the majority, though some ladies walked to the forefront and got followers. It had not all to be literate women who took charge.
An unlettered daughter of a blacksmith who was probably named Lees joined at the age of 22 joined the faith group Shaking Quakers, or Shakers, because of the shaking and dancing that characterized their worship (It originally derived from a small branch of English Quakers founded by Jane and James Wardley in 1747). Ann Lee married in 1762, a union that tradition holds was unhappy and may have influenced her later doctrinal insistence on celibacy. She became the group their accepted leader and was known as Ann the Word or Mother Ann. Although illiterate, she claimed the gift of tongues and the ability to discern spirits and work miracles. She was also convinced of the holiness of celibacy, an idea stemming from her own experience of losing four children at or soon after their birth. In 1774 she led a band of eight to America, where, two years later, at Watervliet, N.Y., the first Shaker settlement in America was founded. The Shaker communities flourished in the mid-19th century and contributed a distinctive style of architecture, furniture, and handicraft to American culture. The communities declined in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The two American converts who followed Mother Ann as Lead Elder — Joseph Meacham (1787–1796) and Lucy Wright (1796–1821) — developed an institutional structure for less antagonistic relations with society.

At that time, a woman’s leadership of a religious group was considered to be a ‘sect leader’ and as a radical departure from Protestant Christianity. Living apart from her husband Elizur Goodrich, she like him committed herself fully to Shakerism and within a decade rose to leadership within the Shakers movement, with the power and authority which women were not allowed in other religions.

Wright was fully aware of our task of witnessing and sent missionaries to preach across New England and upstate New York as well as into the western wilderness, where those preachers recruited proselytes and established new Shaker villages in Kentucky, Ohio, and Indiana.
Under Wright’s administration, Shakers standardized and increased book and tract publishing for the widely-scattered religious society. Their first statement of beliefs was Testimony of Christ’s Second Appearing in 1810, followed by a hymnal which served much the same purpose in 1813. This way the bible-fragments were brought to the general public in ordinary simple words.

In the early nineteenth century the movement expanded into Ohio, Indiana, and Kentucky. By the mid-1820s about 4,000 believers lived in sixteen communal villages, usually with residential “Great Houses” surrounded by meetinghouses, barns, mills, workshops, and smaller residences for children and probationary members. A hierarchy of elders and eldresses who had completely abandoned the sinful world were in charge.

Charles Grandison Finney (1792–1875) American Presbyterian minister and leader in the Second Great Awakening in the United States.

In the New World several Female Missionary Societies saw the light and invited men as well as women to proclaim the Word of God.  The Female Missionary Society of the Western District hired in this way Charles Grandison Finney who came to promote social reforms, such as abolition of slavery and equal education for women and African Americans. From 1835 he taught at Oberlin College of Ohio, which accepted all genders and races, opening the way for more women able to read the Bible.

The Christians who believed only in One God and wanted others also to know the biblical truth, saw with dismay how Finney used scare tactics to gain converts.

Across the board, many thought that his habitual use of the words you and hell “let down the dignity of the pulpit.” {Charles Finney Father of American revivalism}

During the 16th and 17th century Anabaptists were heavily prosecuted in Europe because of their view of Jesus his position and man’s position in this world. By the many searchers for the truth lots of them found they could not take on the human doctrines like the Trinity and found that people had to be fully aware of what believing meant and when to commit themselves to the Only One God. From the Low countries many went to America. On the boat-trip they had a very good opportunity to speak about the biblical truth to others form different denominations. also the English doctor John Thomas who as ship’s surgeon on the Marquis of Wellesley, took the occasion to share his ideas with many people on board. When this boat docked in New York, Thomas travelled on to Cincinnati, Ohio where he became convinced by the Restoration Movement (also known as the or the Stone-Campbell Movement) of the need for baptism and joined them in October 1832. Looking for the “church within” we can imagine that people tried also to express themselves freely to show others how they understood the Word of God.

The Restoration Movement developed from several independent strands of religious revival that idealized apostolic Christianity. They were united in the belief that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God. After his bad experience fearing for his life when the boat had nearly sunk, Thomas took his vow to God seriously and went going from one place to another, preaching the Word of God. Many of his followers came to “the Brotherhood”, and started to have meetings in their houses or barns to study the Word of God. For them it was clear that human doctrines and church creeds divide and that real Christians should be under Christ. for them God’s Word was clearly given to all people and the Bible was not to be the matter only for clergy. For them all Christians should take the Bible as their guide and leader and should suppress all divisive doctrines and practices.

One of Thomas his disciples would find enough people interested to print pamphlets and tracts. He also started as a Christian restorationist minister and became better known as Pastor Russell, being the instigator of Russellism or founder of the Russellites, opposite the Thomasites or followers of Dr. Thomas who founded the Christadelphians, Brothers in Christ who took studying the bible as one of their priorities (hence the other name Bible Students).

Dr Thomas also wrote for and was editor of the Apostolic Advocate which first appeared in May 1834, whilst Charles Taze Russell started only in July 1879 with publishing his monthly religious journal, Zion’s Watch Tower and Herald of Christ’s Presence. In 1881 he co-founded Zion’s Watch Tower Tract Society with William Henry Conley as president, providing the establishment of an international Bible Student movement. In 1884 the corporation was officially registered, with Russell as president. From then onwards those Bible Students tried to bring Bible fragments in the common language of the day. For them women had also their say and were worthy co-operators to produce articles and to bring bible texts in contemporary American English.

It was his successor as society president, Joseph Rutherford who brought a wide division in the Bible student movement and created the Jehovah’s Witnesses who would work at translating the Word of God, doing a marvellous job, presenting bibles in many languages all over the world, so that nobody would have an excuse he or she could not find a Bible in a language he or she understands.

Mary Jane Patterson (1840–1894)

In 1862 Mary Jane Patterson became the first African-American woman to receive a B.A degree in the New World. She received a recommendation for an “appointment from the American missionary Association as a … teacher among freedmen.” In 1865 Patterson became an assistant to Fanny Jackson Coppin at the Philadelphia’s Institute for Colored Youth (now Cheyney University of Pennsylvania). In 1869 to 1871 Patterson taught in Washington, D. C., at the Preparatory High School for Colored Youth known today as Dunbar High School (Washington, D.C.). She served as the school’s first Black principal, from 1871 to 1872. She was reappointed from 1873 to 1884. During her administration, the school grew from less than 50 to 172 students, the name “Preparatory High School” was dropped, high school commencements were initiated, and a teacher-training department was added to the school. Patterson’s commitment to thoroughness as well as her “forceful” and “vivacious” personality helped her establish the school’s strong intellectual standards.
We can imagine by those standards being a Christian life style and good moral where essence.

Already around the turn of the 18th to 19th century women had started wanting to have a stronger voice in the education of children. Also parents started looking more at how to bring up children together in a community. They had seen the public school system starting to develop going away from certain ways of life preferred by them. The spiritual aspect was important and could not be forgotten. Discontented with the new public school system more alternative education developed in part as a reaction to perceived limitations and failings of traditional education. In many of such schools at that time the Bible and Christian life formed an important element of educational basic training. A broad range of educational approaches emerged, including alternative schools, self learning, homeschooling and unschooling.

Benjamin Wilson (1817–1900)

In 1840 the English family Wilson though originally Baptists, joined the growing Campbellite movement and moved to the New World four years later. In Geneva, Illinois the family began to distance themselves from the Campbellites. In 1846 Benjamin Wilson wrote his first letter to the other ex-Campbellite John Thomas, as recorded in the latter’s magazine The Herald of the Future Age, agreeing with the Thomas’ views on the immortal soul – the initial cause of his break with Campbell. There is considerable correspondence in Thomas’ magazines from various members of the Wilson family over the next several years.

Just as John Thomas had been re-baptised in 1847, Benjamin Wilson was rebaptised in 1851, marking off a new start from the Campbellites.

The first page of the Complutensian Polyglot

From 1855 to 1869 Benjamin Wilson published a monthly religious magazine, the Gospel Banner, which merged with John Thomas’s magazine, Herald of the Coming Kingdom.

In 1857 the autodidact Biblical scholar Benjamin Wilson presented a first section of a side-by-side two-language New Testament version like the New Testament in Greek and Latin, had been completed in 1514 with the Complutensian printed by Axnaldus Guilielmus de Brocario at the expense of Cardinal Ximenes at the university at Alcalá de Henares (Complutum) and the Antwerp Polyglot, printed by Christopher Plantin (1569-1572, in eight volumes folio). Polyglot means, literally poly or multi tongue or multi lingual, “through tongue” or “many / several languages” and is understood to signify “interlinear.”

In England there had also been a polyglot translation by Brian Walton who was aided by able scholars and used much new manuscript material (London, 1657). It included the Ethiopic Psalter, Canticle of Canticles, and New Testament, the Arabic New Testament, and the Gospels in Persian. His prolegomena and collections of various readings mark an important advance in biblical criticism.

It was in connection with this polyglot that Edmund Castell produced his famous Heptaglott Lexicon (two volumes folio, London, 1669), a monument of industry and erudition even when allowance is made for the fact that for the Arabic he had the great manuscript lexicon compiled and left to the University of Cambridge by William Bedwell. {Free Encyclopedia Wikipedia}

The Bible was also published in several languages by Elias Hutter (Nuremberg, 1599-1602), and by Christianus Reineccius (Leipsic, 1713-51). Ten years before the “Polyglot Bible in eight languages” (2 vols., London, 2nd ed. 1874) the Christadelphians produced the complete two-language Emphatic Diaglott translation, of the New Testament by Benjamin Wilson. For the Greek text he based it on the various Readings of the Vatican Manuscript, No. 1209; the text used by the German rationalist Protestant theologian Johann Jakob Griesbach, who was the earliest biblical critic to subject the Gospels to systematic literary analysis. In this translation the name of God is also restored, so that readers could clearly see about whom was spoke and who said something, the lord Jeshua (Jesus Christ) or the Lord of lords”Jehovah“.

In this Interlineary literal Word for Word English translation ‘Signs of Emphasis’ were given; whilst under each Greek word the English equivalent is printed. In the slim right-hand column of each page is presented a modern English translation as made by Benjamin Wilson. Also a copious selection of ‘References’; many appropriate, illustrative, and exegetical ‘Foot-notes’; and a valuable ‘Alphabetical Appendix’ are given. This combination of important items could not be found in any other book at that time.

Such literal translations made many bible Students to see much things more clearly. Also Charles T. Russell, learned that the inspired Greek Scriptures speak of the second “presence” of Christ, for the Diaglott translated the Greek word “parousía” correctly as “presence,” and not as “coming” like the King James Version Bible. Accordingly when C. T. Russell began publishing his new Bible magazine in July of 1879, he called it Zion’s Watch Tower and Herald of Christ’s Presence.

The Christadelphians allowed also the Millenial Dawn Bible Students (later the Watchtower Society) to distribute Wilson’s work widely around the world from 1902. Also the Church of God of the Abrahamic Faith and the Church of the Blessed Hope which he founded are still part of the Christadelphian movement which still print this Bible translation.

Bible students form the Zion’s Watchtower suggested that,

Every student of God’s plan, as presented in the Tower, ought to have the aid which the Diaglott affords.

As such this translation became a useful attribute for the later standard Bible of the Jehovah’s Witnesses, The New World Translation.

In 2004, the Abrahamic Faith Beacon Publishing Society brought home The Emphatic Diaglott and re-published a new version of it, working in partnership with The Christadelphian Advancement Trust.

In the homeschooling opposite to traditional Christian schools it were mostly women who took up the job as teacher. Having only bibles in Old English they wanted books in a more contemporary language and put pressure on the existing clergy. From the congregations also came a louder cry to provide them with modern language bibles.

King James Version of the Bible (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Answering that cry from the housewives and teachers in 1870 an invitation was extended to American religious leaders for scholars to work on the revision of the Authorized Version/King James Bible of 1611. In 1871, thirty scholars were chosen by Philip Schaff. The denominations represented on the American committee were the Baptist, Congregationalist, Dutch Reformed, Friends, Methodist, Episcopal, Presbyterian, Protestant Episcopal, and Unitarian.

In England also there was a request to have a revision and by the Convocation of Canterbury in 1870 two companies were formed, one each for the Old and New Testaments to revise the King James Version. Parallel companies in the United States received the work of the English scholars to return their comments. For those at work it was made clear only a revision and not a new translation was contemplated.

The New Testament was published in England on May 17, 1881, and three days later in the United States, after 11 years of labour. Over 30,000 changes were made, of which more than 5,000 represent differences in the Greek text from that used as the basis of the King James Version. Most of the others were made in the interests of consistency or modernization.

In the traditional churches there was not much interest in the Old Testament, this not fitting in with the accent of their teaching on Jesus, instead of God.

On certain points the English and Americans did not agree. At that time the Americans still gave in to the British revisers and published preferred readings and renderings in an appendix to the Revised Version. In 1900 the American edition of the New Testament, which incorporated the American scholars’ preferences into the body of the text, was produced. A year later the Old Testament was added, but not the Apocrypha. The alterations covered a large number of obsolete words and expressions and replaced Anglicisms by the diction then in vogue in the United States.

As shown above women and the general American public made use to talk about the Bible and to use it at home. The publishers could not ignore their wishes and provided them with some official version which could offer an alternative for the partly published Bible books and for the unofficial translations into modern speech made from 1885 which had gained popularity. Their appeal reinforced by the discovery that the Greek of the New Testament used the common non-literary variety of the language spoken throughout the Roman Empire when Christianity was in its formative stage.

The notion that a nonliterary modern rendering of the New Testament best expressed the form and spirit of the original was hard to refute. This, plus a new maturity of classical, Hebraic, and theological scholarship in the United States, led to a desire to produce a native American version of the English Bible. {Encyclopaedia Britannica}

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Preceding articles:

Old and newer King James Versions and other translations #1 Pre King James Bible

Old and newer King James Versions and other translations #2 King James Bible versions

Old and newer King James Versions and other translations #3 Women and versions

Next: Old and newer King James Versions and other translations #5 Further steps to women’s bibles

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Additional reading

1. Codex Sinaiticus available for perusal on the Web
2. Bible Translating and Concordance Making
3. Looking at notes of Samuel Ward and previous Bible translation efforts in English
4. Written and translated by different men over thousands of years
5. Rare original King James Bible discovered
6. King James Bible Coming into being
7. Celebrating the Bible in English
8. TheBible4Life KJV Jubileum
9. What English Bible do you use?
10. The Most Reliable English Bible
11. 2001 Translation an American English Bible
12. NWT and what other scholars have to say to its critics
13. New American Bible Revised Edition
14. The NIV and the Name of God
15. Archeological Findings the name of God YHWHUse of /Gebruik van Jehovah or/of Yahweh in Bible Translations/Bijbel vertalingen
16. Dedication and Preaching Effort 400 years after the first King James Version
17. Hebrew, Aramaic and Bibletranslation
18. Some Restored Name Versions
19. Anchor Yale Bible
20. iPod & Android Bibles
21. Missed opportunity for North Korea
22. What are Brothers in Christ
23. Wanting to know more about basic teachings of Christadelphianism
24. Around C.T.Russell

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Further reading

1. Jennifer Strauss, ‘The Anabaptist Cages, Münster’
2. The Bible: Kept Pure in All Ages
3. Where was the Bible before 1611? How can we know God endorsed the KJV?
4. AV1611: England’s Greatest Achievement
5. Earliest Known Draft of 1611 King James Bible Is Found
6. Ye King Iames Bible
7. King James Version
8. Thees, Thous, and Wot Nots
9. The King James Bible
10. The King James Bible and the Restoration
11. King James Only? (Ethernal Christ)
12. KJV Only? (Lynn Thaler)
13. KJV Onlyism: What It Does And Doesn’t Mean
14. King James XV
15. Christian Scholars Admit To Corrupting The Bible
16. What’s wrong with the New King James?
17. Is it true no doctrines are changed in modern versions?
18. The King James AV 1611 Bible vs. The New International Version
19. I got saved reading the NIV. How can you say it’s no good?
20. Why should God’s Word be restricted to English?
21. The Attack on the Bible
22. John 3:16 isn’t the gospel that saves men’s souls today
23. New Age Deism
24. New Age Deism: Part Two
25. Inside Orthodox Judaism: A Critical Perspective On Its Theology
26. Mailbox Monday August 29: on Katharina von Bora
27. 11th April 1612. Dangerous Heresy.
28. Book Review: The Reformers and Their Stepchildren by Leonard Verduin
29. women.born.before | 05 feb 1760
30. Settler Colonialism and the Freedom of Religion
31. Searching for Religious Freedom
32. Freedom From and For Religion
33. This Week in History – Kicked to the Curb by a Pilgrim
34. King Survey: Women and Other Puritans
35. The Puritans: Church and State
36. Midweek Blog: Anne Hutchinson, the “Unnatural Woman”
37. Paddling the Hutch: Ned P. Rauch takes the plunge
38. Great Information Wrapped Inside This Human Struggle
39. The Puritan identification with the Bible
40. Despite Roger Williams’ Efforts, Providence Burns in 1676
41. Williams
42. Roger Williams in Art
43. Mass Moments: Roger Williams Banished
44. Research Reading IV
45. Research Reading V
46. History Weekend: The Shakers, pt. 1
47. Quakers
48. Commonwealth – Part Two
49. A Catalogue of Severall Sects & Opinions
50. History of the Anabaptist Head Covering
51. Faith in the Head Covering
52. Persecuted in Revolutionary Baltimore: The Sufferings of Quakers
53. Half an hour in James Watt’s Workshop
54. The Advices & Queries project
55. The Violent Seduction of Thomas Paine by Rocket Kirchner
56. The Last Runaway Review
57. Stantons in America
58. Eber Sherman, ,7th Great-Grandfather
59. Birmingham Quakers and the Spanish Civil War
60. Hidden Nearby: Charles Grandison Finney’s Birthplace
61. Free Charles Finney Book!
62. The reward of fervent prayer, Charle G. Finney
63. Midweek Blog: Charles Finney, Staring at You Until You Join His Revival
64. “Could God Forgive A Man Like That?”
65. Joseph Logan land, 127 acres, Ninety Six District, South Carolina, 1785
66. Alexander Campbell & the Indwelling of the Holy Spirit
67. Restoration
68. The Restoration Movement, Acapella & the Trinity
69. The Future of the Restoration Movement, Part 2
70. Charles Taze Russell – “Don’t read your Bible”
71. Apocalyptic Forecasts
72. Women’s History: Mary Jane Patterson
73. Some Notes on Bible Translations
74. What is Wrong with Evangelicals in America?
75. For Us or Against Us: The Politics of the Christian Right & the Shutdown
76. Icon: Tacy Cooper
77. The Secret of Powerful Revivals Are the Intercessors Praying Behind the Scenes
78. Les origines de nos traditions dans l’Eglise : Partie 1
79. Edifying Christian Biographies That Will Bless Every True Christian!
80. A Visit to Pembroke College
81. Hospitality
82. ‘Tis a Gift
83. A weekend away
84. Simple gifts
85. Becoming Visible: Quaker Outreach at Colleges
86. Turbulent Londoners: Ada Salter, 1866-1942
87. A Spicy Letter to Preachers
88. On Church Leadership (an email exchange with Sándor Abonyi of Hungary) – Pt.1: “The First Button”
89. My way is the best
90. ELCA Repudiates the Doctrine of Discovery, Next Up: Mennonite Church USA
91. A glimpse of Missouri’s Amish
92. Freedom of religion
93. Book Review – Recovering the Margins of American Religious History: The Legacy of David Edwin Harrell, Jr. (Waldrop and Billingsley, eds.)
94. Book Review: The Churches of Christ in the 20th Century: Homer Hailey’s Personal Journey of Faith (David Edwin Harrell, Jr.)
95. Churches of Christ – The Road Ahead
96. Some Notes on Bible Translations

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Related articles

• Facts and History of the Bible, Know ‘yer Bible – Mormon a Go Go
• Back in print: Tyndale Bible
• The Middle West hiding in the Middle East – Beyond Foreignness
• Bible Statistics
• How much ‘overexaggeration’ is enough?
• Ancient Jewish scroll now legible
• Thoughts On Classical Education from Martin Cothran – The Reading Mother
• Looking at notes of Samuel Ward and previous Bible translation efforts in English
• Written and translated by different men over thousands of years
• The Bible a book of books

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Old and newer King James Versions and other translations #2 King James Bible versions

Bijbeluitgave 1611 Bible edition of 1611 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

In English speaking parts of the world we can find certain people who swear by the King James Bible also called Authorized Version or King James Version, which was published in 1611 under the auspices of King James I of England.  They say it is the only Bible we should use and they often asperse other Bible translations. Strangely enough when we look at what Bible version they use, we notice that they do not use the original King James Bible or Authorized King James Version, but have taken themselves one of the many King James bible (KJB) versions (KJV) and as such, often also could have used an other up to date English Bible translation.

Also telling people that they only should be allowed to use the King James Bible is giving the same indication as some Islamic teachers do, telling their folks they only may use the Quran in Arabic, as if God would only have given His word to the world in Arabic or in English, so that people who speak an other language would not be able to come to God or to understand God.

Verses from the Vetus Latina Gospel of John (16:23–30) as they appear on a page of the Codex Vercellensis.

After the Book of books in Hebrew we got an international translation of Gods Word with the Septuagint,(receiving the symbol LXX) the oldest extant Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible made by Hellenistic Jews, possibly from Alexandria, c.250 BCE Legend, according to the fictional letter of Aristeas, records that it was done in 72 days by 72 translators for Ptolemy Philadelphus, which accounts for the name. Later we got Latin versions (Vetus Latina; Vulgate) whilst the Greek form was improved and altered to include the books of the Apocrypha and some of the pseudepigrapha, spurious or pseudonymous Jewish writings ascribed to various biblical patriarchs and prophets composed between c.200 BCE and c.a. 200 CE. In a way there was not really one single Latin Bible, because different versions appeared from 350 CE to 1400 CE, with a collection of biblical manuscript texts that bear witness to Latin translations of biblical passages that preceded Jerome’s.

The language of the Old Latin translations is uneven in quality, as Augustine of Hippo lamented in De Doctrina Christiana (2, 16). Grammatical solecisms abound; some reproduce literally Greek or Hebrew idioms as they appear in the Septuagint. Likewise, the various Old Latin translations reflect the various versions of the Septuagint circulating, with the African manuscripts (such as the Codex Bobiensis) preserving readings of the Western text-type, while readings in the European manuscripts are closer to the Byzantine text-type. Many grammatical idiosyncrasies come from the use of Vulgar Latin grammatical forms in the text. {The Free Encyclopedia Wikipedia on Vetus Latina, edition 2016}

In the Septuagint we can find older versions of parts of the Hebrew Scriptures, some going back long before the canon of the Hebrew Bible was settled. We also can find Egyptian writings which predate the Catholic bible translations in Latin. It were diaspora Jews who continually worked on putting the old set apart writings (holy scriptures) together. Some communities had other writings included in their yearly readings, whilst others took other standard texts often in different order or arrangement than our common contemporary bibles, though even today Catholic, Protestant, Ethiopian Orthodox, Russian Orthodox and Greek Orthodox Bibles use a different order of books and may consider some as canonical, whilst other treat them as apocryphal.

In Great Britain’s 16° century the most popular English translation was the Geneva Bible (1557; first published in England in 1576), which had been made in Geneva by English Protestants living in exile during Mary I (1553–58) her persecutions. She had attempted to restore Roman Catholicism in the country. That translation was never authorized by the crown, but was particularly popular among the religious reform movement of the Puritans which surged across Europe, though not among many more-conservative clergymen.

In the seventeenth century the translators, gathered in name of the English sovereign, were very well aware that the Word of God was delivered to the world in the language of the chosen people of God, Hebrew and in the language of Jeshua, the Messiah (Jesus Christ), Aramaic as well as in the business or commercial language of the time of the master teacher, Greek. They thought it well to translate those languages so that the English people could have the Bible in their own language and did not have to go for the Latin translations.

Titlepage and dedication from a 1612-1613 King James Bible, printed by Robert Barker. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

By June 30, 1604, King James I had approved a list of 54 revisers, although extant records show that 47 scholars actually participated. They were organized into six companies, two each working separately at Westminster, Oxford, and Cambridge on sections of the Bible assigned to them.
In addition to the original languages of Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek, the 6 committees that worked on the King James Bible Version (2 in Cambridge, 2 in Oxford, and 2 at Westminster) used other translations, both those in English that had gone before them, as well as translations in other languages. Richard Bancroft (1544–1610), archbishop of Canterbury, served as overseer and established doctrinal conventions for the translators. They used translations of the Bible to consider how best to interpret and render the original languages in the English of the early 17th Century. They were fully aware of the rich value of other translations which saw the light in the earlier times and believed it was God’s Power which took care that the Word of God could reach them so far away from the Holy Land. For having the availability of this Word of God in other languages as well as in other English translations the committee expressed thanks to God for those other translations which were for them a valuable resource in their work.

They themselves regarded what they were doing and how they did it as part of a world effort to get God’s Word into the language of the ordinary folks. They were humble enough to know that there were other versions in Europe which also had to offer the Truth to the world. They also knew they could make faults and that those had to be corrected in later times, which also happened. The King James Version (KJV) came later to be  corrected and improved.

In Europe there are not many people having a bible, but in the United States of America is seems that there are still 88% of Americans who own a Bible translation in their own language. When those Northern Americans reach for their Bibles, more than half of them are still reaching for the King James Version (KJV).

Since a few years next to the American Bible Translation the New International Version (NIV) saw the light and came to gain in popularity over the American Standard Version (ASV) and New American Standard Bible (NASB) and the Catholic New American Bible (NAB) and the lesser used protestant and Catholic Revised Standard Version (RSV). Although the NIV tops Bible sales each year (KJV and NKJV are number 2 & 3), only 19% of Americans own that modern translation, and other modern translations take much smaller slices of the Bible sales pie.

English Bible translations

In the United States like in Great Britain you can find churches who believe that the King James Version is the only translation that faithfully embodies the Word of God. For them all other translations are to be rejected out of hand. Such churches hold this faulty position based on a misunderstanding of the ancient manuscripts behind the Bible.

The KJV translators, speaking of other translators, write in their Preface,

“Therefore blessed be they, and most honoured be their name, that breake the ice, and glueth onset upon that which helpeth forward to the saving of soules. Now what can bee more availeable thereto, then to deliver Gods booke unto Gods people in a tongue which they understand?”

They continue later in the Preface,

“Truly (good Christian Reader) wee never thought from the beginning, that we should neede to make a new Translation, nor yet to make of a bad one a good one, . . . but to make a good one better, or out of many good ones, one principall good one, . . . .”

This indicates that they themselves had also already found some other good translations, but wanted to make such good translations even better, or more useful for the goal they had in mind, bringing unity in the diverse world of different sorts of preachers who walked around in those days.

(KJV) 1631 Holy Bible, Robert Barker/John Bill, London. King James Version (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

They also considered themselves as instruments of God doing something in the time of theirs, which was in the given time of God, but knew that there would also come other times and that the world would develop and as such language also could develop. this is also what happened the language developed and we do not speak any more as in the 17° century.

As such the wording from the original King James Version would not be the ideal tool to reach people today.

According to the original King James Version

2 Timothy 3:16-17 KJV-1611

(16)  All Scripture is giuen by inspiration of God, & is profitable for doctrine, for reproofe, for correction, for instrution in righteousnesse,  (17)  That the man of God may be perfect, throughly furnished vnto all good workes.

which became in the 1769 version and 1769 Red Letter Version

2 Timothy 3:16-17 AV + AVRLE

“16 All scripture [is] given by inspiration of God, and [is] profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: 17 That the man of God may be perfect, throughly furnished unto all good works.”

which became in the 1885 version

2 Timothy 3:16-17 KJV 1885; English Revised Version

“16 Every scripture inspired of God [is] also profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for instruction which is in righteousness: 17 that the man of God may be complete, furnished completely unto every good work.”

Which today sounds already nicer or easier to read in later versions like

2 Timothy 3:16-17 KJV which can also be found in the Public Cambridge Edition and Oxford edition as well as the KJVCNT; the KJV 2000 version

(16) All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness:  (17)  That the man of God may be perfect, throughly furnished unto all good works.

But see the small difference between

2 Timothy 3:16-17 KJV-BRG

(16)  All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness:  (17)  That the man of God may be perfect, throughly furnished unto all good works.

with in some KJV the “is” being omitted

Also look at a more modern version of the KJV, were even other words are used

2 Timothy 3:16-17 MKJV

(16)  All Scripture is God-breathed, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness,  (17)  that the man of God may be perfected, thoroughly furnished to every good work.

which was presented in the 21st Century version

2 Timothy 3:16-17 KJV

“16 All Scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, 17 that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly equipped for all good works.”

and in the Proper Name or the restored versions looks like

2 Timothy 3:16-17 KJBPNV

“16 All scripture \@is\@ given by inspiration of God, and \@is\@ profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: 17 That the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished to all good works.”

In the Twenty-eleven King James Version got printed as

2 Timothy 3:16-17 KJV_2011

“16 All scripture is inspired by God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: 17 That the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly equipped for every good work.”

Which is translated in the New American Standard Bible

2 Timothy 3:16-17 NAS of 1977

“16 All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness; 17 that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work.”

2 Timothy 3:16-17 NAS of 1995

“16 All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness; 17 so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work.”

And in the contemporary translation from 1984 so many reject the New International Version presents

2 Timothy 3:16-17 NIV

“16 All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, 17 so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.”

In these two verses you might not see so much difference, though many make such a fuss about them, but when we look in the Old Testament, more variation is offered by the different KJV editions throughout the years. In later versions the name of God יהוה, YHWH (Iowah, Iovhah, Iova, Yehowah/Jehowah/Jehovah) was changed to “Yahweh” or “Jahweh” and worst of all got also changed to “Lordy”, “Lord of Lords”, “Lord of lords”, “Host of hosts”, “GOD”, “God” or “LORD” or to a more confusing “Lord”, so that lots of people could not see any more if was spoken about the Divine “Host of hosts“, the Elohim Hashem Jehovah, or about God His son, Jeshua, the sent one from God, Christ Jesus, which much better the trinitarian teaching of several churches in Christendom.

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Preceding: Old and newer King James Versions and other translations #1 Pre King James Bible

Continues: Old and newer King James Versions and other translations #3 Women and versions

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Additional reading:

1. The Bible a book of books
2. Book of books and great masterpiece
3. Authority of the Bible
4. Ketuvim, Writings, Hagiographa, Five Megillot and Messianic Scriptures
5. Are there certain books essential to come to faith
6. King James Bible Coming into being
7. Dedication and Preaching Effort 400 years after the first King James Version
8. Rare original King James Bible discovered
9. Celebrating the Bible in English
10. TheBible4Life KJV Jubileum
11. Appointed to be read
12. The NIV and the Name of God
13. Lord in place of the divine name
14. Archeological Findings the name of God YHWHUse of /Gebruik van Jehovah or/of Yahweh in Bible Translations/Bijbel vertalingen
15. יהוה , YHWH and Love: Four-letter words
16. Accuracy, Word-for-Word Translation Preferred by most Bible Readers
17. Hebrew, Aramaic and Bibletranslation
18. Bible Translating and Concordance Making
19. Comparisson Bible Books in English, Dutch and French
20. Some Restored Name Versions
21. Codex Sinaiticus available for perusal on the Web
22. What English Bible do you use?
23. The Most Reliable English Bible
24. 2001 Translation an American English Bible
25. NWT and what other scholars have to say to its critics
26. New American Bible Revised Edition
27. The NIV and the Name of God
28. Anchor Yale Bible
29. iPod & Android Bibles
30. Perspectives on the Formation of the Book of the Twelve
31. Scripture alone Sola Scriptora
32. Who Gets to Say What the Bible Says?
33. Forbidden fruit
34. Obstacles to effective evangelism

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Further reading

1. Of Gods and Languages: On “When God Spoke Greek”
2. Why Is God’s Name Missing From Many Bibles ?
3. Names of God in Judaism: EMET excerpt selected by אלוה אל
4. ΠΙΠΙ and the Use of Hebrew in Greek Manuscripts
5. The Divine Name and Greek Translation
6. I AM…………………….The name of God and endless potential.
7. How Factual is the Bible?
8. Books every Jew(-to-be) should have
9. Amazing Tanakh, Or Five Reasons I Learned to Love the Old Testament
10. Newly Discovered Egyptian Scrolls Reveal Pyramids were Built with Retarded Slaves
11. New Technology Could Reveal Secrets in 2,000 Year Old Scrolls
12. A short Popular Survey of the Old Testament
13. Wisdom or Heresy?
14. Catholic Myths about the Deuterocanon
15. Views on canonicity
16. Marginalia #6: “Apocrypha”
17. Old Testament Pseudepigrapha
18. AHOTKJBP Episode 14: The Apocrypha: A discussion with Dr. Mike Spaulding
19. Apocryphal musings: Sirach 34:1-7
20. His Accustomed Place: Inspiration from Tobit and the Walls of Nineveh
21. Common Awards Student Conference 2016. Part 3: More Jesus or Another Jesus? A New New Testament
22. First issue of Gnosis: Journal for Gnostic Studies Published
23. The Vossen Collection of Coptic Manuscripts
24. Special issue of BSOR on the Discovery of the Nag Hammadi Codices
25. Ancient and modern Christian apocrypha: The Gospels of Judas, Mary, Thomas, Peter and Phillip etc. and The Kolbrin Bible, The Gospel of The Essenes and The Aquarian Gospel of Jesus Christ etc.:
26. The Gnostic Genesis: Norea and Samael
27. The Gnostic Genesis: Eleleth’s Revelation
28. The Gnostic Genesis: Eleleth’s Prophecy
29. The Apocryphon of Ezekiel, Fragments 2-5
30. The Treatise of Shem
31. Roman Emperors – Sibylline Oracles, Book 12
32. Christian or Gnostic? – Sibylline Oracles, Book 7
33. The Breeches Bible
34. Christian Scholars Admit To Corrupting The Bible
35. Muslim Scholars Admit To Corrupting The Qu’ran
36. The Expert Idiocracy is as Dangerous as Islam ⋆ The Constitution
37. Some Notes on Bible Translations
38. August 25, 2016 Resources: Suicide of the Republic; How We Got Our Bible; Sound Preaching
39. KJV Only
40. KJV Only?
41. Wisdom from The Holy Scriptures
42. The King James Bible and the Restoration
43. The Septuagint: The KJV of the Ancient World
44. How the King James Bible absolutely disproves the perpetual virginity of Mary
45. 7 Bible Translations You Should Look At Regularly
46. Try It, Then Critique
47. Faith Exercises
48. Deuteronomy 22:5 In 20 Popular translation
49. Security Of The Believer
50. No Other Gods: Walter Kirn’s “My Mother’s Bible”
51. Julius Africanus: One Interesting Fellow!
52. KJV Lecture Published
53. New Cambridge History of the Bible
54. KJV App
55. NIV 50th Anniversary and Translation Strategy
56. The Early Church Bookshelf
57. Qumran Pt 1: What are the Dead Sea Scrolls?
58. A Biblical Theology of OT Holy War, Pt 3: Seed Conflict
59. A Clash of Monotheisms: Tawhid vs. Trinity, Pt 1
60. A Clash of Monotheisms, Pt 2: Dhat and Pluralness in Person
61. Researching outside of the bible
62. Will God’s people be stumbled by the name of Jehoshua?
63. Christ never heard himself called “Jesus”

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Related articles

• The Conflict Over Different Bible Versions/Part 1 | John Ankerberg Show – John Ankerberg Show
• Bible Statistics
• Navigating a World of Confusion and Strife
• Supplies the spirit of Jesus Christ
• Back in print: Tyndale Bible
• Facts and History of the Bible, Know ‘yer Bible – Mormon a Go Go
• A Drop in the Bucket
• The Conflict Over Different Bible Versions/Part 4 | John Ankerberg Show – John Ankerberg Show
• Hosea 4: 6 (KJV) My people perish from a lack of knowledge.
• Do You Hunger, Thirst, or Need To Fill a Void? Turn to Jesus Christ for Eternal Life

Back from gone #3 Giving worries to God and believing in His promises

Exploiting tensions over immigration and home-grown jihadis

A great wooden horse (the horse being the emblem of Troy), hiding an elite force inside, and fooling the Trojans into wheeling the horse into the city as a trophy, today repeated for Europe, which that mighty man wrought and endured in the carven horse, wherein all the chiefs of the Islamic State are sitting, bearing to the Europeans death and fate! – At the Istanbul Archaeological Museum in Istanbul, Turkey

The massive influx of people fleeing the wars in their countries is frightening lots of Europeans and Americans. The refugees come by thousands and for many this could be as a Horse of Troy, bringing in also dangerous Muslim extremists.

Throughout Europe we see lots of anti-refugee activities and people trying to bring fear over others about a possible Islamisation of Europe. Others also consider this a time to save Europe from Jewish domination. Apparently Jack Sen wants to merge a host of tiny groups under his leadership and call it the ‘Jack Sen Five.’ Those who seemed to have been gone now seem to come back, like the former leader of the English Defence League, Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, often known by the pseudonym Tommy Robinson, who will make his political comeback next month by fronting the relaunch of the UK arm of Pegida, the German anti-Islam organisation whose provocative rhetoric has prompted attacks on refugees. Rallies by the Pegida movement demanding a tightening of German immigration policies in Germany and Belgium could attract many people. When we look at and hear these protesters their slogans we can hear similar reactions as Germany heard in the 1930s. This time all over Europe we start finding people of all ages marching against a multicultural society. In France the anti-immigrant party, the National Front, after the November attacks, got yesterday at the regional elections again a gain of lots of votes, giving it now a fixture of the political landscape.

The “Alternative für Deutschland” (AfD) founded only a few months before the 2013 Bundestag election, managed to grow very rapidly and can be considered to be the most successful new party since 1953. but the one who wanted to be sole party leader,was ousted in favour of Frauke Petry, until then Bernd Lucke his co-leader and head of the Saxonian state party. Once received a place in the European parliament only two of the seven MPs elected in May 2014 remained loyal to the party. Christian fundamentalism and the interests of the formerly landed aristocracy (von Storch) and UKIP-style euroscepticism (Pretzell) could find their place in the party, but State level leaders such as Höcke (Thuringia), Poggenburg (Saxony-Anhalt), and, more recently, Gauland (Brandenburg) have re-discovered the rhetoric of the 19th century Völkische Bewegung that pre-dated the Nazis, and are building bridges to Germany’s New Right “think-tanks” as well as to Pegida and other anti-refugee and islamophobic groups. {Kai Arzheimer, Professor of Political Science at the University of Mainz and Visiting Fellow, Department of Government, University of Essex in Kai Arzheimer- Germany’s new AfD party: state of play}

The Jews from their site are fearing that the Muslims may become a potential hazard because intolerance is an integral part of their culture (according to them and many others).

The report, by the anti-racist group Hope Not Hate, chronicles 920 anti-Muslim organisations and key Islamophobes in 22 countries, noting that such groups are becoming increasingly well-resourced, particularly in the US, where eight foundations have donated more than £38m since the 9/11 attacks. In those groups we may also find people who call themselves Christian, but clearly show a lot of hate to people of an other skin colour and of an other faith than their own.

Hope Not Hate’s chief executive, Nick Lowles, warned that in Europe the hatred of Muslims

“was moving from the margins to the political mainstream”

while in the UK violence and prejudice against Muslims was likely to increase as far-right groups exploit tensions over immigration and homegrown jihadism. {Anti-Muslim prejudice ‘is moving to the mainstream’}

After the financial crisis we seen the last decade the ideas of the 1930s are flourishing again.

In the few weeks after the November 13 attacks in Paris Islamophobic attacks in London had more than tripled. In Germany and Sweden several cowardly attacks brought fire at night to state buildings which had to house the refugees.

Fundamental  Muslims and fundamental Christians

The fundamental Christians have found a counter -pole in the fundamental Muslims. The last ones do give those European conservative  and some evangelical Christians reason to make a counter movement and have them bring fear over others. They try to get others to believe that all those refugees are a danger for our religious freedom and that they will bring an end to our ‘Christian nation‘. Funny you may call it that those sympathisers with Pegida shouting out and celebrating its hatred towards refugees, Muslims, journalists, and everyone who doesn’t fit in their narrow minded world are wanting to do the same thing like the Islamic State members want to do in their region, but this time for a so called Christendom or Christian State.

Only looking at the UK we can find that Yaxley-Lennon can get more more than 109,000 followers on Twitter. He is lauded as an inspirational figure by both the militant and political wings of the counter-jihad movement. Other UK-based groups include Liberty GB, an anti-immigration political party, whose chairman is Paul Weston, the former Ukip parliamentary candidate. He is named as a regular contributor to the Gates of Vienna blog, where he writes about impending civil war against Muslims and “white genocide” in Britain. That the Gates of Vienna website inspired Norwegian mass murderer Anders Breivik and as such it is deeply troubling that they are continually available to inspire others.

Wilders delivering a speech in 2010

The Dutch politician and leader of the Party for Freedom (Partij voor de Vrijheid – PVV), Geert Wilders, raised a Roman Catholic, but left the church at his coming of age, but feels our nations are in danger of an “Islamisation” which has to be stopped soon before we shall be trampled by people who shall dominate us and shall not give us any freedom to run around like we want. For him the Quran is such a dangerous poisonous book as Mein Kampf .

Tolerance becoming a less popular act

Europe which would call herself democratic has opened and closed certain doors to bring a sort of selective politics whereby certain parties are silenced and where certain groups tried to silence others. The so called open mindedness spoken off in the 1950s seems to be far gone and the idea of a Europe for all sorts of people living in freedom with each other has come more and more under pressure. We also can see that the social media are more and more used to shun others and to be a means of putting pressure  onto others.

Many who call themselves Christian forget that the person they call the founder of Christendom or Christianity was a man of peace and tolerance. That master teacher, rabbi Jeshua, today better known as Jesus Christ, had a loving spirit not excluding others because they were not like minded or because they did not want to believe the same things he did.

That master teacher who did not want to do his own will, but managed to do the will of his heavenly Father, the Only One True God, told others about his loving Father and how that Holy Spirit wants us to come together as children of God, respecting all creatures (man, animals and plants). Today in Christendom we see again the discord between different Christian groups and a growing intolerance against other thinking denominations and in particular non-trinitarian denominations, like we could see in the 1930–1940s when several of our brothers and sisters were put in camps and killed by the German Nazis.

Putting worries aside

Lots of people are also afraid many mosques shall come to be build in their region; – Ortaköy Mosque, along the Bosphorus, in Istanbul, Turkey. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Whilst globally, anti-Muslim sentiment is growing in the wake of the attacks in Paris and concerns over the continuing refugee crisis, we should be careful not to be taken by such fear bringing people. Wrongly at least half of those surveyed in Italy and Greece by a Pew Research Center thinktank study in 2014 of seven European Union countries had a negative opinion of Muslims living in their country, with the most favourable rating of 72% in France. But a YouGov poll in the spring of this year, after the Charlie Hebdo shootings in Paris, showed 40% of French people held negative views of Muslims, the same level as in the UK.

In case those people would have a strong faith they should not be afraid that such strong faith would be erased by the fewer minority adepts of the Quran. Those who belong to the Christian faith should when they are real disciples of Jesus Christ  continue in the way of life Jesus presented to them.  That is a life where the person has an open attitude to all others and with a willingness to help everybody.

When giving a hand to those entering Europe and showing your willingness to help them it would be strange if they would act against you. concerning loosing the faith we are warned:

“Let him that thinks he is standing beware that he does not fall.” (1 Corinthians 10:12)

First of all when a believer in God trust Him instead of following those men who are trying to mislead many and to use them for their own rapport making them more powerful, the faithful to God shall receive enough knowledge from the Word of God to guide them through the difficulties and to this period of time.

Safeguarding the heart

As believers in God and following His sent one, Jeshua, the Messiah we are counseled:

“More than all else that is to be guarded, safeguard your heart, for out of it are the sources of life.” (Proverbs 4:23)

Jesus showed that it is from the heart that wicked reasoning, adultery, murder, and so forth, emanate. These things would lead to death.

18 However, whatever comes out of the mouth comes from the heart, and those things defile a man.+ 19 For example, out of the heart come wicked reasonings,+ murders, adulteries, sexual immorality,* thefts, false testimonies, blasphemies. 20 These are the things that defile a man; but to take a meal with unwashed* hands does not defile a man.” (Matthew 15:18, 19, 20)

We should always check what people say and see if they live according to what they are preaching are telling the world. Guarding against such heart reasonings by supplying the heart with life-giving spiritual nourishment, the truth from the pure Fountain of life, will keep the heart from going wrong and taking the person out of the way of life.

6 For setting the mind on the flesh means death,+ but setting the mind on the spirit means life and peace;+ 7 because setting the mind on the flesh means enmity with God,+ for it is not in subjection to the law of God, nor, in fact, can it be. 8 So those who are in harmony with the flesh cannot please God. (Romans 8:6-8)

When hearing all those protesters and the ones opposing to those with an other faith, we should take care of our imperfect mind and heart which can be like a watch that is going either too fast or too slow or having a pendulum going from one site to the other. Being guided by it could bring us serious trouble. We need to calibrate our mind and heart by God’s reliable standards.

 8 “For my thoughts are not your thoughts,+ And your ways are not my ways,” declares Jehovah. 9 “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, So my ways are higher than your ways And my thoughts than your thoughts.+ (Isaiah 55:8, 9)

when we trust God we can give Him are worries and ask Him to share His thought with us. This He did already for many ages. In the Bible we can find lots of His thoughts to guide us through life. those given words we should trust.

The phrase “In God We Trust” has long appeared on U.S. paper currency and coins. In 1956, the U.S. Congress passed a law declaring that expression the national motto of the United States. Ironically, many people — not just in that land but throughout the world — put greater trust in money and material wealth than they do in God. — (Luke 12:16-21.) we also can see that when they fear they could loose some money or that they have to share with others, they will come in disagreement and would like to exclude the others, like now the refugees.

When we really bear God in our heart and allow Him to guide us we should not worry so much. though it is one thing to claim that we trust in God, it is quite another to show it by our actions. As true Christians, we must do more than simply say that we trust in Jehovah. Just as “faith without works is dead,” so too any claim that we trust in God is meaningless unless we back it up by our actions.

26 Indeed, just as the body without spirit* is dead,+ so also faith without works is dead.+ (James 2:26)

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Preceding articles:

Back from gone #1 Aim of ungodly people

Back from gone #2 Aim of godly people

To be continued: Back from gone #4 Your inner feelings and actions

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Additional reading

1. Paris attacks darkening the world
2. Economic crisis danger for the rise of political extremism
3. Impact of the crisis on civil society organisations in the EU – Risks and opportunities
4. Walking alone?
5. A small trouble is like a pebble
6. Try driving forward instead of backwards
7. God Feeds The Birds
8. Rejoicing in the day
9. Some one or something to fear #1 Many sorts of fear
10. Some one or something to fear #3 Cases, folks and outing
11. Why is it that Christians don’t understand Muslims and Muslims do not understand Christians?
12. Patriarch Abraham, Muslims, Christians and the son of God
13. Jehovah steep rock and fortress, source of insight
14. Give your worries to God
15. Look for today
16. Joy: Foundation for a Positive Life
17. Home-stayers and their to do list

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Further literature

1. How the Migrant Crisis is Tearing Europe Apart
2. The new German “Wutbürger” – A short history of PEGIDA
3. Pegida – The German Taliban
4. Pegida holds first anti-immigration rally after Paris attack
5. Happening: Anti-Migrant Demonstranten in Dresden Carry Russische Flaggen
6. November 9th – PEGIDA Munich blocked from racist march on historically charged date
7. Neo-Nazis No-Show Their Annual March in Dresden. Is Pegida to Blame?
8. 
9. Pegida Munich – photographer handcuffed
10. Pegida Can Be Tamed
11. Diverse, Tolerant, Open – We Don’t Want Pegida
12. You Don’t Belong Here, Pegida Told
13. Pegida Marches through Stormy Munich as Citizens Block Road
14. Kai Arzheimer- Germany’s new AfD party: state of play
15. What to say?
16. #HenrietteReker – Something is rotting in Germany (and we are not talking about Volkswagen)
17. PIGIDA
18. Meanwhile Back In The Czech Republic
19. Tommy Robinson has a Right to Speak
20. @FellowLiberals: Are We Lying To Ourselves About How “Tolerant” We Are?
21. God, Help Me Not to Hate Those Who Hate
22. Promoting tolerance and respect through music
23. We’re all still friends in Sarajevo
24. Restoring Radical Empathy
25. Pakistanization of India?
26. India blames industrialised nations for deadly floods
27. The intolerance debate
28. Why Don’t Moderate Muslims Denounce Terrorism?
29. Map of the day II: Googling up racism
30. Our Cowardly Presidents #1: On Campus
31. The full response (or “Pseudo-Secularlism” versus “Hindutva” Agenda)
32. A House Divided: How Hatred Aimed At Any Group, Is an Assault On Us All
33. Jamal Bryant’s Hypocrisy and Intolerance
34. Not Easily Offended
35. How Dare He Feel Insecure?
36. Extremism
37. Auf der Flucht
38. Und Pegida sagt den Tischspruch.
39. Neue 10 Positionen der PEGIDA
40. Woher kommen die sogenannten “Flüchtlinge”?
41. Das Spiel mit der Angst
42. Ambassador Opher Aviran
43. Die Kraft ist in euch selbst
44. Wat is de toegevoegde waarde van Pegida?
45. Druk van tegenprotest houdt ruimte voor Pegida klein
46. Praktische informatie Stop Pegida in Rotterdam
47. Hatet viser sitt ansikt

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