If all of the manuscripts do not agree, and some very drastically; and we know that God has preserved His word, then some of these manuscripts must be corrupted.

How did some of the manuscripts become corrupted? I have not come across a better essay on this subject than the one that is found in the book "If The Foundations Be Destroyed"; and I would like to present that to you here (unedited, because I could not word it better)...

Actually, this work had begun at the earliest possible stage. In fact, evidence shows that while the Scriptures were being authored, plans were being laid to destroy them. Paul testified to this early activity when he wrote to the Corinthians in a bout A.D. 58, "For we are not as many which corrupt the word of God" (2 Cor. 2:17). Then around A.D. 66, Peter wrote, while making reference to Paul's writings, "in which are some things hard to be understood, which they that are unlearned and unstable wrest, as they do also the other scriptures, unto their own destruction" (2 Pet. 3:16). The word "wrest" [Greek: strebloo] means to twist, to torture--and this Peter confirmed was being done to the Scriptures. While the Church was still in it's infancy, a heretical group was twisting God's Word into and entirely different meaning.

How did this all come about? During the last half of the first century, a belief system called Gnosticism had begun to develop in the Church. This was an attempt to produce a successful philosophy, by mixing previously failed philosophies with the spiritual disciplines of the new religion. Now, when one becomes a Christian, they must relinquish their old concepts of both the spiritual and the natural and learn afresh as the Holy Spirit guides them into all truth. Gnostics, however, were not willing to do this. Among the assortment of views they had pledged themselves to keep was the unfounded idea that all physical matter was inherently evil--which, naturally, left them confused as to how a good God could have manifested Himself in evil flesh.

Void of God's Spirit and quite on their own, the Gnostics attempted to harmonize this error with what was clearly opposing them in Scripture. Unable to accomplish this, they eventually settled on several theories that contradicted the Scriptures out rightly. Some taught that Christ had no body at all but that He was, in fact, a phantom. Others taught that He had a type of nonmaterial body. And still others taught that Jesus and Christ were two separate entities. The latter believed that Christ was the power that descended upon the man Jesus at His baptism, only to leave Him again just prior to His death.

With such error at the base, it became necessary for the Gnostics to construct an entirely new religion. As they re-defined the Scriptures -propping each lie against the truth upon the framework of another- an alternative "faith" was made available to the Church, with a number of doctrinal changes.

As Christians began to explore the heresy, the clear revelation of Jesus given to them in Scripture became so confused that the Apostles themselves were forced to address the whole business in writing. Sparing neither the feelings nor the words, John branded all Gnostics "antichrist" and clearly; saw them as forerunners of "the" Antichrist. "Little children, it is the last time: and as ye have heard that antichrist shall come, even now are there may antichrists; whereby we know that it is the last time. They went out from us, but they were not of us...Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world. Hereby know ye the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God: And every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God: and this is that spirit of antichrist, whereof ye have heard that it should come; and even now already is it in the world" (1 John 2:18, 19, 4:1-3).

Gnosticism was not the outcome of a sincere albeit misguided search for truth, but of a deliberate departure from it--whose chief ambition was to convert Christianity into just another pagan philosophy. It was Satan's attempt not only to shatter the truth about Jesus Christ but, it would appear form John's writings, that Gnosticism would also serve as a support base upon which Satan, in time, could effectively position the Antichrist. It might be interesting for the reader to reexamine the New Testament while keeping in mind the presence of the Gnostics and their teachings in the early Church.

When the Apostles died, the Gnostics (along with other heretical factions) began making their most serious moves. In an effort to weaken their greatest remaining obstacle, the Bible, they began to rewrite it--and, apparently, without fear or conscience. To accommodate their mistaken ideas about Jesus and His doctrine, they added freely to the Scriptures and whatever truth they disagreed with was removed by the stroke of a pen. Eusebius, in Ecclesiastical History, LCS, Vol. 1, pp. 522-524, quoted another, who during the second century wrote: "Wherefore, they have not fear to lay hands on the divine Scriptures under pretense of correcting them...As for their denying their guilt, the thing is impossible, since the copies were written in their own hand; and they did not receive the Scriptures in this condition from their teachers, nor can they show the originals from which they made their copies."

While there are those who speak highly of such second century fathers as Justin Martyr, Tatian, and Clement of Alexandria, there are others who find very little to commend them for since each of these, in their turn, contributed to this corruption of Scripture.

Perhaps the man who did the most, however, to blend the Scriptures with Gnosticism was Origen (185-254 A.D.). Also, to his discredit, no one ever championed more apostate teachings that found a permanent place in history, than he. Yet, his influence upon Christianity, from his day to ours, can hardly be measured by words. Not only did his ideas captivate the attention of the catholic Church forever, but also nearly all of the Protestant scholars of this century have been swayed by the power of this one man's thinking. While his genius and insight into the Scriptures were extraordinary, his preference for Gnosticism, Platonism, Mysticism, and the early heresies made him anything but a safe guide or teacher. His doctrines were repulsive. Though considered the greatest theologian of the third century, he taught that stars have souls, devils would be saved, and such errors as purgatory and transubstantiation. He also taught (through his application of the Greek) that Jesus was created and did not eternally exist as God. Little wonder why such a man would have said: "The Scriptures are of little use to those who understand them as they are written."

Origen deliberately changed the scriptures to suit his own confused philosophy and, in the process, made many of the deletions we now find in modern translations of the Bible. It was Origen who mightily influenced Jerome (about 340-420 A.D.) who translated the Latin Vulgate which was made the official Bible of the Catholic Church by the Council of Trent in 1546. And it was Origen again who was to play such a large role in the affairs of twentieth century Protestantism, as we will see in the following.

When Constantine (280?-337 A.D.) became the Emperor of Rome he endeavored to form a union between Christianity and paganism. Since Origen had successfully blended Christianity with pagan philosophy, Constantine commissioned Eusebius, a great admirer of Origen, to prepare fifty Bibles based upon Origen's corrupted Scriptures for use in the churches.

Skipping past many centuries filled with attacks upon the true Word of God and persecution of it's followers, we come to the year 1481 A.D. In this year a very old manuscript (Codex Vaticanus) was discovered lying dormant on a shelf of the Vatican library. Then in 1844, another old manuscript (Codex Sinaiticus) was discovered in a wastebasket in St. Catherine's monastery at the foot of Mt. Sinai (Actually, the "Sinaiticus" was discovered in part in 1844 and in it's entirety in 1859). Both of these manuscripts, Vaticanus and Sinaiticus, date back to the time Eusebius produced those fifty Bibles for Constantine and are believed by many to be survivors of that lot.

Here, is where the drama begins to really unfold. In the year 1853 two Cambridge professors, Brooke Foss Westcott and Fenton John Anthony Hort (better known as Westcott and Hort), began preparing a Greek text based primarily on the Vaticanus and Sinaiticus manuscripts.

Now, when the student arrives at the subject of Westcott and Hort, he should not pass too quickly. Because it was through these men that our long link to the apostate past was connected. Westcott and Hort, who might well be called the "intellectual descendants of the ancient heretics," with skill and great subtlety, delivered to the church of the twentieth century, the religion of their fathers.

Let us, for a moment, pay them the attention they deserve. Though they were masters of communication and hardly rivaled for their knowledge; their scholarship nevertheless, was strikingly outweighed by their theological ineptness. Neither Westcott nor Hort ever stated that the Bible was verbally inspired or inerrant. On the other hand, while Hort praised in writing Darwin's theory of evolution and seriously questioned whether Eden ever existed; Westcott, in His writings, flatly denied the Genesis account of Creation. To put it in his own words, "No one now, I suppose, holds that the first three chapters of Genesis, for example, give a literal history--I could never understand how any one reading them with open eyes could think they did."

Also, though Protestants would prefer to think otherwise, Westcott and Hort gave almost every indication of being Catholics under cover. As a case in point, they seemed equally as comfortable worshipping Jesus or Mary. "I have been persuaded for many years (Hort wrote) that Mary-worship and `Jesus'-worship have very much in common in their causes and their results." (Notice, he had held this opinion "many years.") Concerning a statue of Mary and a crucified Christ that Westcott happened on in a remote little chapel, he wrote: "Had I been alone I could have knelt there for hours." And, to prove that his reverence for Mary, like Hort's was not passing fancy, he also wrote some eighteen years later, "I wish I could see to what forgotten truth Mariolatry bears witness."

Westcott and Hort's preference for Catholic Dogma was evident elsewhere as well. While Hort, for example, felt it proper to call the doctrine of Evangelicals "perverted," he revealed his own perverse creed by proudly calling himself a "staunch sacerdotalist." This is one who requires a priest to mediate between himself and his divine needs, or one who cannot spiritually function without the authority of the priesthood. It is easy to understand, then, why one of Hort's stated concerns was that "Protestants unlearn the crazy horror of the idea of priesthood."

Revealing more of the dark side of his convictions, Hort also warned, "We dare not forsake the sacraments or God will forsake us." The sacraments are, of course, what all good Catholics are never to forsake.

Now, if there remains any doubt as to which side of the fence both Westcott and Hort stood on, the following should settle the matter. Hort wrote to Westcott, "Protestantism is only parenthetical and temporary." Hort also wrote to John Ellerton, "The pure Romish view seems to me nearer, and more likely to seed to the truth than the Evangelical."

Such was the man who also dared to put in writing: "The popular doctrine of substitution is an immoral and material counterfeit...Certainly nothing could be more unscriptural than the modern limiting of Christ's bearing our sins and sufferings to his death; but indeed that is only one aspect of an almost universal heresy."

It actually puts a strain upon the mind to realize that these are the men who not only produced the Greek text that modern Bibles are based upon, but also invented all of the reasons why the Church today should no longer rely on the true text.

What took place after Westcott and Hort finished their text was nothing less than outrageous. In one of the most infamous moments in Church history, the Vaticanus and Sinaiticus (by way of the Westcott and Hort Greek text) were slipped into the hands of liberal theologians who, in the latter part of the nineteenth century, convinced the Protestants that these very old manuscripts were, in fact, the real Scriptures. One theologian after another succumbed to the lie and have been translating Bibles from them ever since. All of which causes Christians today to mistakenly assume that for the greater part of Church history (around 1550 years since the writing of the Vaticanus and Sinaiticus) Christianity was without the real Word of God, until it was recently reintroduced in our modern translations, the first of which was the Revised Version of 1881.

This, then, is the history behind our modern translations of the Bible. to sum it all up in a line: From the ancient Gnostics to Westcott and Hort, like a product passed through the skillful hands of an assembly line, a new set of Scriptures had been developed.

There are those who, while unable to disprove this evidence, nevertheless, insist that no matter what transpired years ago, the Church today is far too knowledgeable to have in its possession scriptures that are flawed. But consider this: If within a scarce sixty years or so of the day of Pentecost, the church of Pergamos could have the doctrine of Balaam; the church of Thyatira, a Jezebel for both prophetess and teacher; the church of Sardis, a name that it lived but was dead; and the Church of Laodicea, such a lukewarm spirit that Christ had threatened to vomit it out of His mouth, is it too hard to believe that the Church, some nineteen hundred years later, could have a corrupted set of Scriptures?

We do well to remember that the first apostasy took place in Heaven, in the very presence of God Himself, when Lucifer turned a myriad of angels against Him. Should we be surprised then to witness this defection from truth in His Church?

Conclusion

The historical accounts are compelling evidence. How can we ignore such definite proof? But the real issue is not facts and dates; our faith doesn't rest upon experience or rationality; but faith. "It is first a doctrinal issue before it is a historical issue."