A Review of 30 Bibles on the Market Today
With all the new translations on the market today it is becoming increasingly difficult to choose a Bible that is easy for you to understand and has also been as accurately translated as possible. The 4 Gospels is presenting this list to help in your choice of your next Bible.
To review the accuracy of the entire text of each of these Bibles listed below would take a very long time and would also be subject to error on my part. So I decided to review them on just one aspect that should cause major concern. It is bad enough if when a translator attempts to translate Gods Word into English and does it in such a casual way that it distorts the intended meaning of the scripture, but leaving complete verses out of the Word of God is a stretch. It is also easy to review because it is either there or it isn’t.
I decided to conduct this review after visiting this web page, (http://www.ecclesia.org/truth/m-m.html ). By the way this is not an NIV vs KJV review. It just happens to be where this started. As you can see below there are many other Bibles listed in both columns. At first I was only trying to verify that the information there was true. I started with the verses that had been changed, (I did not check all of them) . I then scrolled to the bottom of the page and began to review the omissions. In most cases the omitted scripture is referenced by a footnote where the verse should go. If you go there you will find the verse. Here is an example for Mark 11:26:
Mark 11:25-27
25 And when ye stand praying, forgive, if ye have ought against any: that your Father also which is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses.
26 But if ye do not forgive, neither will your Father which is in heaven forgive your trespasses.
27 And they come again to Jerusalem: and as he was walking in the temple, there come to him the chief priests, and the scribes, and the elders,
KJV
Mark 11:25-27
25 And when you stand praying, if you hold anything against anyone, forgive him, so that your Father in heaven may forgive you your sins."
27 They arrived again in Jerusalem, and while Jesus was walking in the temple courts, the chief priests, the teachers of the law and the elders came to him.
NIV
Mark 11:25-27 (Byzantine Majority Text Greek)
25 kai otan sthkhte proseuxomenoi afiete ei ti exete kata tinos ina kai o pathr umwn o en tois ouranois afh umin ta paraptwmata umwn
26 ei de umeis ouk afiete oude o pathr umwn o en tois ouranois afhsei ta paraptwmata umwn
27 kai erxontai palin eis ierosoluma kai en tw ierw peripatountos autou erxontai pros auton oi arxiereis kai oi grammateis kai oi presbuteroi
Many of the modern day Bibles are based on two manuscripts, (the Sinaitic Codex and the Vanticanus Codex). Things you should know about these manuscripts:
- Sinaitic Codex - This codex was produced in the 4th century. In his book Let's Weigh the Evidence, Barry Burton writes: "The Sinaiticus is a manuscript that was found in 1844 in a trash pile in St.Catherine's Monastery near Mt. Sinai, by a man named Mr Tischendorf.”
- Sinaitic Codex - Samuel Gipp writes in his book, An Understandable History Of The Bible, “This MS from all outward appearances looks very beautiful. It is written in book form (codex) on vellum. It contains 147 1/2 leaves. The pages are 15" by 13 1/2" with four columns of 48 lines per page. It contains many spurious books such as the 'Shepherd of Hermes,' the 'Epistle of Barnabas' and even the Didache.”
- Vanticanus Codex - D. B. Loughran writes: “The second major manuscript of the Minority Text is known as Codex Vaticanus, often referred to as 'B'. This codex was also produced in the 4th century. It was found over a thousand years later in 1481 in the Vatican library in Rome, where it is currently held. It is written on expensive vellum, a fine parchment originally from the skin of calf or antelope. Some authorities claim that it was one of a batch of 50 Bibles ordered from Egypt by the Roman Emperor Constantine: hence its beautiful appearance and the expensive skins which were used for its pages.”
- Despite the fine appearance of both codices there are serious problems with them. D.B. Loughran quotes the Greek scholar, Dr Scrivener, who points this out in his historic work A Full Collation of the Codex Sinaiticus where he speaks of correctional alterations made to the MS: 'The Codex is covered with such alterations... brought in by at least ten different revisers, some of them systematically spread over every page, others occasional or limited to separated portions of the MS, many of these being contemporaneous with the first writer, but the greater part belonging to the sixth or seventh century.'
- John W Burgon, who personally and thoroughly examined both wrote: 'The impurity of the text exhibited by these codices is not a question of opinion but fact...In the Gospels alone, Codex B(Vatican) leaves out words or whole clauses no less than 1,491 times. It bears traces of careless transcriptions on every page…’
Anyway this is not intended to be an attack on those that read one of these modern Bibles. It is good that you do read the Bible. The list below contains the results of my comparisons. Make up your own mind.
King James Version |
New American Standard Bible |
World English Bible |
The Bibles below all had missing scripture. |
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| Bible | Scripture | Bible | Scripture |
| New International Version New Living Translation English Standard Version The Message Complete Jewish Bible New English Translation Bible Revised Standard Version New Revised Standard Version Today’s English Version |
Acts 8:37 I John 5:13 P Mark 11:26 Matthew 18:11 Mark 15:28 Acts 23:9 P Romans 13:9 P Luke 17:36 Luke 4:8 P 1 Timothy 6:5 P Matthew 17:21 Matthew 23:14 Mark 7:16 Mark 9:44 Mark 9:46 Luke 23:17 John 5:4 Acts 15:34 Acts 24:7 Acts 28:29 Romans 16:24 Matthew 12:47 Matthew 21:44 |
Darby Bible Good News Translation |
Acts 8:37 |
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