THE TESTIMONY OF A BIBLE CORRECTOR

By Ryan Hicks

After getting saved from sin at the age of 16, I had a hunger for the word of God. I had a copy of the Living Bible and a King James Bible. I could not read the Living Bible because something did not seem right about it. At the time I had no idea why I rejected it, but now I can clearly see it was the Spirit of God leading me to all truth.

Not knowing any better, I would watch "Christian Television" a lot and try to learn from the teachers on it. This opened me up to a world of Bible translations and changes to the word of God. Though subtle as it was, I eventually believed that the King James Bible was "just a translation" and that "no translation is perfect."

Such belief led me to purchase numerous translations in hope for the "best translation." I soon found out that the numerous translations did not help me understand more of the word of God, rather they cast doubt upon various Scriptures based on some supposed "earliest manuscripts."

After having enough doubt sown into me about the possibility of a perfect translation, I decided to learn Greek and Hebrew. I went to various Christian bookstores in hopes of finding materials on the New Testament Greek and Old Testament Hebrew. Instead I found numerous people discouraging me telling me it is to hard to learn or that I have to go to seminary to learn it. Being 17 years old at the time and truly hungering for God's word this discouragement did not set well with me. If anything it fueled my desire to learn the Biblical languages.

I have since found out that most scholars make learning the original languages into some extremely difficult task that only they have successfully accomplished. This sets up the normal believer to be totally dependent on these "scholars" and makes for a Roman Protestantism where the Protestants act like Catholics in their dependence upon man and not the word of God. This also generally makes these "scholars" a lot of money off of writings and appearances.

After getting ahold of many books on the Greek and Hebrew languages and much study I started to make a translation. for my own personal usage (though eventually a popular "Christian" publisher wanted the rights to the translation). I had all the "best available manuscripts" and used them well, but I soon could not see a reason to continue the translation. The more I compared the Greek and Hebrew manuscripts to the King James Bible, the more I realized that there was absolutely no reason for a new translation. I saw no other way to accurately translate the original languages than the way the King James translators did. Even down to the "thees" and "thous" which so many people criticize, I found that using these is the only possible way to accurately translate the Biblical languages.

The more and more I read my manuscripts along side the King James Bible, the more I realized that I held the very words of God, not in the manuscripts, but in the King James Bible. It had accurately corrected the subtractions of the manuscripts like in 2 Samuel 21:19 where the King James Bible translators add by the leading of the Holy Spirit "the brother of." Without this the text would contradict 1 Samuel 17 and 1 Chronicles 20:5 as it does in the manuscripts and the majority of translations after the King James Bible.

I knew that the word of God could not contradict itself and yet the manuscripts, which so many scholars claimed to be the word of God, contradicted themselves and each other over and over. I now knew that the manuscripts were not reliable, but that the King James Bible was!

It took three years of study and wasted time to find out what I knew from the very point of salvation, and that is that the King James Bible is the word of God for the English speaking saint! Sadly many men go throughout almost an entire lifetime before they realize this simple truth! One person made the point that he went to a conference in the 1920's where a world renowned scholar of the ancient Hebrew, Greek, and Chaldeen was speaking about the Bible. The man made the point that he had dedicated his life to the study of the manuscripts and had studied for the following periods of time:

15 years of study in learning the ancient languages and perfecting his knowledge of them.
15 years of study of the Old Testament
15 years of study of the New Testament

This man came away holding up a King James Bible and saying that he knew that what he held was the word of God Almighty! He had some 100,000+ references proving the King James Bible to be true and perfect. Now if great, Bible-believing men like this true "scholar" mentioned and others believed the King James Bible to be the perfect word of God why would you let apostate scholars that deny essential doctrines and live unholy lifestyles tell you that it is not God's word? Put your faith in God and accept the Bible as your final source of authority and not man. Doing so will make your life far more blessed because you will be able to study the word of the Living God!