Note: This review is of a sermon I encountered while researching King James Bible Only issues for an article I wrote.

REVIEW OF: In plain words, What's Wrong in new bibles at SemonAudio.com

Before reading the review, you'll want to hear the original sermon.

This is a long sermon, 71:48, and I do not have time to review it in any depth (that would take a book!), so I'll hit the high spots. The speaker is unidentified (both at SemonAudio.com and in the sermon), so I'll call him "the speaker". My review will not follow the sermon exactly at all points, but will exhaust certain topics when they come up, even if they are mentioned again later in the sermon.

At the outset, some good points. The Internet is great, allowing people to present different points of view and discuss them openly. I wish the speaker on this sermon was identified so we would know who this "Christian Underground" is.

From hearing the sermon, I feel the speaker is genuinely concerned about Bible integrity and people's souls. He is not one of the people who has found a button to push to sell books and tapes, and get invited to seminars. He is doing this out of sincere concern.

There are areas where I agree with the speaker, even if most aren't in this sermon. I agree with his opinion of the movie Passion of the Christ. When this came out, I was astounded that the entire Christian world mobilized to dump buckets of money on Mel Gibson. I mean, what else has a Christian psychologist (Dr. James Dobson), a Word of Faith guru (Kenneth Copeland), evangelical leaders (like Chuck Swindoll), and Catholics agreed upon? They haven't come together and brought the entire Christian world into agreement to support the Sudan, for judicial reform, or any other important topic. But they'll all agree to make a rich man exponentially richer. Why do they want him to have all that money?

Now for the review. This sermon is so long I am only hitting the high spots. I could easily make this ten times the length by treating any point in depth, but I don't have time.

The speaker begins by saying he wants the discussion to be in "simple English". Because he wants to take my readable Bible away from me and give me something incomprehensible, this is a double standard I do not agree with at all: he should have to give this sermon in King James English. Why should he get to talk in "simple English" while I have to puzzle out the King James text?

During the sermon, the speaker returns to the point that the King James text is easy to understand. Frankly, he gets insulting: "it's not that hard folks, come on". I have a college degree, have read classics and religious texts from around the world (in English translation), and am a software developer, so I have tackled some complex stuff. Yet I have never been able to make sense of King James English. If the King James text is easy for people to understand, why have people been creating new translations for half of the 400 years of its existence? The speaker makes unproven assertions like anyone could learn the King James English in five minutes. Does he have proof? Who are these people? Perhaps, to the speaker, the King James text is easy to understand, but it is because he's spent most of his life learning the foreign language it's written in. True, you can use a dictionary to look up words, but that doesn't mean the syntax of the phrases will make sense.

Next, the speaker makes the assertion that people who discuss modern Bibles are salespeople who obscure the key issues by discussing ancient manuscripts and Erasmus. This is a bogus assertion. I'm not trying to sell modern Bibles, and I'm concerned about the issue. Also, how can the reliability of Bibles be discussed without discussing the textual tradition? And why not discuss Erasmus and Stephanus and all the other Reformers who were part of the struggle that won us our English Bibles? A worthy topic!

The core argument is stated that the speaker wants to pursue in the sermon: He believes that all modern Bibles after the King James translation are "World Bibles" (his term) and are attempts to replace a doctrinally sound text with one that combines Christianity with World Religions.

The speaker starts out to prove that there are, in fact, counterfeit Bibles in existence which are not accurate.

His first example is an NT translation by Johannes Greber. Who? Where did this come from? I did some research on Google, and this translation is by someone who is not even remotely Christian, and is little more than an interpretation of how the translator wants the NT to read. No modern translation is influenced by the work of Greber. No scholar takes this translation seriously. I have never seen the name of Greber cited by any serious Bible scholar. Why on earth did the speaker dig up an obscure translation from the 1930s which not only has no one ever heard of, but also sunk into obscurity without a trace after being released, as an example?

The next example is the Jehovah's Witness New World Translation. This is a well-known translation which is corrupt, where passages are deliberately mistranslated by the JW to reflect their doctrine. Oh, I see what the speaker is doing now. He is trying to build guilt by association. If these two wacko translations are suspect, then any modern Bible is likely equally counterfeit. Why is the speaker wasting our time with this? No one is going to believe that because a few private translations made by persons or groups with agendas are counterfeit, that translations made and reviewed by thousands of conservative Protestants over the years are also counterfeit.

Moving on, the next big point is that verses are deleted from modern translations. This is a classic straw man argument. The speaker frames the argument in his own terms (the verses are supposed to be in the Bible and were deleted), and then doesn't discuss any of the real issues about these verses. Why is the speaker interested in deflecting critical thought away from his arguments? He claims that there is a conspiracy to make the Bible harmonized with world religions. I'm looking for proof of this.

The question is asked: How many verses must be omitted before a translation is called into question? I would say we need to examine each and every verse to see why it was deleted.

The speaker suggests that we ask who benefits from omitted verses: God, the Christian reader, or Satan? This is simplistic. Let's ask real questions: Why did the King James text include this verse? What do we know now that was not known then? Is the verse part of God's word? If we believe that the Bible is the inspired word of God, do we not also have to believe God wants us to have the most accurate Bible possible? Should we throw in every verse that got added or changed in the text over the years just because it might possibly be God's word?

The speaker asks if verses are taken out because they are archaic and hard to understand. What? I have never heard anyone say this was why verses were omitted. He made this up himself.

Some of the deleted verses are: Matt 17:32, 18:11, 23:14; Mk 7:16, 9:44, 9:46, 11:26, 15:28; Lk 17:36, 23:17; Jn 5:4; Acts 8:37, 24:7, 28:29; Rom 16:24. This list can be read in a few seconds. Discussing each verse, and what problems are associated with it, would take hours. I don't have time, and there are plenty of books which already do this (I recommend Phillip Comfort's book, published by Tyndale). Most of the gospel verses are cases where one gospel was harmonized to read like another gospel.

I'll pick two to discuss:

1 John 5:7: This is the most well known bogus reading in the King James Bible. The King James text translates a reading that is in absolutely zero Greek manuscripts (before the 16th century when one was fabricated), and comes from a margin note in a Latin manuscript which was put back into the text itself. If there is any verse that has been demonstrably shown to be bogus, it's this one. Is the speaker asserting that conservative scholar and translator I. Howard Marshall, who explains the issue completely in his commentary on the Johannine Letters, part of a conspiracy? If so, I want proof.

1 Timothy 3:16: The King James says "God who" and most modern translations have a variation on "he who". Gordon Fee (New International Biblical Commentary: 1 and 2 Timothy, Titus, p. 95) explains this in his commentary on the Pastoral Epistles. The original manuscripts had "he who", and this reading was used to make a Latin translation, before the change to the similar "God who" was introduced to the Greek text (the two readings look extremely similar). If we believe that the Bible is the inspired word of God, do we not also have to believe God wants us to have the most accurate Bible possible? John MacArthur (in his commentary of 1 Timothy) concurs that he agrees the reading "hos" was later changed to "theos". (Capital "h" in Greek looks like an O. Capital "th" is an O with a squiggle in the middle.) Can someone as doctrinally conservative as John MacArthur really be part of a conspiracy to introduce world religions into the Christian Bible?

The other verses are very similar, and if you look them up in commentaries or a book about translating the Bible, you'll get much the same story.

Let him who has ears hear this clearly: The most astounding allegation in this sermon, which is so over-the-top that it demands proof, is that the Lord's Prayer in Luke has been replaced by a Satanic Lord's prayer, in order to balance the Christian one in Matthew with one aimed at world religions in Luke. The speaker talks about this Satanic version being made by Mark Cohen or Cohn (I can't figure out what the speaker says exactly), but I can find no trace of this person on Google by either spelling, nor any trace of a Satanic Lord's Prayer. The speaker is suggesting that for well over 100 years, all Christian scholars has been in a conspiracy to add a Satanic prayer into the Bible, most of whom worked independently on widely divergent Bible translations like the NIV (conservative), NRSV (liberal), and Catholic Bibles. Where is the proof of this accusation? Without proof, the speaker is slandering conservative Bible scholars who have been involved with modern translations. I have read commentaries by many of the people who have made conservative modern translations (Gordon Fee, Leon Morris, Howard Marshall, Douglas Moo, Tremper Longman, etc; not to mention others like John MacArthur who are not translators) and there is no way I can believe these people are trying to create Satanism in the Bible.

May I say: First, the speaker has clearly never heard of Occam's Razor. (It's probably not "simple English" enough for him.) Second, it's ironic that a world religion syncretist like Paramahansa Yogananda used the King James text! He did not need a "World Bible" to harmonize Christianity and Hindusim. (The conspiracy was unnecessary after all.) Other religions such as Islam and Wicca reject the Bible completely, regardless of the translation.

The speaker claims each new translation waters down the gospel more. What about the new English Standard Version, which is incredibly literal and supported by conservative Reformed scholars? Is the Reformation Study Bible (Calvinism on steroids) watering down the gospel?

I totally agree with the speaker on this point: You have to decide for yourself. Do you believe in unproven conspiracy theories? Or do you believe in facts?

Many people smarter than I am, such as R.C. Sproul and John MacArthur, have no problems with modern Bible translations, and they hold to strict Reformed doctrines. Meanwhile, many King James Only adherents today are cults (e.g. Word of Faith and Seventh-Day Adventists) and non-Christian fringe movements (e.g. Benny Hinn, Yogananda Paramahansa) which have a vested interest in obscuring the gospel.

If the speaker wants to take away my modern, reliable, readable English Bible translation, he is going to have to come up with something better than an unproven conspiracy theory. The gospel message, the good news is the free gift of salvation from sins through the blood of Jesus. How can anyone say the message must be kept through a conspiracy theory?

I had a King James Bible from 1977-1996 (and still have it), and was never able to understand God's word. I've tried numerous times to read the King James text, and can't comprehend it. It was only in '96 when I picked up a modern translation and began to read that God was able to speak to me about the plan of salvation. I don't care who uses the King James text. If you know it, and understand it, and have spent a lifetime learning it, keep using it! No problem there. Just don't try to take my Bible away from me or anyone else who needs God's word in modern English.

In openness and fairness, I sent the link to this review to the Christian Underground. If I get a response, I will post it here or link to it. I asked specifically for proof to back the idea of modern Bibles having the "Satanic Lord's Prayer". No response has been received yet. [I have never gotten a response to this day.]