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Evidence of how the New Testament documents were changed in the first three centuries comes up from an unexpected Christian quarter – The "KJV-only" people! The KJV was translated in the early seventeenth century from the manuscripts available then. Over the last four centuries, even older manuscripts were discovered and appropriate changes had to be made in the translations. The newer versions (including NIV, NASB, NKJV, NRSV, NAB, REB, CEV, TEV, GNB, LIVING, PHILLIPS, NEW JERUSALEM, & NEW CENTURY) reflect these changes. More importantly than the WORDING, there are significant differences in the MEANING of the statements of the KJV and the newer versions. The "KJV-only" people, a sect of Christians who believe that only the KJV is the real "Word of God," and that the newer versions are corrupted, expectedly make a great noise about the issue, calling the rest of the Christians infidels, heretics, traitors, corrupters of the Word of God, and other similar and interesting names. The other side is much more muted, preferring to ignore the issue, dismissing these differences as "copyists errors."

A sampling of the significance of the differences is seen in the following table, showing how the person of Jesus has been addressed in the KJV and the NIV. It can be clearly seen that Jesus is addressed and spoken of in a far more exalted manner in the KJV (representing later, fourth century manuscripts), than in the NIV (representing the earlier, first century manuscripts), showing that the manuscripts themselves were changed in meaning during the first three centuries C.E.

"Copyists errors", anyone? It would be the height of credulity to believe these to be "copysist’s errors!" These are no copyist errors. There is a clear pattern here. The changes are too systematic, too numerous, and all in one direction for anyone to believe that these are "copyist errors!" And this list is only about one subject – the exaltation of Jesus. There are other subjects too, on which the KJV (representing fourth century manuscripts) and the NIV (representing first century manuscripts) differ significantly. The website av1611.com estimates about 5000 differences (see their page http://av1611.com/kjbp/articles/freeman-doctrines1.html). This is not the place for an exhaustive treatment of all the differences, but even if 10% of them are valid in significance, it presents a major problem for the Christian! It beats me as to how anyone can consider the New Testament to be the "Word of God," who knows the manner in which the NT documents have been tamperedwith! These lists are available in any book on the NIV/KJV controversy or on "KJV-only" websites such as www.av1611.com or with "KJV-only" Christians (who believe that only the KJV is the true Word of God.) The above list really puts nails in the coffins of two beliefs simultaneously – that Jesus was God and that the New Testament documents have been faithfully transmitted as they were originally written.

This issue can easily degenerate into a KJV/NIV controversy and a few comments are in order here for it not to do so. Unlike other Christians, the "KJV-only" people are keenly aware that there are significant differences between the KJV and the modern versions, not just in the language, but in the substance of what is stated. According to their contention,

Since the KJV is based on the MAJORITY Text, which agrees with 95% of all available manuscripts, it would seem immediately that the "KJV-only" people are right! Only when we go into the reasons as to why the MINORITY Text is preferable over the MAJORITY one, do we see the fallacy of the "KJV-only" reasoning. The reason is simple – when determining what the Word of God is, one is not interested in the volume or number of manuscripts, but in which of the copies of manuscripts are closer to the original ones. Thus if the 5% of the manuscripts were closer in accuracy to the original ones and the 95% differed significantly, then the 5% have to be preferred for determining what the "Word of God" is! And in this case it is so, for the reason that when the church became powerful in the fourth century, it destroyed wholescale all documents which contradicted its position. The very reason why the "Majority" manuscripts are in a majority, forming 95% of the volume, is that the church allowed only them to survive! The few of the "other" group of manuscripts, which managed to survive this mass-destruction came up in the more thorough archaeological excavations carried out during the last two centuries.

How do we know that these 5% of the manuscripts are closer copies of the originals? It doesn’t take a genius to see that the wordings in these manuscripts are in line with the beliefs and proclamations of the earliest church (e.g. Jesus was only a man and not God in the flesh), whereas the wordings in the "Majority" Texts are more in line with the beliefs of the fully-Gentile church of the fourth century. What is undeniable by everyone is that there are two sets of significantly differing manuscripts – 95% of them (one group) treating Jesus in a far more exalted manner than the rest of the 5%.

From the undeniable fact that there are two sets of significantly differing manuscripts follows the inescapable conclusion that one of these sets is corrupt (or both the sets, to be logically correct). Both cannot be true copies of the originals. Considering that the earliest church never proclaimed that Jesus was God while the fourth-century church did, it doesn’t require a PhD in Logic to figure out which of the sets belong to which period. It is the 5% of the manuscripts which treat Jesus in a less exalted manner, which have been used to form the "Westcott and Hort" or "Nestle and Aland" Greek Text, from which most modern versions (including NIV, NASB, NKJV, NRSV, NAB, REB, CEV, TEV, GNB, LIVING, PHILLIPS, NEW JERUSALEM, & NEW CENTURY) have been translated. Out of these, the NIV is one of the best, not only more readable, but also closer to the original manuscripts than the KJV.

The "KJV-Only" people are aware that the Diety of Christ is a major doctrine affected by the new versions. The article "Bible Doctrines affected by Modern Versions" goes on to say,

The "KJV-only" people openly call the new versions corrupted. The people supporting the new versions are not so open in bashing the other side, preferring to maintain that "there are no major differences."

However, in their enthusiasm for defending the KJV, the KJV-Only people let slip for the lay Christian a fact which only those who have closely studied the formation of the New Testament know. In the following passage taken from "The Four-fold Superiority of the King James Version" (at http://av1611.com/kjbp/articles/waite-fourfold1.html), is an admission that would shock anybody who naively believes the New Testament as we have it today, consists of documents as they were first written:

The question most Christians must be asking at this stage is: "How can God-fearing people tamper with the Word of God so blatantly?" The answer is simple and twofold: Firstly, when they were tampering with it, it was not the "Word of God!" It became the "Word of God" much later. When they were doing the tampering, the documents were just memoirs and letters written by people closer to the actual time of events. They were not the "infallible and unalterable" Word of God. Secondly we are reading twentieth-century practices into the first century. This kind of "creationism" seems horrifying to us, but was a very common and accepted literary thing during those days. Furthermore there was no printing press to make thousands of copies and mass distribute them. Copies had to be made by hand, and such changes could not be easily detected, even more so since most people were illiterate. The Ignatian letters are a very good example of such "creativity."

These letters, supposed to have been written in the first century, exist in two forms – the "shorter" and the "longer" forms (see http://www.ccel.org/fathers2/ANF-01/anf01-15.htm, from which the following extract has been taken:

The article goes on to state that even the shorter forms are considered by some scholars to be themselves forgeries. To get a better idea of what is actually involved, take a look at the following paragraphs, taken from "The Epistle of Ignatius to the Ephesians" (available at http://www.ccel.org/fathers2/ANF-01/anf01-16.htm), one from the shorter version and the other from the longer version:

No prizes for guessing why the italicized portion was inserted afterwards! However it is not that scholars are unanimous in their opinion that even the shorter version is the original one. The page http://www.ccel.org/fathers2/ANF-01/anf01-15.htm continues:

The point of all this is: This kind of interpolation was quite a common thing in the first four centuries (and indeed till the printing press was invented). This is the kind of environment the New Testament documents grew in. Why should one assume that they would have escaped such "creationism?" Till the end of the fourth century, they were not on par with the Old Testament Scriptures as the "Word of God." There was no authority like the Catholic Church or the Roman "Catholic" empire to curb such creativity and anyone could do as he pleased with them. We now have two sets of New Testament manuscripts as described above (which form the basis of the Textus Receptus and the Westcott-Hort text) out of which at least one is corrupt. And obviously, it is the Textus Receptus which is corrupt, no matter how much the "KJV-only" people shout. Westcott and Hort have done the job of restoring as much as they could from the available manuscripts. Who knows, after a few more years of searching, still older manuscripts may be discovered, as they were in the case of the Ignatian epistles. Perhaps they may not be. Perhaps they do not even exist now, being truly destroyed in the mass-destruction by the fourth-century church of all contradicting documents. Who knows what the truly original manuscripts said? One thing is clear - the New Testament documents as we have them now are not the same as what they were originally.

The documents of the fourth century speak of Jesus in a far exalted manner than the ones of the first. It is clear that these documents themselves were changed to reflect the belief that Jesus was God in the flesh (see especially 1 Tim 3:16 in the list above). This is a belief not held or proclaimed by the earliest church which consisted of a large number of Jews, but held by the predominantly Gentile church of the third century onwards. The changes in the documents are perfectly in line with the changed beliefs, and there is nothing surprising about it, given the kind of environment they passed through.