Faith, Spirituality, and Religion

This area of the site contains a few of my thoughts about faith, spirituality, and religion.

English Bible Versions

Introduction

One subject that has come up many times is the issue of Bible history and Bible versions. Who decided which books should be in the Bible? What is the difference between the NIV and King James? Which version is the best? Why does the Catholic Bible have more books? This can be a very confusing issue to some people.

My hope in this page is to provide a little bit of background on the Bible: where it came from, and why we have the books we have. In addition, there is a very brief introduction to textual criticism, and a run-down on various English Bible translations and types. Somewhere in the middle, I have my own personal preferences on Bible versions listed.

Canon

What is canon?

The Bible, also known as The Holy scriptures, is a type of canon. The word “canon” comes from the Greek word kanon, which means a rod used to measure. When refering to the Bible, canon refers to the list of books considered authoritative as Scripture.

Why do we need a canon?

For the Jews living during the Old Testament times there was no need for a canon — they had the prophets alive and in their presence. Likewise, for the early church, they had Jesus Christ and the apostles. Once the prophets and apostles were dead, however, it became necessary to gather their writings and preserve them.

This process of preservation and establishment of canon served serveral purposes. It sought to: define what was inspired, and what was not; prevent a corruption of the inspired words of God; ensure the inspired words of God not be lost; and preclude the possibility of additions to inspired works.

Differences in canon

There is still ongoing debate among churches regarding the canon. For the Old Testament, Protestant Christians from the Reformation onward, accept the shorter canon (39 books) from the Hebrew Palestinian Canon. Jews now use the same canon as the Protestant Old Testament, but the order and division of some of the books is different, giving them a total of 24 books.

Catholic Christians accept the longer Old Testament canon (46 books) from the Greek Septuagint translation of the Alexandrian Canon. This adds Tobit, Judith, Greek additions to Esther, Wisdom of Solomon, Sirach, Baruch, Letter of Jeremiah, 3 Greek additions to Daniel, Susanna, Bel and the Dragon, and 1 and 2 Maccabees to the Protestant OT canon. The Greek Orthodox church adds 1 Esdras, Prayer of Manasseh, Psalm 151, and 3 Maccabees for their canon. The Ethiopian Orthodox Church adds Jubilees, 1 Enoch, and Josippon’s History of the Jews.

For the New Testament, Protestants, Roman Catholics, and Greek Orthodox Christians view the same 27 books as canonical. The Syrian church recognizes only 22 books (excluding 2 Peter, 2 and 3 John, Jude and Revelation). The Ethiopian Orthodox Church includes 8 additional books (four sections from Sinodos, two sections from the Ethiopic Books of Covenant, Ethiopic Clement, and Ethiopic Didascalia).

Development of the canon

The canon did not just happen overnight, neither for the Old Testament, nor the New Testament. The canon is the result of development through time. The canon of the Old Testament was mainly fixed (with a few books still in dispute) by the about the year 400 B.C. The canon of the the New Testament was mainly fixed at the council at Carthage in 387 A.D. I say “mainly” fixed, because there are still differences between churches.

Development of the Old Testament

The formation of the Old Testament was spread over many centuries. The first holy books of the Hebrews were Moses’ books of law, which were placed in the Ark of the Covenent.[1] When Solomon built the temple, he added books of history and prophecy from Joshua’s to David’s time, as well as writings of his own.[2] About fifty years after the temple was rebuilt, Ezra made a collection of the sacred writings, which now included Jonah, Amos, Isaiah, Hosea, Joel, Micah, Nahum, Zephaniah, Jeremiah, Obadiah, and Habakkuk. [3] To this was added the books of Nehemiah, Malachi, and Ezra. In addition, Nehemiah gathered the “Acts of the Kings and the Prophets, and those of David,” when founding a library for the second temple, c.432 B.C.[4]

The first significant canon of the Old Testament in the form we now have it, was the work of Ezra and the Great Synagogue, composed of Ezra, Nehemiah, Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi. However, there were still disputes.

By the first century BC, the Hebrew speaking Jews in Palestine were known to generally use the Palestinian canon. This consisted of 24 books divided in three Sections: the Law (5 books of Moses or Pentateuch); the Prophets (4 former and 4 latter prophets) and the Writings (11 books). The Sadducees most likely did not accept Daniel because it 2 supports resurrection of the body, which they did not believe in. Others, like Samaritans, accepted only the Pentateuch as Scripture. The Jewish historian Josephus wrote (c. 90 AD) that Jews recognized 22 books. The Essenes (around the time of Jesus) did not accept Esther. Greek speaking (Hellenistic) Jews used the Septuagint, a translation put together around the third century B.C. by elders of Israel at Alexandria, Egypt (see The Apocrypha below).

After the destruction of the Jerusalem temple in 70 AD, the Jamniaa (Javneh) council, led by Yohanan ben Zakkai, decided at to adopt the Palestinian Canon as canon.

The Apocrypha

Many people ask why the Bible used by the Roman Catholic church has more books in it than the typical Protestant Bible. These “apocryphal” or “deuterocanonical” books are Baruch, Ecclesiasticus (also known as Sirach), Judith, I and II Maccabees, Tobit, Wisdom of Solomon, and additional chapters of Daniel and Esther. The most religiously important of the books are Ecclesiasticus and the Wisdom of Solomon, while the most historically important is 1st Maccabees.

These books appear in the Bible as used by the Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, and Armenian and Ethiopian Oriental Orthodox churches. There are also a few other books (I & II Esdras, The Letter of Jeremiah, Prayer of Azariah, Susanna, Bel and the Dragon, and Prayer of Manasseh) which are frequently lumped in with the apocrypha.

The early church was founded by Hellenistic Jews; naturally, they used the Septuagint. There are passages in the gospels and epistles where Jesus and Paul quote from the Septuagint: 300 of 350 quotations from the Old Testament in the New Testament are from the Septuagint. So while the Jews may have settled on the Palestinian canon by the early first century, the Christian church did not.

Justin Martyr (c 160) regarded the Septuagint as canon, as did Iranaeus and Tertullian. Tertullian also considered the book of Enoch (not part of Septuagint) inspired. Melito, bishop of Sardis (c 170) recognized the Palestinian canon minus Esther. Origen’s (c 185-254) list of Old Testament books comprises of the Palestinian canon plus the Letter of Jeremiah from the Septuagint. Athanasius, bishop of Alexandria in 367 gave the same list as Origen but included Baruch and omitted Esther. The list of Old Testament books given at Council of Laodicea (c 363) follows that of Athanasius with Esther. Cyril, bishop of Jerusalem from 348 to 386 follows Origen’s list but included Baruch while Gregory of Nazianzus (c 330 - 390) followed that of Athanasius. Jerome (346 - 420) gave us the well known Latin Vulgate. He had doubts about the Septuagint canonical status, but included the extra books in his Latin translation and referred them as apocrypha.

Augustine of Hippo (354 - 430) followed the Septuagint. In 382 Pope Damasus approved the Septuagint at the Council of Rome. It was then declared at the Church Council in Hippo in 393 and subsequently reaffirmed at third Council of Carthage in 397. The fourth council of Carthage in 419 again confirmed the same list of Old Testament.

At the time of the protestant reformation, the reformers sought a return to the original sources (ad fontes). They adopted the Palestine canon for the Old Testament, pointing to several issues with the apocypha: they are never quoted by Jesus or the apostles; the last inspired prophet closes by saying no other messenger is to be expected until the second Elijah;[5] divine authority is not claimed by any of the writers, and by some it is disowned[6]; and the books contradict other, canonical, scriptures.[7]

Since the reformation, the exact role of the apocrypha in the Christian canon has been disputed. The Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches see these books as authoritative Scripture. The Jews, who also use the Palestine canon, do not recognize them as inspired books, but regard them as having high authority as a valuable history of their nation; though carefully distinguished from canonical scripture, they are quoted in Talmudic writings. Protestants have seen these books as suitable for edification, but not as authoritative Scripture. The Church of England (Anglican / Episcopal) recommends them “for example of life and instruction of manners, but yet doth it not apply them to establish any doctrine.”

Development of the New Testament

During the formative period of the New Testament canon, decisions had to be made regarding what principle(s) marked New Testament writings as divine and inspired. The general requirements became apostolic authorship, consistency, and non-contradiction with the Old Testament.

Which Scripture was known to Jesus, His followers and the first Christians? The answer is they knew both Palestinian Canon and Septuagint. Greek speaking Jews also lived in Palestine and known as Hellenists (Acts 6:1). However all New Testament writers mostly used Septuagint whenever they quoted from Old Testament. It is not a matter of convenience (both used Greek), because at few places they still quoted from Palestinian canon (translated into Greek). As mentioned above, Septuagint has textual difference compared to Palestinian canon. A good example is the famous prophecy about Jesus virgin birth in Isaiah 7:14 quoted in Matthew 1:23. The Palestinian canon does not say “virgin” but “young woman” while the Septuagint does say “virgin” (note that both Hebrew and Greek have different words for virgin and young woman).

Some books considered sacred by the early church were eventually left out of the New Testament canon. These include the Apocalypse of Peter and the Acts of Paul, the Gospel of Barnabas, the Shepherd of Hermas, and the Didache.

By the early 4th century, twenty out of the twenty-seven books were readily and universally accepted: the four Gospels, Acts, the Pauline epistles, and the first epistles of John and Peter. Hebrews, 2 and 3 John, 2 Peter, Jude, James, Revelation were disputed for a time: Hebrews bore no name of its author and differed in style from the Pauline epistles; 2 Peter differed in style from 1 Peter; James and Jude styled themselves “servants,” and not “apostles”; the writer of 2 and 3 John called himself an “elder” not an “apostle”; and Jude recorded apocryphal stories. By the end of the 4th century the 27-book New Testament canon was almost universally accepted. The most notable addition in some manuscripts is the Epistle to the Laodiceans, which was rejected by the Council of Florence (1439-43).

Different Translations

Until fairly recently (the last hundred years or so) the King James, or Authorized version was the de facto English translation. In the past hundred-or-so years, numerous English translations of the Bible have been issued by various people and groups; each new translation seeks to improve on previous translations in some way.

With all these competing translations, it can be difficult to know which is the right one to use. My initial comment is, “don’t worry about it too much.” Your main focus should be having a Bible and reading it. If you are reading the Bible, even one of the mediocre translations, you are moving in the right direction.

With a few exceptions, most of the English translations listed below are pretty good Bibles. I cannot tell you which Bible is the right one for you. Choosing the “wrong” translation will at most, annoy you and cost you up to a hundred dollars. But I can offer some insight into the differences between translations, which may help you in the decision-making process.

All English Bibles are translations. The original texts were written in Hebrew, Greek, and Aramaic. Despite the claims of some people, Jesus did not speak King James-style English. The differences in Bibles boils down to a difference in translation. English Bible translations are classified by two factors: the principles of translation, and source texts utilized.

Principles of translation

There are three main principles of translation: formal equivalence (word for word), dynamic equivalence (thought for thought), and paraphrase.

Formal Equivalence

When translators seek formal equivalence, the original language is translated word for word, as closely as possible. All the words in the source text are translated, and any words added for clarity are generally italicized. This approach has the advantage of being very accurate and true to the text with few interpretive assumptions, allowing the reader full liberty in textual interpretation.

The disadvantage of formal equivalence is that idioms or slang phrases can mislead or confuse the reader. These phrases, when literally translated into another language, can take on new meanings. Imagine how someone, who does not speak English, would interpret phrases such as “bury the hatchet” or “piece of cake” or “under the weather.” The same thing can occur with the Bible, which was written by a different culture, in a different time.

Dynamic Equivalence

When translators seek dynamic equivalence, the original language is translated in a thought for thought method, in an attempt to express the meaning of the original text. The primary criticism of dynamic equivalence is that words which do not appear in the source text are added and words deemed unimportant are omitted. In general, these added or omitted words are never italicized or in any way distinguished from the words of the source text. In addition, the grammatical forms of words and phrases are sometimes changed (pronouns changed into nouns, nouns into verbs, two different terms or phrases combined into one, and similar changes).

The advantage of dynamic equivalence is that idioms or slang phrases are translated or expanded into equivalent modern phrases, and grammatical corrections are made to phrase the text in an easy-to-understand manner. This makes the text easier to read and understand.

Paraphrase

Paraphrase translations are produced to make the text as easy to read and understand as possible. A paraphrase translation takes a “big picture” approach, trying to explain the general idea of a passage or story.

Source Texts

The discussion of source texts can be a complicated, and often contentious one. There are no known original manuscripts for any of the books in the Bible, and the ancient manuscripts differ from each other to various degrees. This may raise a red flag for some people, but allow me to put in perspective. The New Testament has more ancient manuscript support than any other body of ancient literature. There are over five thousand Greek and eight thousand Latin manuscripts and fragments which date before the fifth century. In comparison, the Iliad by Homer is second with only 643 ancient manuscripts that still survive.

Three main bodies of text have developed: the Majority Text, the Textus Receptus, and the Critical Text. Each of these has been developed by people seeking to find what was originally written. The methods of determining what was originally written varies from group to group, however.

The Majority Text is so-named because it is developed with the assumption that the original text is whatever appears in the majority of the ancient manuscripts.

The Textus Receptus is the Greek Text compiled by Erasmus in 1516. This was considered the classic text for the New Testament, until the discovery of numerous older texts in the last hundred or so years. It is the text that Tyndale’s English translation, the Bishop’s Bible, and in turn, the King James version is based on.

The Critical Text has been developed by textual critics, based on the idea that the text of the Bible should be approached like any other ancient manuscript. For a long time, the Greek used in the New Testament (Koine Greek) confused scholars somewhat, because the New Testament was the only known document written in that particular Greek dialect. However, the discoveries of numerous papyri in the last hundred years have shown that the New Testament was written in the language of everyday people: the same language used in writing wills, private letters, receipts, shopping lists, etc.[8]

Instead of tradition, or a raw count of manuscripts, choices in the Critical Text are made based on likelihood of authenticity, and manuscript age. The main Critical Texts of today are the Greek New Testament (4th Edition) published by the United Bible Societies, and Novum Testamentum Graece (27th Edition) published by Nestle and Aland.

Which translation should I read?

That is for you to decide, and it is not a simple question. To quote from The Complete Guide to Bible Versions,

“… for what? for reading? for studying? for memorizing? And best for whom? for young people? for adults? for Protestants? for Catholics? for Jews?” My responses are not intended to be complicated; rather, they reflect the complexity of the true situation. Whereas for some language populations there is only one translation of the Bible, English-speaking people have hundreds of translations. Therefore, one cannot say there is one single best translation that is the most accurate. [9]
For serious study, I prefer a Bible which strives for formal equivalence, and, as such, I use the New King James (NKJV). It is a fairly literal translation, and though it is based on the Textus Receptus, it includes notes for every textual difference between it, the Majority Text and the Critical Text.

For day-to-day reading, I really enjoy The New Living Translation (NLT). No other English translation of the Bible has the same level of approachability and immediacy. I wouldn’t develop a hard-core doctrinal stand based on the wording of the NLT, but it does a superb job of rendering the text in modern English, and provides footnotes for verses with significant textual variance.

Listing of English Translations

The following graphic was borrowed from the Zondervan Bibles website. I thought it provided a nice visual spread of which translations are more literal, vs. paraphrased. They have a vested interest in the NIV, hence its presence in the center of the graphic.

American Standard Version (ASV)

(1901) Formal equivalence, long regarded as the most literal translation of the Bible, which makes the ASV very popular for careful Bible study, but not for ease of reading.

Amplified Bible (AMP)

(1964) Formal equivilence, Critial Text. The Amplified Bible seeks to bring out nuances of the original languages. The text is expanded with sets of brackets and parenthesis to bring out the hidden meanings and concepts of Greek and Hebrew words. Revised in 1987.

Analytical-Literal Translation (ALT)

(2000) Formal equivilence, Majority Text. Extrememly literal translation produced by Gary Zeolla, includes extensive notes and aids. One of only two current versions based on the Majority Greek Text. Currently New Testament only. See http://www.dtl.org/alt/.

Authorized Version (AV)

Another name for the King James Version.

Contemporary English Version (CEV)

(1995) Dynamic Equivilence, Critical Text. Written at an elementary-school reading level in simple English.

Cotton-Patch Version (CPV)

(1960) Extreme dynamic equivalence, to the point of absurdity. Translated by Clarence Jordan. Replaced items and places of ancient culture with items of modern ones. Palestine became transformed into the modern American South; Jerusalem turned into Atlanta; Matthew the tax collector worked for the Internal Revenue Service; and Jesus became a roughshod inhabitant of Valdosta, Georgia.

Darby Translation

(1890) First published in 1890 by John Nelson Darby, an Anglo-Irish Bible teacher associated with the early years of the Plymouth Brethren. Darby also published translations of the Bible in French and German.

Douay-Rheims (DRV)

(1609) Catholic translation based on Jerome’s Vulgate. The standard English translation for Catholics for several hundred years. Revised in 1752 by Bishop Challoner.

God’s Word

(1995) Dynamic equivilence, designed to be an accurate, readable translation, using modern English language idioms to convey the meaning of the original texts. Produced by a denominationally diverse, 75-member team of translators, linguists, English experts, and independent biblical-language scholars.

Good News Bible (GNB)

(1974) Dynamic equivalence, written at a 6th-grade reading level in contemporary English. Revised in 1993. Also known as Today’s English Version.

Jerusalem Bible (JB)

(1966) Dynamic equivalence, translated from the French La Sainte Bible. The French version was praised as being “one of the greatest achievements of renascent Catholic biblical scholarship” because of the abundance of footnotes and introductions. The English version, included the notes and added text. Revised and re-released as New Jerusalem Bible (NJB) in 1966

King James Version (KJV)

(1611) Formal equivalence, Textus Receptus. In 1604, King James I of England decreed a new translation of the Bible into English be started, “to deliver God’s book unto God’s people in a tongue which they can understand.” With the hard work of 54 translators, it was finished in 1611, just 85 years after the first translation of the New Testament into English appeared (Tyndale, 1526). The Authorized Version, or King James Version, quickly became the standard for English-speaking Protestants. While technically easy to read because of shorter words and smaller vocabulary, the 17th-century English makes it difficult for many people to understand.

Literal Translation of the Bible (LITV)

(1995) 3rd Edition; Formal equivalence, based on 1894 Scrivener Textus Receptus. Translation by Jay P. Green, it grew out of his work on the Interlinear Greek-Hebrew Bible. The Interlinear Hebrew-Greek-English Bible is listed in parallel, with the original words, Strong’s numbers and the English meanings beneath; all words added by the translator are in italic type.

Living Bible

(1971) Paraphrase of the Bible produced by Kenneth Taylor, it is written in contemporary English, based on the ASV. It was written in an attempt ot help his children better understand the Bible.

The Message

(199?) Paraphrase produced by Eugene Peterson, designed to be an easy-to-read, modern language Bible. Uses the tone of modern American English, while maintaining the meaning (and idioms) of the original languages.

New American Bible (NAB)

(1970) Formal equivilence, Textus Recepticus. Catholic translation published under the the direction of Pope Pius XII, developed by the Catholic Bible Association of America. Written at a 6th-grade reading level, strives to be a clear translation written in basic American English.

New American Standard Version (NASB)

(1971) Formal equivalence, sought to render grammar and terminology in contemporary English, while preserving the literal accuracy of the 1901 ASV. Special attention given to the rendering of verb tenses to give the English reader a rendering as close as possible to the sense of the original Greek and Hebrew texts. Updated in 1995.

New English Bible (NEB)

(1970) Dynamic equivalence, translated into contemporary British English; the first British Bible translated from the original languages since the KJV.

New English Translation (NET)

(1996) Formal equivalence, Critical Text. A completely new translation of the Bible “from the best currently available Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek texts.” Includes over 60,000 text-critical, lexical, and exegetical notes. As of 1999, the New Testament was complete.

New International Version (NIV)

(1973) Dynamic equivalence, Critical Text: produced by 115 translators, attempt at “an accurate translation, suitable for public and private reading, teaching, preaching,memorizing, and liturgical use.” Approximately 7th-grade reading level.

New International Readers Version (NIrV)

(198?) Dynamic equivalence, Critical Text, based on NIV, with 40 additional translators, stylists, and simplifiers. At a 3rd-grade reading level, it uses simple, short words and sentences for a version that is easy to read and understand. According to Zondervan, is was “designed to help young children and new readers understand the Bible for themselves and create an easy stepping-stone from a children’s Bible to an adult Bible.”

New King James (NKJV)

(1982) Formal equivalence, Textus Receptus. Written at a 7th-grade reading level in contemporary English, but retains the poetic style of the original King James. It was produced as a revision of the KJV, intended to make it easier to read.

New Living Translation (NLT)

(1996) Dynamic equivalence, Critical Text. 90 Bible scholars and English stylists worked seven years on an update of The Living Bible. It was completed in 1996. Based on original sources, the goal of the NLT is to produce the closest natural equivilent, using the vocabulary and language structures of modern English. The publisher states it is, “a general-purpose translation that is accurate, easy to read, and excellent for study.” [10]

New Revised Standard Version (NRSV)

(1989) Formal equivalence, written in contemporary English, seen as a revision to the RSV with gender-inclusive language.

New World Translation (NWT)

Translation used by Jehovah’s Witnesses. The NWT is purposely mistranslated to support Jehovah’s Witness doctrine.

Revised English Bible (REB)

(1989) Dynamic equivalence, a revision of the New English Bible (NEB).

Revised Standard Version (RSV)

(1946) Formal equivalence, one of the most widely read English translations, it is a revision of the AV (Authorized Version of 1611, otherwise known as the King James Version) and the ASV (American Standard Version of 1901), utilizing the best texts available at the time.

Revised Version (RV)

(1881) Formal equivalence, Textus Receptus, update to the King James version.

Today’s English Version (TEV)

See Good News Bible.

Young’s Literal Translation (YLT)

(1898) Formal Equivalence, translation by Robert Young who also compiled Young’s Analytical Concordance. Extremely literal translation that attempts to preserve the tense and word usage as found in the original Greek and Hebrew writings.

Listing of Bible Types

Interlinear

Interlinear Bibles (there are many types) typically show at least one English translation alongside the original Greek, Hebrew, or Aramaic text, with notes on word usage, and translations of the Greek, Hebrew, and Aramaic words. Some interlinear Bibles include the Interlinear KJV - NIV Parallel New Testament and JP Green’s Interlinear Hebrew - Greek - English Bible.

Life Application Bible

Published by Tyndale in 1987, revised in 1993. Developed by Youth for Christ to help apply the Bible to everyday life, includes personality profiles of Biblical characters. Strong emphasis on application. Has much explanatory and historical information in its introductions, charts, maps. Available in KJV, LB, NIV, NKJV, NRSV.

MacArthur Study Bible

Developed by John MacArthur, a result of 30 years of study and teaching. Includes 20,000 study notes, book introductions and outlines, outline of Systematic Theology, 200-page topical index, charts, calendars, and maps. Available in NKJV.

Nelson Study Bible

350 word studies, 32 pages of full-color charts. Available in NKJV.

NIV Study Bible

Extensive textual notes including comparative interpretations. Includes study notes, concordance, introductions to each book, and maps. NIV only.

New Open Bible

Includes concordance, maps, charts, various essays on specific words and concepts, text-critical notes, extensive “Topical Index to the Bible”, and fantastic book introductions and outlines. Strives for doctrinal objectivity. Available in KJV, NKJV, NASB. This is my primary study bible.

Ryrie Study Bible

Dispensational, but not as emphatic as Scofield. Developed by former Dallas Theological Seminary professor Dr. Charles Caldwell Ryrie. First published in 1986, with an “Expanded Edition” released in 1995. Contains outlines, book introductions, extensive notes, 22-page “Synopsis of Bible Doctrine” section. Definately a theological study Bible, as opposed to a “practical living” one. Doctrinally oriented. Available in KJV, NASB, NIV.

Scofield Study Bible

Strong dispensational, fundamentalist outlook. First published in 1909, revised in 1917 for KJV. 1967 update (called the New Scofield Study Bible) for other versions. Excellent cross-reference system, notes in center column and as footnotes. Includes maps, “Dictionary of Scripture Proper Names.” Doctrinally oriented. Available in KJV, NASB, NIV, NKJV.

Spirit-Filled Life Bible

Pentecostal / Charismatic bias, has special sections on applying Bible to everyday life. Needs-oriented. Has book introductions and textual notes. Special “Kingdom Dynamics” sections discuss topics such as evangelism, seed faith, prosperity, spiritual gifts, and healing. Contains some charismatic theology and more extreme “word-of-faith” elements. Available in KJV and NKJV.

Thompson Chain Reference

Released in 1908 by Frank Charles Thompson, includes references in margins to link Scriptures on 4000+ subjects. Includes archeological notes and topical studies. Unfortunately, the word chains are based on English words, not on the original Greek and Hebrew, and are therefore very limited in usefulness for serious study. Attempts to be doctrinally objective. 5th Improved Edition released in 1988. Available in KJV, NIV, NASB, NKJV.

Other Sites

The following web sites offer additional information on Bible versions, translations, etc. I do not endorse any particular view expressed on these sites. These links are provided only as a convenience.
Online Bible — Free Bible software. Download and use numerous Bible translations, commentaries, dictionaries.
Zondervan Bibles
Darkness to Light - Bible Version Controversy
Jay Forrest’s Bible Search Engine — Over 20 versions, English, Greek, Hebrew, French, German, Spanish.
JP Green’s Literal Translation (LITV) in an on-line, browsable format.
Paul Bessel’s Bible Versions Page.

Footnotes

[1]:  Deuteronomy 31:9,26; 2 Kings 22:8; Joshua 24:26; 1 Samuel 10:25.

[2]:  2 Kings 22:8; Isaiah 29:18, 34:16; Daniel 9:2.

[3]:  Nehemiah 8:2,3,14.

[4]:  2 Maccabees 2:13.

[5]:  Malachi 4:4-6.

[6]:  2 Maccabees 2:23; 15:38.

[7]:  Baruch 1:2 compared with Jeremiah 43:6,7.

[8]:  Basics of Biblical Greek, William D. Mounce, 1993, Zondervan Publishing House, Grand Rapids, MI.

[9]:  The Complete Guide to Bible Versions, Philip W. Comfort, Ph.D. c1996. Wheaton: Living Books - Tyndale House.

[10]:  Holy Bible : New Living Translation. 1997, c1996. Wheaton: Tyndale House.

Gnosticism

Gnosticism is a peculiar religion that has roots older than Christianity. With the arrival of Jesus Christ, Gnosticism developed a strong Christological element, but it is not Christianity by any means. The origins of Gnosticism are difficult to pinpoint, but there are heavy doses of Neoplatonism and Jewish mysticism present, along with touches of Zoroastrianism and Hermeticism. The name itself comes from the greek word gnosis, or “knowledge”, and it entails esoteric traditions and secret knowledge to assist the journey of the soul to unity with God. It stands distinct from the generic religious movement of Illuminism, which simply means to be guided by new, special revelation from God. Gnosticism has a definite set of beliefs, complete with a theology all it’s own.

The basic idea of Gnosticism is this: The true infinite God “emanated” some beings from itself. These beings are called Aeons. Depending on the particular flavor of Gnosticism you are talking about, these Aeons have various names. But one, named Sophia (Greek for wisdom), emanated another creature called the “DemiUrge”. The DemiUrge thinks it is God, and is the God of the Hebrew Old Testament. It doesn’t realize it has been emanated from an emanation and is already twice-removed. Thinking itself God, it created material universe as we live in it, and created beings called Archons to rule it. Humans, a result of the material universe created by DemiUrge, are animated by a “spark” of light, which is really just a part of the true, infinite God that began the whole process with its emanations. This spark strives to break free of the imprisonment of material existence, and moves towards unity with the true, infinite God. However, the Archons and DemiUrge fight against this evolutions towards unity. By enlightenment and special knowledge (gnosis), humans who have become aware of their true nature can combat the Archons and DemiUrge, sometimes through esoteric ritual. Throughout history, the true infinite God emanated Messengers of the Light to assist mankind in its journey towards unity. These Messengers have included Seth (the third Son of Adam), Jesus, and the Prophet Mani.

Gnosticism is an active, thriving religion. In France, it is L’Eglise des Inities (Church of the Initiated), the Pre-Nicene Gnostic Catholic Church in England, and in the US, the Gnostic Society. They have sacraments, a liturgy, holy orders (the Ecclesia Gnostica) and sacred texts.

Introduction to Early Christian Heresies

What is heresy?

Heresy is defined an opinion or doctrine at variance with religious orthodoxy. This, of course, begs the question, “what is religious orthodoxy?” Given the immense variety of of Christian sects, ranging from the traditional Eastern Orthodox, Roman Catholic, Anglican and Episcopalian churches, all the way through Calvinism, Adventist churches, and the Society of Friends, it is impossible to define one set of beliefs which can be held up as orthodox Christianity. However, the Second Ecumenical Council, held in Constantinople in 381, came up with a statement of faith which is considered orthodox by a vast majority of Christians world wide. This statement was later modified into the Nicene Creed.

Heresy, apostasy, and schism

It is important, when discussing such matters, to acknowledge the fine lines between heresy, apostasy, and schism: heresy is a variance from orthodox opinion; apostasy is an abandonment of faith; and and schism is division of a religious body.

According to the new Catechism, the Roman Catholic church now considers it schism to deny the authority of the Pope. A few hundred years ago, this would have been considered heresy. Gnosticism was originally condemned as a heresy, but it can easily be classified as apostasy, because it is separate religion, and an abandonment of primal Christian ideas.

What are these “primal Christian ideas?” I, of course, risk venturing into heresy myself by stating this, but hold the single tenant, “we are dependent upon the redemptive work of Jesus Christ to gain salvation,” as the defining idea of Christianity. Onto the heresies!

Major heresies

The major heresies fall into three categories: heresies of the nature of Christ; heresies of the Trinity; and heresies of man and salvation.

Heresies of Christ

The orthodox idea of Christ was that he is fully God, yet existed as fully human, the two natures being “eternally distinct and uniquely united” at the same time, and that he suffered as a human.

Apollinarianism
(named for Apollinarius) Belief that Christ had no soul, but rather was filled with logos, or the Word, and was neither fully human nor fully divine.
Arianism
(named for Arius) Belief that the Father existed before the Son, the Son was created by the Father, and there was a time when the Son did not exist.
Docetism
(from the Greek word dokesis, which means to seem) Belief that Christ was wholly God, and his humanity and suffering only seemed to be real.
Dynamic Monarchianism
Claimed Jesus Christ was simply a man, whom God filled with an impersonal power, either at his conception, baptism, or resurrection. This denies Christ taking any personality from God, and teaches that Christ “became” God.
Ebionitism
Belief that Jesus was nothing more that a prophet: a man, but not divin. Named after the Ebionites, a first-century Jewish-Christian sect who emphasized Jewish law and rejected Paul’s teachings.
Eutychianism
(name after Eutyches of Constantinople) belief that Christ had only a divine nature, not a human one.
Monophysitism
This heresy denies the humanity of Christ. It removes the value of Christ’s redemptive work, because it denies that Christ suffered as a man. It declares that Christ had a single (mono), divine, nature. This doctrine is still taught by the Oriental Orthodox churches: Coptic Church of Egypt; Ethiopian Orthodox; Syrian Orthodox; Armenian Orthodox; and Malankara (Indian) Orthodox.
Monothelitism
Belief that Jesus posessed one divine-human energia, not two cooperating (divine and human) wills. Still held by the Maronite Church in Syria.
Nestorianism
(named for Netstorius) Belief that God was not in Christ and that Mary gave birth only to the human Jesus. Nestorianism teaches that Jesus was filled with the logos, that only the human part of Jesus suffered and died, and that man simply needs an infilling of logos for salvation.
Noeticism
(named for Noetus) Belief that God moved as a single spirit into Mary, and was transferred into Christ at birth. God himself was crucified and raised himself from the dead.

Heresies of the Trinity

The orthodox idea of the Trinity is that God (the Father), Jesus Christ (the Son), and the Holy Spirit are simultaneously three distinct beings, and all the same being, none subserviant to another, all three with complete equality and a single will. There was no time when any did not exist.

Macedonianism
(named for Macedonius) Denied the diety of the Holy Spirit, asserting it was a servent, similar to the angels.
Monarchianism
The denial of three seperate beings in the Trinity. A famous Monarchianist, Sabellian, claimed the three persons of God are three facets of one personality, in the way that the sun is simultaneously hot, round, and bright. He became so associated with Monarchianism, that in the early church, heresy of any kind was called Sabellianism.
Modalist Monarchianism
Held that God was a single being, and that Father / Son / Spirit were simply three modes of the same being, only one being possible at a time. Taken to its logical extreme, it would have been impossible for the Spirit to descend as a dove and God’s voice to be heard during Christ’s baptism.
Subordinationism
Any doctrine that subordinates one being of the Trinity to another.

Heresies of Man and Salvation

The orthodox idea of man and his need for salvation is that God already knows all who are chosen for eternal life (the elect), yet man has the free will to choose whether or not to believe in Christ’s redemptive work. These concepts hold so many paradoxes that men have frequently attempted to reconcile them with logic, leading to many heresies.

Donatism
(name for Donatus the Great) belief that the validity of a church office is determined by the “personal holiness” of the individual; that “morally unworthy” individuals are not qualified to perform the ecclessial duties of their office.
Marcionism
(named after Marcion) a denial that the Old Testament “Creator God of the Jews” and the “God of Goodness” revealed in the New Testament are the same God. Marcion developed a canon consisting of Luke and ten Pauline epistles, with all references to the Old Testament removed.
Pelagianism
(named for Pelagius) Claims that sin is a choice, and by choosing not to sin, man reach salvation on his own without need for Christ’s forgiveness of sin.

Credit

A lot of the information on this page was taken from David Christie-Murray’s book, A History of Heresy (1976, Oxford UP). For an intelligent discussion of heresy and schism with a decent dose of humor, it is an excellent resource. ISBN 0-19-285210-8.

Prayers

A collection of prayers

Agnes Dei

Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi, miserere nobis.
Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi, miserere nobis.
Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi, dona nobis pacem.

Lamb of God, you take away the sins of the world, have mercy on us. Lamb of God, you take away the sins of the world, have mercy on us. Lamb of God, you take away the sins of the world, grant us peace.

Amen.

Anima Christi

Soul of Christ, make me holy.
Body of Christ, save me.
Blood of Christ, fill me with love.
Water from Christ’s side, wash me.
Passion of Christ, strengthen me.
Good Jesus, hear me.
Within your wounds, hide me.
Never let me be parted from you.
From the evil enemy, protect me.
At the hour of my death, call me.
And tell me to come to you.
That with your saints I may praise you.
Through all eternity.

Amen.

Hail Mary

Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee, blessed art Thou amongst women and blessed is the fruit of Thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. Amen.

Our Father

Our Father, Who art in Heaven, hallowed be Thy name; Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in Heaven. Give us this day our daily bread; and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us; and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. Amen.

Prayer before meals

Bless us Oh Lord, and these Thy gifts, which we are about to receive, from Thy bounty, through Christ, Our Lord.

Amen.

Prayer for Peace

O Lord Jesus Christ, Who said to Your Apostles: Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you, regard not my sins but the faith of Your Church, and deign to give her peace and unity according to Your Will: Who live and reign, God, world without end.

Amen

Prayer of Saint Francis


Lord, make me a channel of thy peace;
that where there is hatred, I may bring love;
that where there is wrong, I may bring the spirit of forgiveness;
that where there is discord, I may bring harmony;
that where there is error, I may bring truth;
that where there is doubt, I may bring faith;
that where there is despair, I may bring hope;
that where there are shadows, I may bring light;
that where there is sadness, I may bring joy.

Lord, grant that I may seek rather to comfort than to be comforted;
to understand, than to be understood;
to love, than to be loved.
For it is by self-forgetting that one finds.
It is by forgiving that one is forgiven.
It is by dying that one awakens to eternal life. Amen.

Salve Regina (Hail Holy Queen)

Hail Holy Queen, Mother of Mercy, our life our sweetness and our hope. To thee do we cry, poor banished children of Eve; To thee do we send up our sighs, mourning and weeping in this valley of tears. Turn then, most gracious advocate, Thine eyes of mercy toward us and after this our exile show unto us the blessed fruit of Thy womb, Jesus. O clement, O loving, O sweet Virgin Mary!
V
Pray for us, O Holy Mother of God
R
That we may be made worthy of the promises of Christ.
Let us pray: O God, by the life, death and resurrection of Your only begotten Son, You purchased for us the rewards of eternal life; grant, we beseech You that while meditation on these mysteries of the Holy rosary, we may imitate what they contain and obtain what they promise. Through the same Christ our Lord. Amen.

Serenity Prayer

God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference.

Living one day at a time;
Enjoying one moment at a time;
Accepting hardships as the pathway to peace;
Taking, as He did, this sinful world
as it is, not as I would have it;
Trusting that He will make all things right
if I surrender to His Will;
That I may be reasonably happy in this life
and supremely happy with Him
Forever in the next.

Amen.

The Doxology (Gloria Patri)

Gloria Patri, et Fílio, et Spirítui Sancto. Sicut erat in princípio, et nunc, et semper, et in saecula saeculórum.Traditional Latin

Glory to the Father and to the Son
and to the Holy Spirit;
as it was in the beginning is now
and shall be for ever.

Amen.

The Doxology (Praise God from whom...)

Praise God, from Whom all blessings flow;
Praise Him, all creatures here below;
Praise Him above, ye Heavenly Host;
Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.

Amen.

Taken from the seventh stanza of Thoman Ken’s “Glory to thee, my God, this night” (c.1674)

The Stations of the Cross

An Act of Contrition

O my God, my Redeemer, behold me here at Thy feet. From the bottom of my heart I am sorry for all my sins, because by them I have offended Thee, Who art infinitely good. I will die rather than offend thee again.

FIRST STATION: Jesus is condemned to Death

V - We adore Thee, O Christ, and bless Thee.

+ - Because by Thy holy cross Thou hast redeemed the world. My Jesus, often have I signed The death warrant by my sins; save me by Thy death from that eternal death which I have so often deserved. Our Father. Hail Mary. Glory Be to the Father.

V - Jesus Christ Crucified.

+ - Have mercy on Us.

V - May the souls of the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, Rest in peace.

+ - Amen.

SECOND STATION: Jesus bears His Cross

V - We adore Thee, O Christ, and bless Thee.
+ - Because by Thy holy cross Thou hast redeemed the world.

My Jesus, Who by Thine own will didst take on Thee the most heavy cross I made for Thee by my sins, oh, make me feel their heavy weight, and weep for them ever while I live.

Our Father. Hail Mary. Glory Be to the Father.

V - Jesus Christ Crucified.
+ - Have mercy on Us.
V - May the souls of the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, Rest in peace.
+ - Amen.

Why I Am A Christian - a response to Bertrand Russell, who is dead

On the challenge of a co-worker, I read Bertrand Russell’s paper, Why I am not a Christian, and had a few comments on it. As I stated to the person who recommended I read it, there is no promise of stunning intellectual arguments here, for I am a layman, but it’s always fun to take issue with the writings of a dead person. That’s why Descartes is so popular.

I agree with some of the things Russell had to say, but not all of them. If I understand his reasoning correctly, the argument is:

  1. Christianity is not truthful because
    • You cannot prove God exists and
    • Jesus Christ was not the ultimate moral being Christians claim; and
  2. Christianity is harmful because people called Christians have done many bad things in the name of Christianity.

On the point, you cannot prove God exists, I have no quarrel. I think attempting to do so by rational means is at best an intellectual exercise, and more often a misleading waste of time.

I also agree that many people claiming to be Christians have done much harm in the name of Christianity, and they continue to do so. For quite some time I refused to call myself a Christian, preferring the cumbersome “follower of the teachings of Christ”; the term Christian has lost all specificity, and is impossible to tie down to a set of beliefs, behaviors, or experiences. Even those who hold orthodox “Christian” beliefs argue among themselves, and many using the name Christianity are way outside the orthodox set of beliefs. I finally grew tired of making the distinction, though, because it seemed to irritate a lot of people.

On the morality of Christ, I would disagree. Russell’s use of the story of the barren fig tree was a good one, and is one that I am curious about. I know the story, but have never really thought much about it… it reminds me more of stories found in the Coptic Gnostic scriptures than one that fits with the rest of the four gospels.

The distaste for hell, too, is an appealing argument, but is again an argument I disagree with. I do not believe that “hell” is an eternal resting place, because I do not believe this set of events (i.e., current human existence and the history / prophecy found in the Bible) is the final creation.

Overall I have a problem with Russell’s argument, because I think he was vague. In a few places, he unfairly equivocated the official beliefs of the Roman Catholic or Anglican church with Christianity. Based on a disagreement with several of these, he concluded that Christianity is an “untrue” belief. The core Christian belief is that a substitutive act of redemption was performed by Jesus Christ. He didn’t argue against that, nor did he argue against the need of such a redemptive act.

To rebuff him, though, is difficult. It is difficult to make a sound logical argument for the practice of Christianity, because anecdotal evidence makes a lousy base for any logical argument. My eventual return to Christianity is based on personal events, which, though great for my own intellectual satisfaction, do not do much to help someone else attempting to intellectually reconcile the practice of Christianity.

Why I Am Not A Christian - an essay by Bertrand Russell

Why I Am Not A Christian
by Bertrand Russell

Introductory note: Russell delivered this lecture on March 6, 1927 to the National Secular Society, South London Branch, at Battersea Town Hall. Published in pamphlet form in that same year, the essay subsequently achieved new fame with Paul Edwards’ edition of Russell’s book, Why I Am Not a Christian and Other Essays … (1957).
As your Chairman has told you, the subject about which I am going to speak to you tonight is “Why I Am Not a Christian.” Perhaps it would be as well, first of all, to try to make out what one means by the word Christian. It is used these days in a very loose sense by a great many people. Some people mean no more by it than a person who attempts to live a good life. In that sense I suppose there would be Christians in all sects and creeds; but I do not think that that is the proper sense of the word, if only because it would imply that all the people who are not Christians — all the Buddhists, Confucians, Mohammedans, and so on — are not trying to live a good life. I do not mean by a Christian any person who tries to live decently according to his lights. I think that you must have a certain amount of definite belief before you have a right to call yourself a Christian. The word does not have quite such a full-blooded meaning now as it had in the times of St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas. In those days, if a man said that he was a Christian it was known what he meant. You accepted a whole collection of creeds which were set out with great precision, and every single syllable of those creeds you believed with the whole strength of your convictions.

What Is a Christian?

Nowadays it is not quite that. We have to be a little more vague in our meaning of Christianity. I think, however, that there are two different items which are quite essential to anybody calling himself a Christian. The first is one of a dogmatic nature — namely, that you must believe in God and immortality. If you do not believe in those two things, I do not think that you can properly call yourself a Christian. Then, further than that, as the name implies, you must have some kind of belief about Christ. The Mohammedans, for instance, also believe in God and in immortality, and yet they would not call themselves Christians. I think you must have at the very lowest the belief that Christ was, if not divine, at least the best and wisest of men. If you are not going to believe that much about Christ, I do not think you have any right to call yourself a Christian. Of course, there is another sense, which you find in Whitaker’s Almanack and in geography books, where the population of the world is said to be divided into Christians, Mohammedans, Buddhists, fetish worshipers, and so on; and in that sense we are all Christians. The geography books count us all in, but that is a purely geographical sense, which I suppose we can ignore.Therefore I take it that when I tell you why I am not a Christian I have to tell you two different things: first, why I do not believe in God and in immortality; and, secondly, why I do not think that Christ was the best and wisest of men, although I grant him a very high degree of moral goodness.

But for the successful efforts of unbelievers in the past, I could not take so elastic a definition of Christianity as that. As I said before, in olden days it had a much more full-blooded sense. For instance, it included he belief in hell. Belief in eternal hell-fire was an essential item of Christian belief until pretty recent times. In this country, as you know, it ceased to be an essential item because of a decision of the Privy Council, and from that decision the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Archbishop of York dissented; but in this country our religion is settled by Act of Parliament, and therefore the Privy Council was able to override their Graces and hell was no longer necessary to a Christian. Consequently I shall not insist that a Christian must believe in hell.

The Existence of God

To come to this question of the existence of God: it is a large and serious question, and if I were to attempt to deal with it in any adequate manner I should have to keep you here until Kingdom Come, so that you will have to excuse me if I deal with it in a somewhat summary fashion. You know, of course, that the Catholic Church has laid it down as a dogma that the existence of God can be proved by the unaided reason. That is a somewhat curious dogma, but it is one of their dogmas. They had to introduce it because at one time the freethinkers adopted the habit of saying that there were such and such arguments which mere reason might urge against the existence of God, but of course they knew as a matter of faith that God did exist. The arguments and the reasons were set out at great length, and the Catholic Church felt that they must stop it. Therefore they laid it down that the existence of God can be proved by the unaided reason and they had to set up what they considered were arguments to prove it. There are, of course, a number of them, but I shall take only a few.

The First-cause Argument

Perhaps the simplest and easiest to understand is the argument of the First Cause. (It is maintained that everything we see in this world has a cause, and as you go back in the chain of causes further and further you must come to a First Cause, and to that First Cause you give the name of God.) That argument, I suppose, does not carry very much weight nowadays, because, in the first place, cause is not quite what it used to be. The philosophers and the men of science have got going on cause, and it has not anything like the vitality it used to have; but, apart from that, you can see that the argument that there must be a First Cause is one that cannot have any validity. I may say that when I was a young man and was debating these questions very seriously in my mind, I for a long time accepted the argument of the First Cause, until one day, at the age of eighteen, I read John Stuart Mill’s Autobiography, and I there found this sentence: “My father taught me that the question ‘Who made me?’ cannot be answered, since it immediately suggests the further question `Who made god?’” That very simple sentence showed me, as I still think, the fallacy in the argument of the First Cause. If everything must have a cause, then God must have a cause. If there can be anything without a cause, it may just as well be the world as God, so that there cannot be any validity in that argument. It is exactly of the same nature as the Hindu’s view, that the world rested upon an elephant and the elephant rested upon a tortoise; and when they said, “How about the tortoise?” the Indian said, “Suppose we change the subject.” The argument is really no better than that. There is no reason why the world could not have come into being without a cause; nor, on the other hand, is there any reason why it should not have always existed. There is no reason to suppose that the world had a beginning at all. The idea that things must have a beginning is really due to the poverty of our imagination. Therefore, perhaps, I need not waste any more time upon the argument about the First Cause.

The Natural-law Argument

Then there is a very common argument from natural law. That was a favorite argument all through the eighteenth century, especially under the influence of Sir Isaac Newton and his cosmogony. People observed the planets going around the sun according to the law of gravitation, and they thought that God had given a behest to these planets to move in that particular fashion, and that was why they did so. That was, of course, a convenient and simple explanation that saved them the trouble of looking any further for explanations of the law of gravitation. Nowadays we explain the law of gravitation in a somewhat complicated fashion that Einstein has introduced. I do not propose to give you a lecture on the law of gravitation, as interpreted by Einstein, because that again would take some time; at any rate, you no longer have the sort of natural law that you had in the Newtonian system, where, for some reason that nobody could understand, nature behaved in a uniform fashion. We now find that a great many things we thought were natural laws are really human conventions. You know that even in the remotest depths of stellar space there are still three feet to a yard. That is, no doubt, a very remarkable fact, but you would hardly call it a law of nature. And a great many things that have been regarded as laws of nature are of that kind. On the other hand, where you can get down to any knowledge of what atoms actually do, you will find they are much less subject to law than people thought, and that the laws at which you arrive are statistical averages of just the sort that would emerge from chance. There is, as we all know, a law that if you throw dice you will get double sixes only about once in thirty-six times, and we do not regard that as evidence that the fall of the dice is regulated by design; on the contrary, if the double sixes came every time we should think that there was design. The laws of nature are of that sort as regards a great many of them. They are statistical averages such as would emerge from the laws of chance; and that makes this whole business of natural law much less impressive than it formerly was. Quite apart from that, which represents the momentary state of science that may change tomorrow, the whole idea that natural laws imply a lawgiver is due to a confusion between natural and human laws. Human laws are behests commanding you to behave a certain way, in which you may choose to behave, or you may choose not to behave; but natural laws are a description of how things do in fact behave, and being a mere description of what they in fact do, you cannot argue that there must be somebody who told them to do that, because even supposing that there were, you are then faced with the question “Why did God issue just those natural laws and no others?” If you say that he did it simply from his own good pleasure, and without any reason, you then find that there is something which is not subject to law, and so your train of natural law is interrupted. If you say, as more orthodox theologians do, that in all the laws which God issues he had a reason for giving those laws rather than others — the reason, of course, being to create the best universe, although you would never think it to look at it — if there were a reason for the laws which God gave, then God himself was subject to law, and therefore you do not get any advantage by introducing God as an intermediary. You really have a law outside and anterior to the divine edicts, and God does not serve your purpose, because he is not the ultimate lawgiver. In short, this whole argument about natural law no longer has anything like the strength that it used to have. I am traveling on in time in my review of the arguments. The arguments that are used for the existence of God change their character as time goes on. They were at first hard intellectual arguments embodying certain quite definite fallacies. As we come to modern times they become less respectable intellectually and more and more affected by a kind of moralizing vagueness.

The Argument from Design

The next step in the process brings us to the argument from design. You all know the argument from design: everything in the world is made just so that we can manage to live in the world, and if the world was ever so little different, we could not manage to live in it. That is the argument from design. It sometimes takes a rather curious form; for instance, it is argued that rabbits have white tails in order to be easy to shoot. I do not know how rabbits would view that application. It is an easy argument to parody. You all know Voltaire’s remark, that obviously the nose was designed to be such as to fit spectacles. That sort of parody has turned out to be not nearly so wide of the mark as it might have seemed in the eighteenth century, because since the time of Darwin we understand much better why living creatures are adapted to their environment. It is not that their environment was made to be suitable to them but that they grew to be suitable to it, and that is the basis of adaptation. There is no evidence of design about it.

When you come to look into this argument from design, it is a most astonishing thing that people can believe that this world, with all the things that are in it, with all its defects, should be the best that omnipotence and omniscience have been able to produce in millions of years. I really cannot believe it. Do you think that, if you were granted omnipotence and omniscience and millions of years in which to perfect your world, you could produce nothing better than the Ku Klux Klan or the Fascists? Moreover, if you accept the ordinary laws of science, you have to suppose that human life and life in general on this planet will die out in due course: it is a stage in the decay of the solar system; at a certain stage of decay you get the sort of conditions of temperature and so forth which are suitable to protoplasm, and there is life for a short time in the life of the whole solar system. You see in the moon the sort of thing to which the earth is tending — something dead, cold, and lifeless.

I am told that that sort of view is depressing, and people will sometimes tell you that if they believed that, they would not be able to go on living. Do not believe it; it is all nonsense. Nobody really worries about much about what is going to happen millions of years hence. Even if they think they are worrying much about that, they are really deceiving themselves. They are worried about something much more mundane, or it may merely be a bad digestion; but nobody is really seriously rendered unhappy by the thought of something that is going to happen to this world millions and millions of years hence. Therefore, although it is of course a gloomy view to suppose that life will die out — at least I suppose we may say so, although sometimes when I contemplate the things that people do with their lives I think it is almost a consolation — it is not such as to render life miserable. It merely makes you turn your attention to other things.

The Moral Arguments for Deity

Now we reach one stage further in what I shall call the intellectual descent that the Theists have made in their argumentations, and we come to what are called the moral arguments for the existence of God. You all know, of course, that there used to be in the old days three intellectual arguments for the existence of God, all of which were disposed of by Immanuel Kant in the Critique of Pure Reason; but no sooner had he disposed of those arguments than he invented a new one, a moral argument, and that quite convinced him. He was like many people: in intellectual matters he was skeptical, but in moral matters he believed implicitly in the maxims that he had imbibed at his mother’s knee. That illustrates what the psychoanalysts so much emphasize — the immensely stronger hold upon us that our very early associations have than those of later times.

Kant, as I say, invented a new moral argument for the existence of God, and that in varying forms was extremely popular during the nineteenth century. It has all sorts of forms. One form is to say there would be no right or wrong unless God existed. I am not for the moment concerned with whether there is a difference between right and wrong, or whether there is not: that is another question. The point I am concerned with is that, if you are quite sure there is a difference between right and wrong, then you are in this situation: Is that difference due to God’s fiat or is it not? If it is due to God’s fiat, then for God himself there is no difference between right and wrong, and it is no longer a significant statement to say that God is good. If you are going to say, as theologians do, that God is good, you must then say that right and wrong have some meaning which is independent of God’s fiat, because God’s fiats are good and not bad independently of the mere fact that he made them. If you are going to say that, you will then have to say that it is not only through God that right and wrong came into being, but that they are in their essence logically anterior to God. You could, of course, if you liked, say that there was a superior deity who gave orders to the God that made this world, or could take up the line that some of the gnostics took up — a line which I often thought was a very plausible one — that as a matter of fact this world that we know was made by the devil at a moment when God was not looking. There is a good deal to be said for that, and I am not concerned to refute it.

The Argument for the Remedying of Injustice

Then there is another very curious form of moral argument, which is this: they say that the existence of God is required in order to bring justice into the world. In the part of this universe that we know there is great injustice, and often the good suffer, and often the wicked prosper, and one hardly knows which of those is the more annoying; but if you are going to have justice in the universe as a whole you have to suppose a future life to redress the balance of life here on earth. So they say that there must be a God, and there must be Heaven and Hell in order that in the long run there may be justice. That is a very curious argument. If you looked at the matter from a scientific point of view, you would say, “After all, I only know this world. I do not know about the rest of the universe, but so far as one can argue at all on probabilities one would say that probably this world is a fair sample, and if there is injustice here the odds are that there is injustice elsewhere also.” Supposing you got a crate of oranges that you opened, and you found all the top layer of oranges bad, you would not argue, “The underneath ones must be good, so as to redress the balance.” You would say, “Probably the whole lot is a bad consignment”; and that is really what a scientific person would argue about the universe. He would say, “Here we find in this world a great deal of injustice, and so far as that goes that is a reason for supposing that justice does not rule in the world; and therefore so far as it goes it affords a moral argument against deity and not in favor of one.” Of course I know that the sort of intellectual arguments that I have been talking to you about are not what really moves people. What really moves people to believe in God is not any intellectual argument at all. Most people believe in God because they have been taught from early infancy to do it, and that is the main reason.

Then I think that the next most powerful reason is the wish for safety, a sort of feeling that there is a big brother who will look after you. That plays a very profound part in influencing people’s desire for a belief in God.

The Character of Christ

I now want to say a few words upon a topic which I often think is not quite sufficiently dealt with by Rationalists, and that is the question whether Christ was the best and the wisest of men. It is generally taken for granted that we should all agree that that was so. I do not myself. I think that there are a good many points upon which I agree with Christ a great deal more than the professing Christians do. I do not know that I could go with Him all the way, but I could go with Him much further than most professing Christians can. You will remember that He said, “Resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also.” That is not a new precept or a new principle. It was used by Lao-tse and Buddha some 500 or 600 years before Christ, but it is not a principle which as a matter of fact Christians accept. I have no doubt that the present prime minister [Stanley Baldwin], for instance, is a most sincere Christian, but I should not advise any of you to go and smite him on one cheek. I think you might find that he thought this text was intended in a figurative sense.

Then there is another point which I consider excellent. You will remember that Christ said, “Judge not lest ye be judged.” That principle I do not think you would find was popular in the law courts of Christian countries. I have known in my time quite a number of judges who were very earnest Christians, and none of them felt that they were acting contrary to Christian principles in what they did. Then Christ says, “Give to him that asketh of thee, and from him that would borrow of thee turn not thou away.” That is a very good principle. Your Chairman has reminded you that we are not here to talk politics, but I cannot help observing that the last general election was fought on the question of how desirable it was to turn away from him that would borrow of thee, so that one must assume that the Liberals and Conservatives of this country are composed of people who do not agree with the teaching of Christ, because they certainly did very emphatically turn away on that occasion.

Then there is one other maxim of Christ which I think has a great deal in it, but I do not find that it is very popular among some of our Christian friends. He says, “If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that which thou hast, and give to the poor.” That is a very excellent maxim, but, as I say, it is not much practised. All these, I think, are good maxims, although they are a little difficult to live up to. I do not profess to live up to them myself; but then, after all, it is not quite the same thing as for a Christian.

Defects in Christ’s Teaching

Having granted the excellence of these maxims, I come to certain points in which I do not believe that one can grant either the superlative wisdom or the superlative goodness of Christ as depicted in the Gospels; and here I may say that one is not concerned with the historical question. Historically it is quite doubtful whether Christ ever existed at all, and if He did we do not know anything about him, so that I am not concerned with the historical question, which is a very difficult one. I am concerned with Christ as He appears in the Gospels, taking the Gospel narrative as it stands, and there one does find some things that do not seem to be very wise. For one thing, he certainly thought that His second coming would occur in clouds of glory before the death of all the people who were living at that time. There are a great many texts that prove that. He says, for instance, “Ye shall not have gone over the cities of Israel till the Son of Man be come.” Then he says, “There are some standing here which shall not taste death till the Son of Man comes into His kingdom”; and there are a lot of places where it is quite clear that He believed that His second coming would happen during the lifetime of many then living. That was the belief of His earlier followers, and it was the basis of a good deal of His moral teaching. When He said, “Take no thought for the morrow,” and things of that sort, it was very largely because He thought that the second coming was going to be very soon, and that all ordinary mundane affairs did not count. I have, as a matter of fact, known some Christians who did believe that the second coming was imminent. I knew a parson who frightened his congregation terribly by telling them that the second coming was very imminent indeed, but they were much consoled when they found that he was planting trees in his garden. The early Christians did really believe it, and they did abstain from such things as planting trees in their gardens, because they did accept from Christ the belief that the second coming was imminent. In that respect, clearly He was not so wise as some other people have been, and He was certainly not superlatively wise.

The Moral Problem

Then you come to moral questions. There is one very serious defect to my mind in Christ’s moral character, and that is that He believed in hell. I do not myself feel that any person who is really profoundly humane can believe in everlasting punishment. Christ certainly as depicted in the Gospels did believe in everlasting punishment, and one does find repeatedly a vindictive fury against those people who would not listen to His preaching — an attitude which is not uncommon with preachers, but which does somewhat detract from superlative excellence. You do not, for instance find that attitude in Socrates. You find him quite bland and urbane toward the people who would not listen to him; and it is, to my mind, far more worthy of a sage to take that line than to take the line of indignation. You probably all remember the sorts of things that Socrates was saying when he was dying, and the sort of things that he generally did say to people who did not agree with him.

You will find that in the Gospels Christ said, “Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of Hell.” That was said to people who did not like His preaching. It is not really to my mind quite the best tone, and there are a great many of these things about Hell. There is, of course, the familiar text about the sin against the Holy Ghost: “Whosoever speaketh against the Holy Ghost it shall not be forgiven him neither in this World nor in the world to come.” That text has caused an unspeakable amount of misery in the world, for all sorts of people have imagined that they have committed the sin against the Holy Ghost, and thought that it would not be forgiven them either in this world or in the world to come. I really do not think that a person with a proper degree of kindliness in his nature would have put fears and terrors of that sort into the world.

Then Christ says, “The Son of Man shall send forth his His angels, and they shall gather out of His kingdom all things that offend, and them which do iniquity, and shall cast them into a furnace of fire; there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth”; and He goes on about the wailing and gnashing of teeth. It comes in one verse after another, and it is quite manifest to the reader that there is a certain pleasure in contemplating wailing and gnashing of teeth, or else it would not occur so often. Then you all, of course, remember about the sheep and the goats; how at the second coming He is going to divide the sheep from the goats, and He is going to say to the goats, “Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire.” He continues, “And these shall go away into everlasting fire.” Then He says again, “If thy hand offend thee, cut it off; it is better for thee to enter into life maimed, than having two hands to go into Hell, into the fire that never shall be quenched; where the worm dieth not and the fire is not quenched.” He repeats that again and again also. I must say that I think all this doctrine, that hell-fire is a punishment for sin, is a doctrine of cruelty. It is a doctrine that put cruelty into the world and gave the world generations of cruel torture; and the Christ of the Gospels, if you could take Him asHis chroniclers represent Him, would certainly have to be considered partly responsible for that.

There are other things of less importance. There is the instance of the Gadarene swine, where it certainly was not very kind to the pigs to put the devils into them and make them rush down the hill into the sea. You must remember that He was omnipotent, and He could have made the devils simply go away; but He chose to send them into the pigs. Then there is the curious story of the fig tree, which always rather puzzled me. You remember what happened about the fig tree. “He was hungry; and seeing a fig tree afar off having leaves, He came if haply He might find anything thereon; and when He came to it He found nothing but leaves, for the time of figs was not yet. And Jesus answered and said unto it: ‘No man eat fruit of thee hereafter for ever’ … and Peter … saith unto Him: ‘Master, behold the fig tree which thou cursedst is withered away.’” This is a very curious story, because it was not the right time of year for figs, and you really could not blame the tree. I cannot myself feel that either in the matter of wisdom or in the matter of virtue Christ stands quite as high as some other people known to history. I think I should put Buddha and Socrates above Him in those respects.

The Emotional Factor

As I said before, I do not think that the real reason why people accept religion has anything to do with argumentation. They accept religion on emotional grounds. One is often told that it is a very wrong thing to attack religion, because religion makes men virtuous. So I am told; I have not noticed it. You know, of course, the parody of that argument in Samuel Butler’s book, Erewhon Revisited. You will remember that in Erewhon there is a certain Higgs who arrives in a remote country, and after spending some time there he escapes from that country in a balloon. Twenty years later he comes back to that country and finds a new religion in which he is worshiped under the name of the “Sun Child,” and it is said that he ascended into heaven. He finds that the Feast of the Ascension is about to be celebrated, and he hears Professors Hanky and Panky say to each other that they never set eyes on the man Higgs, and they hope they never will; but they are the high priests of the religion of the Sun Child. He is very indignant, and he comes up to them, and he says, “I am going to expose all this humbug and tell the people of Erewhon that it was only I, the man Higgs, and I went up in a balloon.” He was told, “You must not do that, because all the morals of this country are bound round this myth, and if they once know that you did not ascend into Heaven they will all become wicked”; and so he is persuaded of that and he goes quietly away.

That is the idea — that we should all be wicked if we did not hold to the Christian religion. It seems to me that the people who have held to it have been for the most part extremely wicked. You find this curious fact, that the more intense has been the religion of any period and the more profound has been the dogmatic belief, the greater has been the cruelty and the worse has been the state of affairs. In the so-called ages of faith, when men really did believe the Christian religion in all its completeness, there was the Inquisition, with all its tortures; there were millions of unfortunate women burned as witches; and there was every kind of cruelty practiced upon all sorts of people in the name of religion.

You find as you look around the world that every single bit of progress in humane feeling, every improvement in the criminal law, every step toward the diminution of war, every step toward better treatment of the colored races, or every mitigation of slavery, every moral progress that there has been in the world, has been consistently opposed by the organized churches of the world. I say quite deliberately that the Christian religion, as organized in its churches, has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world.

How the Churches Have Retarded Progress

You may think that I am going too far when I say that that is still so. I do not think that I am. Take one fact. You will bear with me if I mention it. It is not a pleasant fact, but the churches compel one to mention facts that are not pleasant. Supposing that in this world that we live in today an inexperienced girl is married to a syphilitic man; in that case the Catholic Church says, “This is an indissoluble sacrament. You must endure celibacy or stay together. And if you stay together, you must not use birth control to prevent the birth of syphilitic children.” Nobody whose natural sympathies have not been warped by dogma, or whose moral nature was not absolutely dead to all sense of suffering, could maintain that it is right and proper that that state of things should continue.

That is only an example. There are a great many ways in which, at the present moment, the church, by its insistence upon what it chooses to call morality, inflicts upon all sorts of people undeserved and unnecessary suffering. And of course, as we know, it is in its major part an opponent still of progress and improvement in all the ways that diminish suffering in the world, because it has chosen to label as morality a certain narrow set of rules of conduct which have nothing to do with human happiness; and when you say that this or that ought to be done because it would make for human happiness, they think that has nothing to do with the matter at all. “What has human happiness to do with morals? The object of morals is not to make people happy.”

Fear, the Foundation of Religion

Religion is based, I think, primarily and mainly upon fear. It is partly the terror of the unknown and partly, as I have said, the wish to feel that you have a kind of elder brother who will stand by you in all your troubles and disputes. Fear is the basis of the whole thing — fear of the mysterious, fear of defeat, fear of death. Fear is the parent of cruelty, and therefore it is no wonder if cruelty and religion have gone hand in hand. It is because fear is at the basis of those two things. In this world we can now begin a little to understand things, and a little to master them by help of science, which has forced its way step by step against the Christian religion, against the churches, and against the opposition of all the old precepts. Science can help us to get over this craven fear in which mankind has lived for so many generations. Science can teach us, and I think our own hearts can teach us, no longer to look around for imaginary supports, no longer to invent allies in the sky, but rather to look to our own efforts here below to make this world a better place to live in, instead of the sort of place that the churches in all these centuries have made it.

What We Must Do

We want to stand upon our own feet and look fair and square at the world — its good facts, its bad facts, its beauties, and its ugliness; see the world as it is and be not afraid of it. Conquer the world by intelligence and not merely by being slavishly subdued by the terror that comes from it. The whole conception of God is a conception derived from the ancient Oriental despotisms. It is a conception quite unworthy of free men. When you hear people in church debasing themselves and saying that they are miserable sinners, and all the rest of it, it seems contemptible and not worthy of self-respecting human beings. We ought to stand up and look the world frankly in the face. We ought to make the best we can of the world, and if it is not so good as we wish, after all it will still be better than what these others have made of it in all these ages. A good world needs knowledge, kindliness, and courage; it does not need a regretful hankering after the past or a fettering of the free intelligence by the words uttered long ago by ignorant men. It needs a fearless outlook and a free intelligence. It needs hope for the future, not looking back all the time toward a past that is dead, which we trust will be far surpassed by the future that our intelligence can create.

Electronic colophon: This electronic edition of “Why I Am Not a Christian” was first made available by Bruce MacLeod on his “Watchful Eye Russell Page.” It was newly corrected (from Edwards, NY 1957) in July 1996 by John R. Lenz for the Bertrand Russell Society.