The Antigua Valera Bible

Restored and diligently compared with different faithful translations

By Carlos A. Donate Alvira

MY TESTIMONY

                My name is Carlos Aníbal Donate Alvira.  I have been happily married to Jaimie Peralta since 1985 and together we have four children.  I am Hispanic.  I was born in New York, but I grew up in Puerto Rico.  I come from a family who was for years Roman Catholic.  I thank the Lord Jesus that at the age of 13, a soulwinner spoke to me about Christ.  After clearly understanding that Jesus had died and  risen again for my sins, and that his blood had been shed to wash my sins away, I repented of being a miserable sinner and happily received Him as my only Saviour the first of August of 1975. 

Not long after, I was baptized by immersion in an Independent Baptist church, the First Baptist Church of Livittown Lakes, Toa Baja, Puerto Rico.  The first Bible I received was the Antigua Valera 1909, which was a gift from my mother who like me had begun to attend the services of this great church.  As the time passed, this Bible deteriorated so much that I had to purchase another one.  As a teen, I loved to mark and underline my favorite verses.  This Bible went every where with me!  I still hold on to that old beloved Valera. 

During that time, I knew nothing about the different versions of the Bible.  I thought, like many, that all the Bibles were the same.  At a Christian bookstore I was informed that I would be best to buy the Reina-Valera 1960 revision as that was the “best” in the sense that the words were more modern and therefore, it was easier to read and to understand.  At first I thought the salesperson was right.  After all, I wanted to understand the message of the Bible better.  I soon purchased a “RV 60” and started reading it.  However, it was hard to read a passage along with everyone else in church as my Bible said one thing and my pastor’s said something else.  I did not give much thought to the matter, thinking along with everyone else, that the supposed differences did not change the basic idea of the teaching.

After some time, I heard a message by a Baptist Pastor who said that one of the devil’s goals was to publish adulterated and false Bibles, which became that way because they were based on Alexandrian texts. This pastor did not want us to doubt our faith, but he wanted to warn us to defend the pure doctrine of the Textus Receptus.  I had been taught that God had preserved His word through this text.  I later found out that the majority of the so-called Bible schools promote the translations of the Bible that are based on the critical text of Westcott and Hort.  They were the Alexandrians!  It was discouraging for me to learn that there had been people who had been able to change the Sacred Scriptures like Mr. Westcott and Mr. Hort. 

This was the beginning of a long debate in my heart about the different Bible versions.  The majority of the brethren in our congregation were beginning to use the 1960 revision, while the “older” brethren would not stop using their beloved Antigua 1909 version for anything in the world.  One day I visited a Bible society in my country where I was able to buy five different versions.  I bought a “Dios Habla Hoy,” a “Biblia de Jerusalén,” a “Nacar-Colunga,” a “Biblia al Día,” and a “Dios Llega Al Hombre.”

I now owned eight “Bibles” including the 1909 and 1960 plus a King James Bible.  I liked to compare the verses in the different ones.  I remembered that in high school I had studied French, so I quickly purchased a French Segond Bible version.  With my French classes and by reading, I was able to memorize complete passages in French.  I remember when I met a French couple, Sócrates
and Nicole Parra.  And, I was able to witness to them and they are today Christians by the grace of God.  The conversion of the Parra family motivated me to continue learning languages.  I thought I might be able to learn Russian, Portuguese, or Italian since my ancestors are Hispanic Italians.  Although my desire to learn languages did not lead to all of these, I was able to learn a little Italian which was sufficient enough to buy an Italian Bible.

Also, in 1977, I learned “AMESLAN” (American Sign Language) since a group of deaf people attended our church.  Little by little I became so interested in the world of the deaf that I became a teacher and an interpreter.  I interpreted my pastor’s messages and teachings so that they could understand the word of God.  The job of interpreting the Bible messages to the deaf revived in me my dream of communicating in several languages.   However, I continued to worry when I would read something in the 1960 or in the 1909 and then in the King James and I would find not only differences in words, but complete omissions and additions in the Spanish Bibles.  Now it did not only have to do with changes due to the different languages but textual changes.  I would transmit to the deaf “the message” or “the meaning” but not the actual words since in my heart I could not find the way to reconcile one Bible translation with the other.

In 1979 I once again heard that famous Baptist pastor say that all of God’s words were important.  Later on, to my surprise, a famous deaf evangelist taught us that it was not only important to transmit the message or the “essence,” but also the mere words, since that was the way the Bible taught us.

In 1980 I left my country to prepare for the preaching ministry. My personal frustration followed me in my Bible studies in the college where I was preparing for God’s work.  The college was correct when it endorsed and defended the King James and the Textus Receptus, while the Hispanic world was uncertain about this.  In the classes of Bible Languages, my teacher emphasized the original textual words.  Our Bible was the Authorized 1611version.  I remember, in one occasion, that I showed my Greek professor that certain words were not in our Hispanic Bible, which caused him to wonder about its textual faithfulness.

As a student of theology, it really upset me to know that all the versions were not the same.  There exists a tree, which produced “good fruit,” and another which produced “bad fruit.”  (Read Matthew 7:17).  This bad fruit has caused much damage in the churches.  This bad fruit has poisoned the minds of many brethren.  The good fruit is that which maintains the pure doctrine because it is based on those faithful texts.

Having said this, I am not totally against the modernization or actualization of the language, which is different.  I am against the omission of words and complete phrases, those that have been added, and those that have been substituted, by something totally strange to the original in these versions (dynamic equivalence).  The English-speaking brethren taught everything related with the textual problems in adulterated Bibles, but in our case it was not the same.  I could not do anything about it, since in the Hispanic world nothing was said about the issue.  On the contrary, what I frequently heard was that “the errors found in the English versions were not found in the Spanish version.”

All this changed when in 1984 I finally made the decision to study and analyze the history of the different Bible translations, especially the Spanish ones.  I learned where the King James Bible came from and where the Valera came from.  Then I learned that the most popular versions of our Bible, the 1909 and the 1960, came from different Greek and Hebrew texts.  Worse still, I learned that the 1960 was “property” of the United Bible Societies and that its main editor, Dr. Eugene A. Nida, did not even believe in the verbal inspiration of the Scriptures.  The more I learned about the issue, the more frustrated I felt, since the Hispanic world was completely confused and in the dark about their Bible.  I never heard a Hispanic fundamental preacher try to defend the Textus Receptus. The United Bible Societies have done much to confuse, fool, and keep the Hispanic people captive to the critical text.  They have definitely monopolized the commerce of Bibles.  As “owners” (copyright), they could demand a 5% to a 10% of the sales of that version of anyone who prints and sells it.  I speak with experience as in one occasion I asked a person who was in charge of the 1960 Reina-Valera in the U.B.S. (Soñia Téllez) how much I had to pay if I wanted to print the 1960, and she told me that I had to give 10% of the sales to the U.B.S. for “fees and copyright.”  This does not occur, for example, with the King James Bible and others.

It is one of the reasons why we must defend a Bible free of “copyright.”  We want to print and distribute a Spanish Bible without having to give one cent to the United Bible Societies.  I learned furthermore that the Catholic Church had part in the production of the 1960 Reina-Valera, influencing many of the committee members to take an ecumenical position (Westcott and Hort), while the 1909 continued to lose popularity due to the hatred by the same “fundamentalists.”

Little by little, I learned that there were not only literary differences (grammar, spelling, etc.) but also differences of a doctrinal nature.  The differences of the Bible text (Greek and Hebrew) clearly affect important doctrines such as, for example, the deity of Christ, salvation by faith, the preservation of the words of God, among others.  Notice that the 1960 denies the importance of the word “doctrine,” according to Matthew 28:19 where this is changed with a less dogmatic phrase like “make disciples.”  However, I must admit that I remained quiet for many years being that the leadership between our Hispanic churches did not clearly deal with the subject.  In a certain way, I forgot about the problem until one day I could continue no more in silence, as I wanted to fulfill my ministry of teaching “all the counsel of God.”

Today, as a missionary pastor, I have made the decision to share these preoccupations with others.  If the English-speaking fundamental world made the decision to defend the King James Bible because of the reasons I will give later on, then we as Hispanic Bible fundamentalists need to do the same with the Valera.  Many years ago I decided to study more in depth the word of God.  After I learned to defend the traditional texts of the Scriptures, I was able to read the Bible with more understanding.  Now, I cannot keep quiet about what I have known for a long time.  I am responsible before God and my brethren to proclaim the truth.  Six years ago, we started “Iglesia Baptista Efata” in Guatemala City in Central America.  Our desire to start this church was to have a church that was really fundamental and Biblical in the real sense of these words.  This included defending the Textus Receptus, and to fervently win souls.  In our church we win souls weekly and we continually baptize new believers.  Not long ago, we had 1,200 people in one service.  Our vision is growing and it is the product of being a church separated from the word and sanctified to God with fundamental Baptist convictions that glorify God’s name.

During my investigation, I never abandoned the deaf who I want to win for Christ.  By the grace of God, I have been working with them since 1977.  We have won hundreds of them in Guatemala and we have been used by God to start many deaf ministries here and in other countries.  The Bible teaches that the most amazing miracle was the salvation and healing of the deaf and dumb man in Mark 7:31-37:  “He hath done all things well: he maketh both the deaf to hear, and the dumb to speak.”  With this new job, my prayer is that God will open the closed ears of many Christians about the issue of the Spanish Bible.  “There is no worse deaf man, then he who does not want to listen.”

God has given us the mission to start more soul-winning, Baptist churches throughout Guatemala.  He has also given us the opportunity to start our own Fundamental Baptist Institute, which is a ministry of our local church.  Our brethren study three years before receiving a diploma in Bible studies, which prepares them to preach, to be missionaries, evangelists, and teachers.  As a teacher, I am happy to be able to teach the Bible and “all the counsel of God,” which includes the history of our Bible, and the evidence of the manuscripts and the Textus Receptus.  As far as I know, we are the only Bible Institute in all of Guatemala that takes a strong position on the Textus Receptus.

Several years ago I began to teach a class in our church about the evidences of the Bible manuscripts and the preservation of the real Bible based on the Textus Receptus.  When I started my personal investigations, the lessons about the corrupt texts of the Reina-Valera Bible surprised many brethren who had never imagined such situations.  For years they had been kept in the dark due to the rising tide of liberal evangelicals who support the critical text and Bibles based on modern scholarship.  Some got mad, but after listening and studying the situation they understood and valued even more the Textus Receptus.  Today our church has understood and accepted this.  The Christians that had been saved through the 1909 knew we were right.  No one who studies the issue with open eyes to the truth can refuse the irrefutable textual problem in the 1960.  Thank God that today our church defends and stands for the Texuts Receptus!  We use the 1909 until we can get the best: the revised and restored “Antigua Valera” (of 1602) according to the Textus Receptus.

As we will soon see, the textual sources of a Bible translation are very important.  The changed, added, and omitted words and phrases matter a lot.  The fact that Hispanic fundamental Christians are doing nothing to analyze the situation with open eyes matters as well.  In many cases we just hear that we should defend the Reina-Valera without a reason why.  It is even more important to note that little or nothing is being said about the corruptions in the modern Bibles and of the organizations that follow the pattern of the critical texts.  There is a great difference between the Textus Receptus and the critical apparatus.  There is a difference between the Bibles that come from both text families.  There is a doctrinal difference between the 1909 and the 1960!

THE PURPOSE OF THIS ANALYSIS

This analysis has two purposes: First, to compare the Valera 1909 with the Reina-Valera 1960, proving the textual superiority, in most cases, of the 1909 over that of the 1960 taking into account all that is relevant.  I cannot, dear reader, offer you all the problems of all the Bible versions in Spanish.  It would be a very long study.  My main purpose is to give you an idea of these problems.  The Bible Societies themselves have said that there have been 177,000 changes between 1602 and 1960.  The brethren that have taken a stand for the 1960 have never been able to explain the different words, phrases, and verses.  They only give us the reasons why we should not “criticize” their Bible. 

Second, to convince the Fundamentalist Bible Believing Christian to adopt the project of the restoration of the Antigua Bible of Cipriano de Valera and its respective revision following the Textus Receptus.  The idea of restoration is not my own, but it is what every faithful translator has done until after 1830, when corrupt editions started being distributed of the Greek New Testament of Karl Lachmann, a German translator who started to support the idea that the Textus Receptus was too old and that it needed to be replaced with a “better” one.  Due to his influence, many began to find a way to change the Bible by attacking its textual foundation.  From here on Fundamentalism is divided in two groups: those that defend the Textus Receptus and those that defend the Alexandrian critical apparatus.  The word “Alexandrain” refers to the old city of Alexandria, Egypt where Origen lived and worked.  Origen was a man who corrupted the Scriptures with paganism and allegorical interpretation.  Old documents appeared that seemed to be the word of God, but they are really nothing more than textual corruptions made by men.  Nothing good comes out of Egypt.  The Alexandrian critical text is that text which would be used in all modern translations.

If the English-speaking fundamentalist has been able to define the Biblical bases about the situation of the King James 1611 over the rest, why cannot we, as Hispanics, do the same with ours, the Antigua Valera?  There are good and great brethren using the 1960.  Why argue with them about this issue?  Why do we appear to be attacking the 1960 Reina-Valera which many use to win souls?  Is our position a blind antagonistic position, which pretends to offend, divide, and cause problems?  Of course not!  No matter what, every servant of God should try to resolve this problem one way or another.  I do not pretend to change anyone.  I pray that God will reveal to you His will.  I will ask the Holy Spirit to guide the brethren who are sensible to this issue.  We have good reasons to alert the Hispanic fundamentalist world about the textual differences of the Spanish Bibles.  Our fear is that we not be consistent with the rest of the brethren who believe in the doctrine of the preservation of the Scriptures.  How terrible it is to defend the King James 1611, but be inconsistent and support the Bibles that have changes, substitutions, and additions based on the critical text!  Dear brethren, the problem is serious and we cannot overlook it.

If we do not have a textually pure Bible, then fundamentalism will fall as a Bible movement.  That is what Satan wants.  The day is not far away when there will no longer be convictions about the textual foundation of the Scriptures.  Why do I say this?  Do they not win souls with the 1960?  I believe that the prevalence of the holy gospel of Christ shows up in the 1960 as in other modern versions.  Therefore, it is possible to win souls with it.  The brethren that win souls with the 1960 say that we who are discussing this issue do not win souls since we “spend all day studying the Bible.”  I think that is a weak and unjust accusation.  Maybe they want to distort our character, integrity, and our ministry since they cannot deal with our argumentation about the textual foundations.  Maybe they feel that way because in the past there have been well meaning, but wrong, brethren who have tried to do translations out of order, whose ministries have failed and who have left other brethren bitterly resented.  The truth is that we who use the 1909 do win souls.  We do not spend “all day studying Greek.”  What has happened is that it is taken for granted that the Spanish Bible is “correct” without anyone, up to now, saying the contrary.  How much better it would be to use the 1909 as it is closer to the Textus Receptus than the 1960!  The 1909 says “Hell” more than the 1960, which uses terms that confuse such as “Hades,” “Gahenna,” and “Sheol.”  Our restoration does not attack, but instead strengthens the fundamentalist position.  The 1909 says “charity” like the KJB, not just “love.”  The 1909 does not omit words and complete phrases like the 1960 (example Genesis 18:19); if the 1960 serves to win souls, the 1909 is much, much better and even better to disciple and strengthen Christians in the fundamental doctrines.  The logic of the superiority of the 1909 over the 1960 is the same logic used by renown American Bible leaders such as Dr. Mickey Carter of Haines City, Florida, U.S.A., among others.

IS IT EASIER TO READ?

If being able to read a Bible with simple language is what it is all about then let us not just use the 1909 or the 1960, but let us also use the “Reina-Valera 1977,” the “Dios Habla Hoy,”
the “Reina-Valera Acualizada,” etc.  A defender of the 1960 has nothing to argue with one who uses, for example “La Biblias de las Américas,” or the “Nueva Versión Internacional” or others that “facilitate” the reading, or replace “archaic” words, or “are based on better texts” etc.  After all, they come from the same Alexandrian critical apparatus of Westcott and Hort.  Some say that they reject the rest but use the 1960.  For me, that is extremely inconsistent.

The Greek text that we support is the Textus Receptus of Theodor Beza, 5^th edition of 1598, edited by Frederick Scribner of the Trinitarian Bible Society in London.  When the Hebrew text is mentioned, the one we defend, recommend, and have used is the one of the Hebrew Christian, Jacob Ben-Chayyim, who in 1534 published a revision of the Masoretic Text of the First Rabbinical Bible of Daniel Bomberg.  There exists another Hebrew text, which is the critical, and it is called the text of Abraham Ben-Asser, which is the official text of the United Bible Societies.  The Reina-Valera 1960 depends on this Hebrew text in the Old Testament.  It is also known as the Stuttgartense, the Nestle-Aland, or the Kittle Bible.  The Hebrew of Ben-Chayyim and Ben-Asser are different in many places.  Now, when someone tells you that their Bible is based on the Stuttgartense Bible, you know what they are referring to.  I hope it serves to help understand the problem of the Spanish Bible versions.

Sometimes I have been accused of studying issues without having been “authorized” to do so, since this is an “experts” job.  For these brethren leaders, the missionaries should not study nor say anything because their pastors and leaders in the U.S.A. (the churches who “support them”) can stop supporting them.  However, I believe that it is the missionary’s duty to give the “nationals” the pure truth with respect to the word of God.  If you only knew how many missionary agencies there are in Guatemala who support adulterated Bibles!  How many times have we been the object of scorn and rejection by other brethren because we love the Antigua Valera!  The pastors in their comfortable chairs in their nice offices have forgotten that the job of a missionary is not limited to winning souls and filling up busses with children and teenages, which we do, but also includes translating and distributing the Scriptures so that he can offer them to the people of the country where he serves the Lord.  When it is not possible to get good New Testaments, it was necessary to print them with a correct version.

MAN OF COURAGE: CIPRIANO DE VALERA, THE REVISER

 

                Today we remember not only the translator of the Spanish Bible, Cassiodor de Reina, but more so the reviser, Cipriano de Valera.  History reveals that Valera found himself with the difficult job of revising what Reina had translated, since his work in 1569, the famous “Bible of the Bear” had corruptions like the use of Origen’s Septuagint (LXX) and the Catholic Latin Vulgate of the Hebrew priest, (Santes pagninus (Biblia Sacra ex santis Pagninis tralatione, sed ad Hebra Hebraíce linguae amussim nisssime ita recogntia,

& scholitis illustrata, ut palne nove editio videri possit. Accesit praeterea liber interpretationum Hebraicorum, Abrabicorum, Graecorumqunominum, quae in sacris literis reperiuntur, ordine alphabetico digestus, eodium authore.  Lyons, Hughes de la Porte/Gaspard   Treshel, 1542).

                The fact that Valera wanted to eliminate the Vulgate and the Septuagint, which have been described by true Fundamentalism as the two “breasts” of the “Great Whore” from which all her “children” drink adulterated milk, proves and demonstrates Valera’s integrity and wisdom.  Today, our critics want to distort our revision just like the Spanish Catholic historian, Marcelino
Méndez Pelayo, did over 100 years ago saying that Valera’s work was whimsical.  Méndez said, “Valera did not have much learning of Hebrew.”  The 20 years he says he spent in preparing his Bible must have been deliberation and Andalusian exaggeration, because his work, in reality, was confined to taking Cassiodora de Reina’s Bible and reprinting it with some corrections and notes that do not take away, nor add much.”  Is not this the same resolution that many fundamentalists have taken today?  Is it not valid that a man like Valera spent 20 years purifying the Spanish Bible?  Of course it is!  I am not saying that Reina was “bad” or “perverse.”  We thank God for his initiative.  It simply means that the job of the reviser is sometimes more important than the translator’s. 

Let us return to the point of the participation of the missionaries.  There have been great missionaries in the past who did translation and revision work.  For example, William Carey, John Elliot, Robert Morrison, Adoniram Judson, Hudson Taylor, Henry Martin, and Paul Besson.  Each one of them based their translation of the Scriptures on the Receptus with the Authorized Version.  They rejected the critical apparatus when they were asked to do Bible translations.  What would have happened in the countries where these men worked if they had not obeyed the call to revise and translate the Scriptures?  Although I do not pretend to insinuate that I am a “Great Missionary” of the caliber of those that I have mentioned, what I am trying to say is that we should definitely be interested in this work which is part of the missionary calling.  There are even entire missionary organizations dedicated to this work, such as:  Bearing Precious Seed,  the Summer Linguistic Institute,  New Tribes Mission,  International Bibles, the Gideons,  and more.  This is how missionaries have done much work in the field of Bible translations and revisions.  How sad it is that great men of God take the attitude of prohibiting or limiting their Missionary’s work of Bible translations and revisions!  In many cases, missionaries have better knowledge of the language than the Hispanic pastors do in the United States.  In many cases, the Missionaries have been able to sound the voice of alarm about adulterated Bibles.

                Our position is that God did not only preserve His word, the Bible, but also His words.  Many good brethren in the faith have knowingly used adulterated Bibles for years.  With them they have won souls.  Those souls are saved, without a doubt, being that the prevalence of the salvation message in Christ Jesus is received even in these.  I can, in fact, win souls with a Catholic Bible.  What is the reason?  It is because the prevalence of the pure gospel, even in this one, has reached the heart of these souls.  But this is not the point, nor the reason of this debate.  It is only important to say so, since many brethren reason that with the 1960 many souls are won, which is correct.  I remind these brethren that just as many souls were won with the 1909 way before the 1960, and in fact, we are winning many souls at this moment with the 1909.

                The issue is that the holy priesthood of Christ (1 Peter 2:5) is responsible before God to have the purest Bible textually possible.  These words are hard for the pastors and missionaries who are not interested in the issue.  It is not my intention to criticize them, but to help them return to the original Fundamentalist Bible position.  My heart pities the many brethren who have closed their eyes to truth.  Have I made myself their enemy by saying the truth?  This is exactly what Paul said in Galatians 4:16.  Even so, Paul spoke firmly.  I too, as your brother in Christ, want to speak firmly.  Let us speak frankly about what has happened in the fundamentalist field!

WESTCOTT AND HORT’S “APPARATUS” OR CRITICAL TEXT

For those who do not know much about Mr. Brook Foss Westcott (1825-1901) and Mr. Anthony Hort (1828-1892), I want to explain that these two Anglican professors of the University of Cambridge, England, apostatized from the genuine Biblical faith when they formulated a theory of how the Bible was transmitted, complied, and preserved for us today.  Their investigation about the Scriptures captivated many theologians and religious leaders in Europe and in the rest of the world when it questioned the basis of the pure traditional doctrine with the publication of their Critical Greek Text in 1881.  Although they were not the first to criticize the Textus Receptus, they undoubtedly revived the idea and were able to change the attitude and the mentality of the Bible Societies so that another (heteros) Greek text would be used in the publication of Bibles from then on.  Westcott and Hort embraced the Oriental theosophy of Madame Helena Blavatzky, and with it, stained their testimony and credibility.  In Isaiah 2:6, we read that God punished Israel for accepting such traditions.  “Therefore thou hast forsaken they people the house of Jacob, because they be replenished from the east, and are soothsayers like the Philistines, and they please themselves in the children of strangers.”

Blavatzky’s theosophy admits mystical revelations that go beyond the Bible, like for example, dreams and the occult.  There are many documents that show the great apostasy of Westcott and Hort from the genuine faith.  Their hatred towards the Textus Receptus was rejected at the same time by John William Burgon (1813-1888), who was also from England and who bravely, and by himself, defended til the day he died the traditional texts and the Textus Receptus.  The reader will find further along a summary of some of the anti-Biblical beliefs of Mr. Westcott and Mr. Hort and how they influenced the modern versions.

I believe we should take a position that brings honor to the name of Christ, so in the name of truth and the Lord Jesus, I want to present to you this comparison of the two most popular Spanish Bible versions, and I want to call the fundamentalist to reflection and to support the restoration and the acceptation of the Antigua Valera version that follows the Textus Receptus and that will soon be ready.  If you really want to know the truth, then I invite you to consider with me about the necessity of defending the Textus Receptus and the Bible that best follows this text.  Before starting, I want to define some words and concepts that relate to this study.

SOME DEFINITIONS

                Inspiration - It is the supernatural miracle in which God gave his words to man as His instrument, so that man would write them in different environments.  The word itself means “God breathed” (theopnustus) and it teaches that the Holy Spirit is the Author of the words.  When we talk about the doctrine of inspiration, we are referring to the receptive languages, these being Hebrew and koiné (common) Greek.  There were approximately 40 men of different professions and with different levels of education, covering a period of 1,600 years and 40 generations to produce the true miracle of unity in the Bible.  In other words, by inspiration we understand two aspects: first, the human part “holy men of God spake…,” and secondly, Divine Authority “moved by the Holy Ghost” (2 Peter 1:21). 

These Holy men were moved by the Holy Ghost in such a way that they recorded the very words of God, and yet they kept their own particular literary style. INSPIRATION IS NOT OF MEN IN ITSELF, BUT THAT OF THE WORDS.  THE MEN WERE HOLY, OR SEPARATED, BUT THEY WERE NOT INSPIRED.  INSPIRATION IS NOT OF MEN IN ITSELF, BUT THAT OF THE WORDS.
THE MEN WERE HOLY, OR SEPERATED, BUT THEY WERE NOT INSPIRED. INSPIRATION IS
OF THE WORDS.  This truth is called “confluence” and it admits the fact that men had a part in the recording, not as the author, yet as a chosen agent by God (moved) to bring us the Scriptures. See Acts 4:25, for example, where the Bible says “Who by the mouth of thy servant David hast said…”  See also Isaiah 8:1; 30:8.  There exists a heresy that admits that God spoke to the minds of these men and then they wrote according to their own style, form and interpretation.  This belief is wrong.  A human agent is unable, useless, and extremely weak to have been able to transmit the words that God gave us.  The Lord used the tongue and the hands of these poor sinner to accomplish the publication of His exact words.  A “pen” or a “tongue” cannot think for itself’ the authority of the sacred Scriptures came from the eternal God.  For the Biblical fundamentalist Christian, there exists only one position with respect to inspiration and it contains the following aspects.

Verbal Inspiration - It means that the words of Scripture are the words of God and they extend beyond just the “concepts,” the “ideas,” or the “feelings.”  I Corinthians 2:13; Matthew 24:35; Jeremiah 1:9; Luke 16:17.  There are many more passages that teach us the importance of the words of God.  Some examples are: Exodus 24:4; Deuteronomy 6:6; 12:28; 17:19; 27:3; 31:12; 32:1, 45, 46; Joshua 8:34, 35; 24:26; 1 Samuel 23:2;  Pslams 12:6; Proverbs 30:6, 7; Jeremiah 7:27, 23:36; 26:2; 30:2; Ezekiel 3:10; Daniel 10:9-11; Matthew 4:4; Luke 4:4; John 8:47; 17:8; 1 Timothy 4:6; 2 Peter 3:2; Jude 17; Revelation 1:3, 22:18, 19.

The liberal and anti-fundamentalist Christians advocate that “only the feeling or the meaning” be interpreted since the words are not important to them.  They are ready to change, subtract, and substitute them with others, even though this means an attack on the fundamentalist doctrines.  The true fundamentalist believes that God used the mouth, or the tongue, of men such as Moses, David, and Peter who were separated to God, although weak and not perfect, so that they would have those words that came from the mind of God.  We believe furthermore that these words have always existed in heaven.  (See Psalms 119:89).  The human agent was the instrument, not the author.  God gave the words through men.  If this is correct, then we should conclude that these words were preserved providentially by the Textus Receptus, and that the Bibles that are based on this text are faithful against those Bibles that are based on the Alexandrian or critical texts.

Plenary Inspiration - It means that the entire Bible, based on the already mentioned traditional texts, is inspired by God, and each part and each word is equally inspired by God, even the genealogies, the dates, the places, the names, etc.  2 Timothy 3:16 says, “All Scripture is given by inspiration of God.”  There are those who teach that the Bible contains the word of God, but it is not the word of God.

Inerrant Inspiration - It means that the Word of God, based on the correct texts and from a correct translation, does not contain errors, or theological deviations, although for some Christians there exist “problems” about the interpretation (exegesis) and archaisms.  These archaisms do not compare to the thousands of omissions in the modern perversions.  The Holy Bible is the exact recording of what God said (or says) even though at times there are words or phrases that are hard to understand or accept.  Let us remember that the human agent was an instrument, not the author, of these words.  The apparent errors or contradictions mentioned by the critics have their explanation, and if not, we accept them without having to “correct” the Holy Spirit in His transmission of His words.  May it be clear that we do not want to correct “the Greek,” but the translation and the revision of the Bible, which in this case would be in Spanish.  Hebrews 6:18b; Titus 1:2c; Numbers 23:19; John 10:35.

Infallible Inspiration - This is different from the last one.  Inerrant inspiration is “without error in the recording,” and infallible inspiration is “without error in its teaching.”  In other words, the Bible, correctly translated from the correct texts, never teaches something immoral or perverse.  This does not happen with the adulterated Bibles where many times the contrary is taught.

Now this is the historical position about inspiration.  Let us go to the next hot point of debate: preservation.  Has God promised to preserve His word?  If the answer is yes, where is it or where can it be found?  Is it in the “originals?”

Preservation

Definition:  It means that God allowed His word to be recorded in many documents, and the sum of all these documents, faithfully and completely compared, were transmitted from generation to generation, from the autographs (the originals) to what we call today “the blessed providential preservation of the Scriptures.”  The real Christians took the documents from place to place when they fled from their enemies.  This is how the Waldenses,  the Albigenses,  the Donatists, and Cathari, and other Christians before the 4^th century, that did not join the Catholic Church, were able to preserve a pure text, with their pure Bibles, not damaged by false texts.  There are several editions or “types” of the Textus Receptus.  Although there are several differnces, the Textus Receptus that we are defending is Beza’a Greek Text, 1598  5^th edition.  Therefore, the “pure seed” is that which was preserved by the traditional texts.  The “word” is pure as long as it conforms to the Textus Receptus.  However, comparing the other revisions, the standard for any revision after 1611, with respect to variants, is the Authorized Version (AV), the 1611 “King James” Bible. 

                “Variants” are synonyms (mean the same, but are spelled differently) that appear in different traditional texts.  About variants, you can use a word that favors a certain position or doctrine.  Such is the case with the word “Hades,” where the word is transliterated from the Greek in the Reina-Valera 1960, but due to the false teachings of the Jehovah Witnesses, it would be better to translate this word as “Hell,” like it is in the 1909 and the Authorized Version.  Then there is the case of the italicized words.  In Acts 7:59, we have followed the Valera 1831 and 1850 which follow the authorized version and not any Greek text.  The fact that the word “God” appears in Italics shows this.  It is included in the actual revision of the Antigua Valera for the strengthening of our faith when we teach that Jesus Christ is God.

                This is not the same as adding.  Nor does it mean that we are forcing the English on the Spanish when in Spanish variants exist based on the formal equivalence, but that there are times when the Hebrew or the Greek is not sufficiently clear or explicit to offer us a good translation, and it is for this reason that we consult the Authorized Version.  Such is the case with the word “clean” where in many places, but not all, was placed in place of the word “pure.”  See Psalms 12:6 and Proverbs 30:5.

                Then this fundamentalist position rejects the idea of creating only in the “original” given the fact that we do not have them with us today.  The great majority of Evangelicals believe in the “originals,” but do not accept that the true Bible should come from the Textus Receptus.  Furthermore, Biblical Fundamentalism rejects the textual critical science that “tries to decipher what God wanted to say here or there.”  Modernists and liberals want us to think that “preservation” refers to the message (conceptual preservation), not the words (verbal preservation).  If God could not preserve His words like He promised, then there is not a true God, since He is not able to give us the same words that He gave in the originals.  It is not sufficient to have “the general meaning” or the “message” or the “essence” of what He said.  We want His words!  Therefore, the fundamental Bible Christian believes that the evidence of this providential preservation adds up, to more than 5,000 manuscripts and other existing documents.  It is the quantity, not the quality of those manuscripts that counts.  The critics base their ideas of preservation on the quality of only a few manuscripts that are so-so, according to their criteria.  However, it is not the same, as we are speaking of a collection of more than 5,000 documents (our position) against 3 or 4 which is the critical position.  God preserved His words for us because many documents (5,210 to be exact) were compared and was arrived at only one document called the “Textus Receptus.”  This document comparison was the process called “collation,” and it was done by men like Erasmus de Rotterdam, Robert Estienne, Theodore Beza, and the brothers Abraham and Bonaventura Elziver from the 15^th, 16^th and 17^th centuries.  The preservation is appreciated in the common denominator that is obtained when comparing all the existing manuscripts and seeing which words match.  Men like the ones already mentioned, using millions of manuscripts, documents, commentaries, old copies, and some earlier faithful translations diligently did this comparison.  The best revisions today are those that follow the traditional texts with the Authorized Version. 

The project of restoring and revision the Antigua Valera follows these rules:

1.  Return to the 1602 Antigua Valera Bible as the main basis.  Reason:  Valera was the first Spanish Bible reviser.  His revision was accepted to the extent of being known as “Valera’s Bible” from 1602 until 1960.  Valera wanted to eliminate the texts and words based on the Vulgate and the Septuagint.

2.  Restore omitted words and phrases in the 1602 that did appear in Spanish Bibles or Testaments prior to 1611.  We looked at Ferrara’s Old Testament (1553), Enzina’s New Testament (1543), portions of Juan Valdez’s New Testament, Juan Pérez Pineda’s Psalms and portions of his New Testament (1556), and Reina’s Bible (1569).  In these translations that dated prior to 1611, we found words and phrases that match with the Authorized Version.

3.  Revise the Antigua Valera Bible with revisions produced prior to 1611 by the Bible Societies of the 19^th century, as well as by other missionaries in Spain and in Latin America.  These revisions, especially the one of 1831 and then 1865 were very popular and were accepted by the evangelical Hispanic-speaking people for years.  It was not necessary to go to the Greek or to the Hebrew, but it was done in places where there were doubts in the earlier revisions or translations.

WHAT ABOUT SCHOLARSHIP?

 

                I must highlight that the modernist, the liberals, and the pseudo-fundamentalist emphasize “scholarship” or the scholastic and learning of expert teachers of the original languages, and that only they can do the job of Bible translation of revision.   However, the Bible talks about the holy preisthood in 1 Peter 2:5.  What happens with the preachers that supposedly have the obligation of not only preaching the word (the words), but also to study, defend, reproduce, and to preserve it?  Why are the Ecumenicals of the Bible Societies the ones to govern the printing and the distribution of the Sacred Scriptures?  They are not the only ones who can read Greek or Hebrew, although I think that is not necessary if you have the Authorized Version.

                The Bible teaches that the priests in Israel were the ones in charge of keeping and collecting the Scriptures in the Old Testament, and that now this job belongs to true local Bible churches.  We see in Deuteronomy 31:9 that God calls us to this job; God tells us why in Leviticus 10:8-11, “that ye may teach the children of Israel all the statutes which the LORD hath spoken unto them by the hand of Moses?”

                Today we, as good students and believers of Christian Bible Fundamentalism, should do our part to preserve it too, and not depend on the “experts” that do not even believe in salvation by grace.  We should show the corruptions when these go against that established in the Textus Receptus, and according to pure doctrine.  To do this we do not need university titles, but only the fear of God in our lives, and love for souls.  We thank God that He “hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise”  (1 Corinthians 1:27).   Thank God for laymen and laywomen that have worked to obtain the pure and infallible word of God!  “Fundamentalist” leaders should be ashamed to look at the work of these good men and women with distrust.  No sir, the scholarship is not of those “learned” in Greek and Hebrew of the Societies, but the lay people with character and talent that God has given them.

PASSAGES THAT TEACH THE DOCTRINE OF PRESERVATION

To reaffirm what was mentioned earlier, let us look at some Bible passages that teach preservation:

Psalms 12:6, 7: "The words of the LORD are pure words: as silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times. Thou shalt keep them, O LORD, thou shalt preserve them from this generation for ever." Psalms 119:89: "For ever, O LORD, thy word is settled in heaven."

We believe that that "word" has always existed, and that it will always exist, because it is settled, in other words, deeply rooted and nobody can remove it. If this is true, then God wants us to have it. The textual critics try to teach that it is lost, since we do not have the originals. They want to give us the "essence" of this Word.  But,

II Timothy 3:15, 16: "And that from a child thou hast known the holy scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness."

 Timothy had the Scriptures. Timothy did not have "the originals" because in his day the original Old Testament (Talmud, etc.) had already disappeared many years before and what they had was a copy or copies of the original.  The copies that Timothy had access to were called "Scriptures" and therefore were "inspired".  So not only the autographs were inspired by God, but also the preservation of these originals in copies throughout the centuries and which are what we today call the "traditional texts".

Proverbs 30:5: "Every word of God is pure."

Notice that God said EVERY WORD. Critical science pretends to subtract from the words of God through a method called "dynamic equivalence." This translation method is very popular among groups that favor the critical apparatus, since they think they are doing people a favor by subtracting words or complete phrases and replacing them with others that "make more sense." A professor from Europe said the following about this: "

For the past 30 years, under the master influence of Nida, Bible translation has been dominated by the tendency towards dynamic equivalence translation, which contrasts with modern and traditional translations, the later being that which inclines more towards formal equivalence. There is no doubt that Nida has brought an enormous renewal to this concept of translating the Scriptures."---- Georges Moudin, Bible Languages Professor, Aix-en- Province, France. Taken from "The Bible Translator", Vol. 30, #3, July 1979, pg. 336.

                What they are doing in reality is taking God from heaven and placing Him at a level below man, instead of raising man to God’s level. Furthermore, if the words are hard to understand then one should obtain a good dictionary that helps understand a word or phrase. We use a better technique called "formal equivalence", which is to find the literal meaning of a word or a precise synonym when a phrase or a word is hard to understand. We give importance to each word according to the Textus Receptus. One example of this is when the Masoretic Text uses the literal name of the servants of the Levites, the Nethinims (Ezra 2:70; 7:7, 24; 8:17, 20, etc.). The modern versions substitute it with phrases like "the servants of the temple." Why do the modern versions deny the proper noun of the Nethinims? The reason is that this word did not seem important to someone and that someone decided to use a dynamic phrase instead of a formal or literal one. If you were Mexican, how would you like for everyone to refer to your people as "those who live south of the border of the United States of America?" The Reina Valera 1960 substitutes many proper nouns with other words. It substitutes words that do not appear in the Hebrew with words that appear in the Septuagint (Greek) version, which is Origen’s, an esoteric of the last century before Christ and father of allegorical interpretation in the Scriptures. Other examples are: "son of Manasseh" for "son of Moses" (Judges 18:30); "campina" for "Araba" (Deuteronomy 11:30); "daughter of Zibeon" for "son of Zibeon" (Genesis 36:2, 14); "Bedan" for "Bedac" (I Samuel 12:11); "mammon" for "riches" (Matthew 6:24); "Zephi" for "Zepho" (I Chronicles 1:36); "Alian" for "Alvan" (II Chronicles 2:51); "Noph" for "Menfis" (Jeremiah 46:14, 19); "Gibeah" for "the hill" (II Samuel 6:3, 4).

Matthew 4:4: "But he answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God." The Bible is teaching here the importance of the words of God, not only "the meaning", "the thoughts", or "the essence of the message". Each word serves for the support of our spirit. Each word is vital to us. When these words are adulterated, changed, or substituted for others, the food God purposed through the Textus Receptus is lost.

Mark 8:38: "Whosoever therefore shall be ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation; of him also shall the Son of man be ashamed, when he cometh in the glory of his Father with the holy angels." Look at how much emphasis God puts on His words! Those who defend and use the critical text based on Westcott-Hort subtract words from the word. God will not think well of those who scorn the Textus Receptus which preserves God’s words as He wanted them.

The following verses also teach the importance of the words of the word:

Psalms 33:11; 78:1-7; 100:5c; 111:7, 8; 117:2; 146:6; Proverbs 22:20, 21; Isaiah 40:8b; 59:21; Matthew 24:35; Luke 16:17; 21:33; John 10:35b; 12:47, 48; I Peter 1:23-25.

The doctrine of preservation is a logical doctrine. Why would God give us a Bible, taking meticulous care of transmitting the exact words through the koiné Greek, the Hebrew, and some Aramaic, and then allow it to be distorted throughout time? Surely a God who gave the Bible through verbal inspiration could also preserve it in copies for future generations. This preservation is not limited to the meaning or the message but, as we have seen, it extends to the very words. Once again let us look at this verse:

"Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth

out of the mouth of God."                                                  Matthew 4:4

Christ said this verse to the Devil. We also say it to the lying devils of the high textual critic that want to subtract importance to the words of God!

I conclude these paragraphs by repeating, have faith to believe that God gave us the word (His words), and He has preserved them through the correct Greek, Hebrew and Aramaic texts. The translations that base their Bibles on these texts can totally confide that they have the pure and perfect word of God. The critical text represents 1% of all the existing texts and manuscripts and they are from doubtful places and by doubtful people, like Westcott-Hort, Aleph, "B", etc.

The conservative fundamental believing Hispanic Bible Christian should support the project of the Antigua Bible of Valera, which is recently revised following the Textus Receptus and the Masoretic Text.

 A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE MEN BEHIND THE 1909 AND THE 1960 REVISIONS

The following list is not complete, but it gives us an idea of the men behind the 1909. No one knows the exact total of those who participated in the 1909 revision, but we do know that the men that appear here had some participation in it. The majority of these men belonged to mainly conservative groups. However, there was some liberal and modernist element that rejected the Textus Receptus, which can be detected in several passages in this version. By simple comparison, we can say that the 1909 is closer to the TR than the 1960. The 1909 retains some of the Vulgate, with influences from Lachmann, Tishendorf, Tregelles, Alford, and Wordsworth who were translators and revisers with corrupt tendencies in past centuries; some of the LXX was also maintained in the 1909. Even so, it is better than the 1960. The history of Spain says that the restriction towards the Bible was severe. It became illegal to print and to distribute the Scriptures on Spanish soil. The version that had more coverage throughout Spain and Latin America was the one of the priest Felipe Scio de San Miguel, since it was Catholic. Even so, Scio’s version was hard to obtain since the restriction was general in character. Then the most popular Bible was Valera’s amongst evangelical Christians. Today they are hard to obtain due to the past religious intolerance.

The following participated in the 1909 revision:

Bishop Juan Bautista Cabrera (1837-1916)

He was bishop of the Episcopal Spanish Reformed Church (Anglican type) and director of the Evangelical Spanish Alliance for many years. In 1905 he, along with Cipriano Tornos, produced a revision of the Old Testament following the Masoretic Hebrew, and the 1886 "Revised English Version," which was based on inferior texts. Cabrera was one of the composers and translators of Spanish hymnology, having written famous hymns like "Nunca Dios Mío", "A Jesucristo Ven Sin Tardar", and "Padre, Tu Palabra Es", and having adapted hymns like "A Mighty Fortress is Our God,” “Holy, Holy, Holy”, and "The Risen Lord" to Spanish. His son, Fernando Cabrera LaTorre, worked on the "Biblia Hispanoamericano" committee.

Pastor Cipriano Tornos

He was from Spain and an ex-priest of the “Calasanziana” order. He fought for the unification of the evangelical churches (Evangelical Spanish Alliance) in Spain and Latin America. He was the pastor of the Evangelical Spanish Church of Madrid. Along with Cabrera, he worked on the Old Testament, which unfortuneately followed the Westcott and Hort’s critical apparatus. (Erwin Nestle produced his critical apparatus in 1877 and won the approval of many translators until around 1885).

Franklyn G. Smith

He was a missionary to Spain. He was probably a member of the "Spanish Evangelization Society," which was an interdenominational evangelical organization of Scotland. He was the director of the Bible Societies at that moment. He did translations in other languages like Catalan. Erwin Nestle, a German critic, influenced him, to do Bible revisions based on the critical apparatus.

William Douglas

He was a missionary to Spain and part of the Spanish Evangelical Church. He was the first director of the British and Foreign Bible Society in Spain.

Enrique Payne Sr.

He was a Plymouth Brethren missionary to Spain. He along with his son were Bible salesmen who came from the "Bible House of Los Angeles," a ministry that entered Spain in 1906, although he and others had already been working in Spain for several years. He worked there with Rudolph Smith, an American brother, and founder of this institution.

Juan Jameson (1842-1894)

He was a representative of the Scotland Bible Society who along with William Knapp, a Baptist, and William Moore, a Presbyterian, organized a Presbyterian Church in Spain in 1870. Jameson believed that infant baptism was necessary for salvation. He also directed the British and Foreign Bible Society in Spain for 20 years.

Enrique Lund (1850-1935)

He was another Scottish missionary who we know defended the Textus Receptus in his magazine called "Homilética." It was important to Lund to interpret the Bible correctly.  Much of what he wrote had to do with hermeneutics.  He also worked in the Philippines.

Other contributors and translators

Adolfo Araujo (1^st agent of the BFBS in Spain), Victoriano Báez, Henry Thomson, John Howland, and Charles Drees.

Several editions of Valera that were based on the traditional texts circulated in Latin America and Spain. I myself own several copies. I have a New Testament, which was printed in New York, which was based on the Textus Receptus (and it is almost identical to the one we have restored). According to an English publication entitled "An American Bible," edited by Paul C. Gunjar of Stanford University in Stanford, California, all of the Bible Societies of the past century, including the American Bible Society, the Scottish Bible Society, and the Spanish Bible Society, printed Bibles that were revised, corrected, and even translated according to the Textus Receptus, since textual critical science did not as yet predominatly rule in the already mentioned institutions. It was at the beginning of the 20th century that they began to use Alexandrian (critical) texts in the following publications of the Spanish Bible. If you study editions of the Valera Bible that circulated at the end of the 19th century and at the beginning of the 20th century, you will notice these differences. It is sad that some of the committee members of the 1909 worked on the "Biblia Hispanoamericana" (1916), which was based on the critical text of Wescott and Hort and Nestle. I would like to say, therefore, that even the 1909 had good public acceptance, since the majority of its verses were from the Textus Receptus, with only a low percentage, but not yet determined, from the critical text. The men behind this revision were mainly people who were considered "Fundamentalist" or of conservative theology. Sadly, not long after 1909, the Bible Societies started to try to please those with more liberal tendencies by editing and publishing Valera editions that were based on the critical apparatus instead of the Textus Receptus. Even so, the 1909 was the prefered version, for more than 50 years, amongst Hispanics more so than the "Versión Moderna" or the "Hispanoamericana". As we will soon see, this position ended with the 1960 edition. Why was it decided to revise the Valera Bible again? Before the 1909 there were many, among others there was the 1831, the 1850, the 1862, and the 1865 which was even closer to the Textus Receptus. According to Dr. José Flores, in his book, "Historia de la Biblia en España", on page 232, he says, "In 1890, Mr Jameson writes to London for the need of revising the Spanish Valera Bible and that, due to the necessity, the revision has already been started". What revision was Mr. Jameson talking about? Why did he think that the Valera 1865 needed revising? Without doubt it was because the 1865 had lost prestige amongst Spanish-speaking evangelicals, and because at the beginning of the 20th century textual critical science was beginning to influence the Scriptures in the hands of the Bible Societies. Mr. Jameson, as an "expert", responded to the demands of the Spanish and the Hispanic by organizing the revising committee of the 1909.

The factor of the Hispano-American War

Secular Spanish history during that time tells of the persecution of the true Christians. The Bible they used and by which they preached was the "Antigua de Valera." Spain and North America were faced in a war in which Spain was defeated. In Spain, feelings fell in such a way that it was hard for the evangelical churches of that time to do something to resist that defeated spirit at national level. A country without religious freedom and liberty to worship is a country that is submerged in sadness, moral apathy, and ignorance. I think that the enemy took advantage even more of this situation of political and spiritual chaos to introduce critical science, which came from England, France and Germany. The situation at that time did not allow free movement of evangelical preachers due to the religious intolerance that had always existed in Spain. On one side, the Catholic Church blamed the current government; on the other side, the government blamed the Catholic Church. The solution seemed to be that both sides should blame the evangelical churches for all the political and spiritual problems. Therefore, the solution was to suppress even more the work of the evangelicals. Under the regime of Supreme Commander Francisco Franco, who in August 1953 signed a concordat with the Vatican, there was more persecution of the Christians who did not profess Roman Catholicism. In fact a few years earlier, almost at the beginning of his government, Franco prohibited the distribution of the 1909 to the extent of suffering the loss of more than 10,000 Bibles in 1940 during a raid in Madrid. The 1909 Bible was considered very "subversive" and "anti-Catholic" to the government and to the Catholic Church. This was why since 1900 until 1950, or even more recently, there has been little religious freedom, to the extent of almost trampling the evangelical movement in Spain.

With the passing of time the evangelical leaders with liberal and ecumenical tendencies seemed to have designed a plan to end this intolerance. Although the Spanish Evangelicals did not like the idea at first (in fact there was much opposition), they ended up embracing it as the best solution to the terrible Spanish persecution against them. What solution am I talking about? What way would they try to calm the hatred against them? Let us read the words of the same Mr. José Flores, who lived and experienced this so called solution: "The ecumenical groups, such as Taizé’s, with Father Robert Giscard, who appears on Spanish Television, give money to the catholic editor Herder to print one million ecumenical Testaments.  Simultaneously, some priests buy the Reina-Valera version (that of 1960, just released to the market by the Spanish Bible Society: my own note), confessing that it is better and that they use it with the children in catechism, in the new environment of catholic opening." All this agrees with the new policy assumed by the Spanish Bible Society, the Alliance of Spanish Evangelical Churches, and the evangelical movement in general, as a strategy to unify criteria and to return to the catholic (universal) fold of being "all brethren" and "only one church".

The Societies in Spain looked at New York and London for quick action. Nida says, in the preface of his book entitled "Entendiendo la América Latina", that there were three important factors that motivated him to produce a Bible that was adapted to all: 1) the ecumenical movement impelled by the Catholic Church. 2) The great social interest by the Catholic Church, and 3) the Biblical renewal, the which has stimulated more interest for the Bible message and the proclamation of the Good News in the Catholic churches.

What better idea to unify the Catholic with the Evangelical but to first unify their Bibles? It seems that Nida and his people had already begun to look for help from the Universidad Pontifica of Rome and its Greek department during the decade of the 50s with the purpose of getting its cooperation in producing Bibles that had something in common.

Flores continues narrating what happened in Spain (page 302): "In the month of May of 1965, the visit of Dr. Eugene Nida of the American Bible Society to the Bible office in Madrid, accompanied by the cappuccino fathers Serafin Ausejo and Fuenterrabia, the contacts in Zurbano 8, with the Taizé’s brother, and later with the scripturists Angel González, Juan Prado, redemptionist (Holy Redemptor Congregation), Evaristo Martín Nieto and Manuel Herrainz, showed that the Protestant Bible Societies had given a noticeable turn towards ecumenism, and that the silent battles between catholic editors and their distrust of their mutual competition in the field of erudition, hid the underlying truth of a commercial competition." What was Nida doing with these Catholic "brethren"? Why was he accompanying them?

We have reasons to believe that everything started in a meeting that took place in Río de Janeiro, Brazil in 1946, when the American Bible Society with the British and Foreign Bible Society joined to annul, to invalidate, and to eventually eliminate the 1909, and the Antigua Almeida since these were really holding on to the Textus Receptus, and if what was pretended was to reach all for Christ, then one would definitely have to start by knocking down prejudices between Catholics and Protestants, and enter a new loving and ecumenical relationship. Only by giving "checkmate" to the 1909 could they obtain this objective. I do not believe the defenders of the new 1960 revision that insist that this revision was only done to better the grammatical quality and to make it easier to read. This is what is reported officially, although we know by the facts that the reality is another.

When the distinguished editor of C.L.I.E., Dr. Eliseo Vila, visited us in Guatemala in 1996 I had the opportunity to talk with him in relation to our position about the Textus Receptus. What a surprise to hear from Dr. Vila that during the 50s, his father, the great Baptist leader in Spain Dr. Samuel Vila, had effectively firmly disagreed with Araujo and others so that the "solution" should occur, since the new revision (the 1960) looked for the eventual unification of Catholics as well as Protestants and Evangelicals by introducing, in this new revision, the critical apparatus of the "United" Bible Societies. For this great Spanish Baptist leader, the promulgation of this revision ended by ruining the fundamental evangelicals. The 1960 Reina-Valera is a mixture of the Textus Receptus with the critical text which is based on the work of the German fascist Eberhard Nestle and his colleague Kurt Aland. I quote from page 232 of the booklet entitled "El Texto Del Nuevo Testamento": "

A principal that was added to the first list of the Revision Committee of the Reina-Valera was that: Whenever the Reina-Valera version has departed from the Textus Receptus to follow a better text, we will not return to the Receptus. Point 12 of the Working Principles says: In the case of doubts about the correct translation of the original, we will preferably consult the 1885 English Revised Version, the 1901 American Standard Version, the 1946 Revised Standard Version, and the International Critical Commentary." - - By Dr. José Flores of the Reviser committee of the 1960 Reina-Valera.

After the appearance of the 1960 RV we see that other scholars joined the team like Bruce Metzger, a nonbeliever, Mateo Black, another nonbeliever, Alan Wikren, another apostate of the University of Chicago who was very liberal and a modernistic, and finally the Catholic Cardinal Carlo María Martini of Milan, head of the Bible Sciences Department of the Universidad Pontifica of Rome, who based their fatal work on the 1881 Greek of Wescott and Hort. There is no need to doubt, dear reader, that the 1960 revision was what propelled the wave of subsequent corrupt Bible revisions of the 60s, the 70s and up to the present, the which have gone out to the ignorant and unlearned evangelical public. Let us look at the list of some of the men that were on the Revision Committee of the 1960 Reina-Valera. (There was possibly more participation of laymen and clergy, but this list presents us with the main characters that were most related with the revision.)

THE FOLLOWING PARTICIPATED IN THE 1960 REINA-VALERA REVISION:

The Bible Societies in the Unites States and England really formed three groups: the Editorial Committee, the Advisory Committee, and the Counseling Committee. Here is a partial list of men who were part of these.

Dr. Eugene A. Nida (1914)

                As we have already mentioned, he is a liberal and was the general editor. He was the promoter of the United Bible Societies’ critical text and the promoter of dynamic equivalence when translating words. He is ecumenical and an attacker of the concept of the Textus Receptus. He has been able to harm the perspective of doing Bible translations based on the Textus Receptus. In one of the translations he did for an ethnic group in the Polynesian Islands, Nida translated John 1:29 as: “  . . . Behold the Pig of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.” He who accuses us of trying to restore the 1602, or at least defend the 1909 should be careful of defending him who calls Christ “a pig”. In another translation of an African tribe, the word that was substituted for “lamb” was bull. “Christ is the bull of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.” - - Taken from Evangelical Missions Quarterly, July 1998, Vol. 34, #3, page 316. “ . . . Who do men (like Nida) say is the Son of man? . . .” (Matthew 16:13). He is retired in Switzerland.

Dr. John H. Twentyman

                He is English and representative  of the British and Foreign Bible Society in Peru (SBBE). He is like Nida. He offered help in questions of exegesis and linguistical nature matters.

Dr. Honorio Espinosa

                He is Chilean and a great leader of the Southern Baptist Convention. He was a lawyer that graduated from the University of Chile. When he got saved he soon became the pastor of the Primera Iglesia Bautista in Santiago. He continued working as a lawyer. He prepared to be a pastor at the Baptist Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky, USA. He was theologically liberal (he studied under the professor A.T. Robertson, who was a follower of Westcott and Hort). Then he taught in the Baptist Seminary in Chile until his death in 1959. He encouraged the unification of the Baptists, impelling cooperation amongst them (Cooperativist Movement). He died in 1959.

Dr. Alfonso Rodríguez Hidalgo (1960)

He was from Cuba, director of the Evangelical Theology Seminary, an inter-confessional organization, in Matanzas. He was representative for the Presbyterian Church. With a high intellect, Dr. Rodriguez studied in Princeton Theological Seminary, U.S.A., which is the world crib of theological liberalism since it is the promoter of Benjamin Warfield’s ideas and of Westcott and Hort’s critical text. Dr. Bruce Metzger and Dr. James I. McCord, contemporaries of Rodríguez, also came out of the same organization. Metzger was the editor of the Greek New Testament of the United Bible Societies while McCord was the president of the already mentioned theological seminary. Metzger declared, “The forces that in the 16^th century caused us to separated are causing us to join in the 20^th century”. In one occasion, Dr. Rodríguez was the vice-president of the United Bible Societies. In fact, he was a top figure in the ecumenical movement represented by the World Council of Churches as a member of the Faith and Order Commission (very liberal and anti-fundamentalist).

Alfonso Lloredo

                Venezuelan. He wrote an article published by the A.B.S. attacking the position of the Textus Receptus and teaching that the critical text is better (TBT, Vol 1, #14, 1964, New York, USA).

Francisco Estrello

                Mexican. We do not know much about him except that he died before the 1960 was published and that he was an internationally known evangelical poet. He was probably used to make the 1960 a Bible with softer prose, since the 1960 has many transliteralisms that do not offend as the general public cannot really understand them, for example: "Hades" instead of "hell".

Adolfo Araujo

                Spanish. He also contributed with ideas and suggestions. He was from the Methodist Church and also worked on the 1909. He was the determining agent that convinced the Spaniards to accept the "solution" of allowing others in Latin America to produce a revision after the 1909. He died before the 1960 was published.

Carlos Percy Denyer (1898-1967)

                English but lived in Central America since the age of 14. He was co-founder of the Evangelical Alliance of his adoptive country. He worked with the Editorial Caribe and with the Latin American Mission in Costa Rica, which is a neo-evangelical and ecumenical organization. He was the coordinating secretary and the chronicler for the 1960 committee. Eugene Nida said the following about him, "It is because of Carlos, more than anyone else, that we have the text that has the least amount of errors and that is the best linguistically adapted that the Bible Society has published in years." He also prepared the concordance of the 1960.

José Flores (1914-1988)

                Spanish Bible Society. Although Dr. Flores was upset because this revision was done outside Spain and by ecumenical entities, he eventually had to compromise and he joined the committee.

Gonzalo Báez Camargo

                Mexican Methodist Church. He had very liberal and ecumenical tendencies with regard to Bible translations. He worked with the United Bible Societies as a contributing author writing many articles related with the textual critical which he defended. He participated as a member of the Mexican Language Academy, becoming an important literary critic in his country. He was also known by the nickname "Pedro Gringoire". It seems that his book "Hacia Una Renovación Religiosa en Hispano América" (Mexico: Casa Unida de Publicaciones, 1930) tried to knock down the doctrinal walls that prevent a closer relationship between Catholics and Protestants.

William H. Walker

                He was a representative for the Central American Mission, which is very liberal, and a teacher of Miami Bible Institute (USA). He took care to add C.I. Scofield's notes to the 1960 so everyone would accept it, and according to the minutes of the 1960 committee meetings, it was the deciding factor why the 1960 was not rejected. In my opinion this was a devious tactic to introduce a new type of "Bible" on the Hispanic market since many evangelicals adore Dr. Scofield's notes even when these are not "inspired" as they think. Many of the editors of the Reina-Valera/Scofield comentaries are from Dallas Theological Seminary in Dallas, Texas, which is an extremely liberal institution. Dr. Emilio Antonio Nuñez from the Central American Theological Seminary was who translated Scofield's notes to Spanish. Furthermore, the 1967 Scofield Bible edition introduced changes in the text itself and in the notes referring to the critical text. It is curious to note that the 1909 English Scofield Bible was true to the KJB.

Israel Morales

                From Guatemala. From the Central Presbyterian Church and a teacher of the Presbyterian Seminary in that country. He held moderate theological tendencies. He is retired and lives in Chicago, Illinois.

Juan Crisóstomo Varetto (1879-1953)

            Argentinian. A Baptist leader of the Evangelical Baptist Committtee of Argentina. When he gave ideas and suggestions he was already quite old. He died before the 1960 was published.

Bishop Juan E. Gattinoni (1878-1970)

            Argentinian. He was the first Methodist Bishop in that country and a teacher of the Evangelical Theological  Faculty of Buenos Aires (liberal). Just like Varetto, he was quite old when he worked on the 1960 revision.

                Another 50 or more men, including ministers and layworkers who worked on the revision but of whom we do not have more information, include: Professor Juan Díaz from Mexico, Professor Enrique Parra Sánchez from Colombia, and J. Decoud L. from either Paraguay or Uruguay. Elías Araujo, Jorge Fliedner, Manuel Gutierrez, and Ernesto Trenchard also worked for the group from Spain. Guillermo Wonderly, from America, also worked with them.

            The final decision about changes was in the hands of the editorial committee in New York. The publication cost was shared with London.

                Only a simple reading is needed of the minutes of the sessions where these men, representing the different theological tendencies, participated to realize the deception and the manipulation of the Word of God. The 1960 Reina-Valera was not only a grammatical revision, but also textual following the critical tendencies. Instead of producing a revision that was closer to the original 1602, they produced a revision that is more like the Catholic Bible. Those who defend the 1960 Reina-Valera must realize that Valera never followed the critical text, because it did not exist then. Therefore, the "1960 Reina-Valera" is a totally different product from the 1602 Valera Bible. It was said that "the public in general did not realize that this publication (the 1960) was in some way revised. This is precisely what the committee wanted." -Eugene Nida, "The Bible Translator, Vol. 12, No. 3 July, 1961, page 117. Although several of them were great leaders in their respective congregations and religious denominations, I believe they had liberal tendencies, because being associated with Eugene Nida is enough to know that here there was plenty faith compromise to allow the ecumenical and interconfessional tolerance that dominated the sessions. A true fundamental Bible Christian has nothing to do with ecumenism, especially the type related with Catholics.

                I repeat: The worst about the 1960 Reina-Valera revision was that it was based on Nestle-Aland's critical text UBS #1, or UBS #2 (1956 and 1957 respectively). I repeat again what José Flores said in his booklet, "El Texto del Nuevo Testamento", page 232, edited by C.L.I.E. in 1977, that the committee depended on the 1885 English Revised Version, the 1901 American Standard Version, the 1946 Revised Standard Version, and the International Critical Commentary. Furthermore, they scorned the Textus Receptus whenever possible and they substituted it with changes, additions, and variants of the critical apparatus. This text was edited by Eberhard Nestle, a sympathizer of the Nazi movement in Germany; by Kurt Aland, another German with liberal tendencies; by Matthew Black, an unbeliever of St. Andrew Church in Scotland; by Bruce Metzger, a liberal professor of Princeton University and editor of the "Reader's Digest Bible"; and by Alan Wikren, a theological modernist of Chicago University. Not long after 1960, Catholic Cardinal Carlos María Martini, from Milan, Italy, joined the group. Martini produced the UBS #3, which is the base text for all revisions following the 1960-RV, although we know by the list of contributors and editors of the prior participation, although moderate, with the elaboration of a critical text before the publication of the 1960. It is this man who will probably become the next pope, according to ecclesiastical experts of the Vatican (see "U.S. News & World Report", May 11, 1998, page 55). With a list of liberals, modernists, unbelievers, and Roman Catholics, what can we expect from this revision? Then, it should not surprise us that the 1960 has serious doctrinal errors that we should point out and avoid. We were much better off with the 1909, that although it has some problems, they are not as serious as those of the 1960. In the 1960 Reina-Valera "Harper-Caribe" Study Bible's introduction, the following sources are shown for the revision: The Septuagint, the Latin Vulgate, the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Samaritan Pentateuch, Zumaco, Teodocio, and more variants like the Alexandrian Text, Tishendorf, and others. These textual sources contain variants that are not accepted by the believers of the traditional texts. They are not trustworthy. On the same page, it shows as reference sources the following corrupt Bibles: Biblia de Jerusalén, Biblia al Día, and the Versión Moderna.  It's editor, Dr. J. Mervin Breneman, reveals where the 1960 Reina-Valera came from by saying: "to accomplish that the Biblical text be as exact as possible we must go ahead in the critical text." This horrible admission should be reason enough to abandon the 1960 and pay the price of having to teach our people that they have been seriously decieved!

In summary:

Wescott & Hort's Greek,

+ Nestle/Aland's Critical Text,

+ Ecumenical pluralism and multi-sectional sources

= "1960 Reina-Valera Bible"

                Something else we should not overlook is that for a long time the American Bible Society wanted to gain control of the Valera Bible. Eugene Nida had been able to convince his superiors in New York that if the "Bible" was going to be accepted in all the Hispanic world, then it was necessary to do a revision based on the best texts (the critical) and that it would be best to print it in America since they could not in Spain because of the religious intolerance imposed by Franco's government and the intolerance imposed by the Catholic church. For Nida, the 1909 Antigua Version was very difficult to understand and very "Spanish" for the Latin Americans. In his book, "Bible Translating" A.B.S., 1947, he says on page 81: "To increase the difficulty, the translation tends to be in a way that the official language differs from the language used by modern speakers. Consider, for example, the way the Valera Version (the 1909, own note), that in many ways it is even farther removed from the Latin American colloquial Spanish then the King James is from the English used in general today." Nida was clever to make the people think that since the language was old-fashioned, then a new revision was needed. What Nida never said was that the Greek and Hebrew texts would be changed. No wonder some Spanish leaders opposed it so strongly! Not only was it a sin to think that the Antigua Version would be scorned because the Spanish was "old-fashioned", but even worse was to base it on Nestle-Aland's (Westcott-Hort) critical text, and to do it outside of Spain! How horrible! How embarrassing! This is how the Spaniards felt, but there was nothing they could do.

                Rev. Domingo Fernández, now in heaven, exposed his argument against the false theory of Westcott and Hort by condemning the critical text and the Hispanic Bibles that come from it in his book "Conspiración Contra la Versión Reina-Valera", Editorial Resurrección, 1987. His main point was to show the error of defending the critical apparatus.

PROBLEMS WITH THE REINA-VALERA

                It is my opinion that the 1909-RV is textually superior to the 1960-RV. I want to emphasize this point since many argue that the 1960 is better than the 1909, but only where certain words have been modernized. Here I must say that they have a valid point, since languages change over time. For example, the word "salud" (health) in many passages in the 1909 refers to spiritual salvation (e.g. Acts 4:12). This is one of the strongest critiques against the 1909, that the words are "archaic", or very old, and that the common people "do not understand them". "If they do not understand them", they continue arguing, "then the Bible is irrelevant." They are right in a way. This argument is the basis for the supposed revisions. This is not all wrong or incorrect. If there are words that have lost their meaning over the years, a revision is necessary, not textually but simply grammatically or changing one word with another that means the same (what we call synonyms). The first English Bible translator was a man named John Wycliffe. A few years after publishing his translation, Wycliffe said that it was important to continue revising the Bible for future generations. It is why the need to translate the Bible is a necessary "wrong". I say "wrong" because nobody likes for someone to change his or her Bible. The Spanish Bible revisions, for example, stayed in line with Casiodoro de Reina's Original (1569) and Valera's (1602) until the middle of the 19^th century when the text began to be seriously changed and adulterated in general because a new revision method was adopted, which is what we have been mentioning here. The 1831 or the 1865 Valera revisions were good revisions because they followed the fundamentalist tendency to follow the Textus Receptus and the Authorized Version as well. After these is when problems started with the Greek and Hebrew text.

THE ROYAL PRIESTHOOD IN HISPANIC AMERICA

There are great leaders in the Anglo-Saxon world, like pastors, missionaries, evangelists, teachers, professors, and lay men who have written a number of books, reports, tracts, letters, and have produced cassettes, videos, and even CDs that defend the position stated here. We only lack that the Hispanic World should come out of the dark with respect to this and should drop all obligations and deception when they defend the modern corruption, because to continue like this is to end up destroying the traditional Bible fundamentalism.

                I want to mention now that there are a group of brethren who have alerted us with respect to the lack of interest in the Hispanic world concerning this problem. It is an honor for me to work close with Grace Bible Baptist Church in Santa Catarina, Nuevo León, Mexico, pastored by my friend, Pastor Raúl Reyes Huerta. The brethren in his church have been used by the Lord in the project of the restoration of the Antigua Valera Bible. Their work has been difficult but full of satisfaction and blessings. Even so, they have suffered scorn and repudiation by other groups that have misinterpreted and have judged them wrongly. This hasn't stopped them in the least. Instead it has motivated us to join them and to offer them our support. The Grace Bible Baptist Church is a church that shows concern to literally preach the Gospel of Christ throughout the world. Each month they send offerings to different parts of the world where there are missionaries preaching the word with the Antigua Version. These brethren faithfully go soul winning house to house and door to door. They also have a radio program where many souls have come to know Christ as their Savior. Brother Reyes is a lover of Biblical separation and sanctification and he lives to please Him who called him into the ministry. In his church there are also many brethren who work as royal priests as teachers in the Bible ministry.

                In 1999 the first edition of the 1602 Cipriano de Valera New Testament came out in circulation in Mexico, Central America, and the United States. As it is the first publication, published under very limited situations in Guatemala, we recognize that this first publication is not entirely satisfactory. Some critics have taken it to condemn us and to tell us what a bad job we have done. The truth is that this was done for the brethren who want this Bible and not for those who want to criticize. By all means, the necessary corrections will be included in the second edition. We are also working on the Old Testament, which will soon be ready. To God be the glory! Any Hispanic Pastor who wants to know more about the issue would do well to contact Pastor Reyes at 528-316-4210. Dial 011 if calling from the United States.

CHANGES

                Now, we talk about changing the words. The 1960 did not only change words, and we have already mentioned that this is okay, to a certain point, to make the Bible reading and comprehension easier. The problem with the 1960 is that it implemented for the first time critical textual science in the Spanish Bible by partially using another Greek text than the one they have always used, the Textus Receptus. They adopted the "dynamic equivalence" philosophy as rule to translate terms and words that were not common to other Hispanic groups. The word "unicorn" (Numbers 23:22) in the 1909 was changed to "buffalo". The "Nethinims" (Ezra 2:58) were changed to the "temple servants"; "vessel" (I Thessalonians 4:4) was changed to "wife"; "conversation" (I Peter 1:18, Philippians 1:27) was changed to "way of life / living". This caused much alarm amongst Pastors and Bible students who had preached with the 1909 for years. There is no longer "charity" in the 1960; like as if that word is hard to understand. "Charity" is a direct synonym of "agape love" or God's love. It is God's love manifested. By putting only "love" in the 1960 instead of "charity" as in over 100 verses in the 1909, the doctrine of agape love is done a great injustice. It is sad that today a totally different thing is understood when we talk about charity. The Roman Catholics have robbed us of this beautiful word.

IT DOES AFFECT DOCTRINE!

            The changes mentioned here do affect doctrine because it is doctrinal to prefer the critical text over the Textus Receptus. The choosing of a text, be it critical or the Receptus, determines its theology. Some of the affected cardinal doctrines are: the judgement of God, salvation by grace, creation, assurance of salvation, the deity of Christ, the blood, imputed righteousness, and prophecy. Let us look at several examples in the following list where we first quote what the 1909 Valera says and then what the 1960 Reina-Valera says.

                There is a difference between "believe" and "keep". The true Bible says we are saved "believing" the perfect work of Christ. Keeping His words is trying to be saved by works.

John 12:47 - Salvation, by believing or keeping?

1909 - "And if any man hear my words, and believe not . . ."

1960 - "He that hears my words, and keepeth them not . . ."

Isaiah 9:3 - Where the judgement of God is attacked by omitting a "not".

1909 - "Thou hast multiplied the nation, and not increased the joy . . ."

1960 - "Thou hast multiplied the nation, and increased the joy . . ."

Even worse, in Isaiah 64:5, there is a positive statement concerning salvation whereas in the 1960 there is a question.

1909 - "Thou meetest him that rejoiceth and worketh righteousness, those that remember thee in thy ways: behold, thou art wroth; for we have sinned: in those is continuance, and we shall be saved." (positive statement and assurance of salvation)

1960 - "Thou meetest him that rejoiceth and worketh righteousness, those that remember thee in they ways: behold, thou are wroth; for we have sinned: in those is continuance, shall we be saved? (puts in doubt the assurance of salvation)

Hemmoroids or tumors?

An "emrod" (I Samuel 5:6 - 1909), which causes pain in a certain place, is not the same as "tumors" (1960), which can appear in any part of the human anatomy. God hits where it really hurts!

Imputation -

We can no longer preach of the "imputation" of God's righteousness (Romans 4 and other references - 1909) because the 1960 changed it to "count" or "atribute".

Evolution -

Of all things, the 1960 teaches evolution! Let us look at both translations of Job 11:12.

1909 - "For vain man would be wise, though man be born like a wild ass colt."

Note the use of the simile "like" to compare man with a wild ass. Let us now look at the 1960.

1960 - "For vain man would be wise, when a wild ass gives birth to a man."

This is an error to use the word "when". Maybe the 1960 revisers were thinking about their ancestors.

The deity of Christ -

Another verse that denies the deity of Christ and creation, which is to teach evolution, is found in the 1960 in Colossians 1:16.

1909 - "For by him were all things created . . ."

1960 - "For in him were all things created . . . all things were created through him and for him."

This implies an erroneous teaching about creation. Comparing this 1960 verse with the Jehovah Witnesses version we see an incredible similarity. That corrupt Bible says "through him". The 1909 is correct. The readers must know that Westcott and Hort embraced Charles Darwin's theory of evolution and that their Greek text attacks the concept of creation and the deity of Christ.

Cannibalism -

The 1960 also has a case of cannibalism in Jeremiah 5:17.

1909 - "And they shall eat up thine harvest, and thy bread, which thy sons and daughters should eat: they shall eat up they flocks and thine herds: they shall eat up thy vines and thy fig trees: they shall impoverish they fenced cities, wherein thou trustedst, with the sword."

Notice that it says, "should eat". Now let us look at what the 1960 says:

1960 - "And they shall eat up thine harvest and they bread, they shall eat your sons and daughters; they shall eat up thy flocks and thine herds: they shall eat up thy vines and thy fig trees: and with the sword they shall impoverish thy fenced cities, wherein thou trustedst."

The omission of the phrase "which . . . should eat" perverts the text and that is why it must be added for it to make sense.

What about commas (,)? The wrong use of these can completely change the meaning of a phrase since they help to divide two ideas or concepts. Let us look at only a few of these starting with Genesis 1:14.

Prophecy affected -

1909 - "And God said, Let there be light in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days and years."

1960 - "And God said, Let there be light in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs for seasons, and for days and years."

The omission of a comma excludes one of the functions of the stars, which are four, according to the Ben-Chayyim Hebrew text: 1) To separate day and night (physical light); 2) For signs (prophecy: Revelation 6:12, 13; Joel 2:30, 31; Matthew 24:29); 3) For the seasons (environment): summer, autumn, winter, and spring; and 4) For days and years (solar system rotation). The 1960 only mentions three of the four reasons why the stars, sun, and moon exist.

The 1602 original Valera as well as the 1909 reveal the global roundness of the planet by using "globe" instead of circle in Isaiah 40:22.      If you have studied geometry, you know there is a difference between a globe and a circle. In relation to the global form of the earth, Luke 21:26 and Romans 10:18 also omit the word "roundness" that comes before the word "earth", this way losing an important cross-reference to the doctrine of creation. This might be insignificant to some but, for many, it is important if you believe in the textual words or textual preservation. The following example should concern us as it is of doctrinal character. Let us look at Acts 16:31.

Collective salvation -

1909 - "And they said: Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house."

1960 - "They said: Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, thou and thy house."

Do you see the difference? The 1960 omits the word "and" at the beginning of the text, then it does not separate the truth that an individual should be saved, THEN if he believes and witnesses to his family, and only if they believe, then they will be saved. This is an example of the universalistic doctrine that came from Westcott and Hort's critical text and is promoted today by ecumenicals. Many who defend the 1960 laugh at what we point out and look at it as insignificant, but I remind them that God, in both the Old and New Testaments did not allow those who wrote the Scriptures to mess up on one jot or one title when they compiled the Scriptures.

"For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one title shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled." Matthew 5:18.

"And it is easier for heaven and earth to pass, than one title of the law to fail." Luke 16:17.

For the Jews, even the smallest grammatical symbol was of utter importance as GOD had communicated it. We should understand that each word and each jot and title are important. It can change the whole meaning of an expression. The 1960 Reina-Valera affects doctrine by moving periods and commas, as we have already shown, of many phrases of the Bible.

Another change that affects doctrine is the soul. The Jehovah Witness’ believe in life but not in the soul. Westcott and Hort rejected the existence of the soul. A dog has life when it is alive, but it does not have a soul. Let us look at Leviticus 17:14a.

The blood -

1909 – “For the life of the flesh is in the blood.”

(Referring to man).

1960 - "For the soul of all flesh is its blood.”

(Even animals?)  See Isaiah 53:12.

The person of Christ -

We must forgive those who offend us because God dwells in us permanently. But the 1960 makes the person of Christ transitory here by using "presence" just like the RSV. A child of God is never out of His presence. Let us look at II Corinthians 2:10.

1909 - "To whom ye forgive any thing, I forgive also: for if I forgave any thing, to whom I forgave it, for your sakes forgave I it in the person of Christ."

1960 - "To whom ye forgive any thing, I forgive also: for if I forgave any thing, to whom I  forgave it, for your sakes forgave I it in the presence of Christ."

Israel -

There is also racism when referring to the Jews as "estericol" (dung). The Antigua version correctly says that Israel would be "como muladar" (as a dungheap). In other words, the dungheap is where the garbage is deposited. This means that Israel would be the place where the Gentile and Pagan nations would dump their trash. This does not mean that they are dung. Let us look at Jeremiah 8:2b.

1909 – “they shall be for a dungheap upon the face of the earth.”

1960 – “they shall be for dung upon the face of the earth.”

Lordship Salvation -

The 1960 teaches "Lordship salvation", a popular doctrine among neo-evangelical churches. Let us look at an example in Romans 10:9a where the 1960 reads, "That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth that Jesus is Lord . . ." Does it not read just like the Revised Version and the other corrupt Bibles that alter the text that God has preserved? Now let us look at the 1909, which faithfully says, "That if thou shalt confess with they mouth the Lord Jesus . . ." Do you see the difference?

God or gods -

Another change introduced in the 1960 is found in Genesis 3:5 where the 1960 uses "God" instead of "gods" like the 1909. The Authorized Version reads just like the 1602, 1831, and 1865 - "gods". What happens with this is that the cross-reference of Deuteronomy 32:16 and 17 is lost where the gods are recognized as devils.

The last days or the days to come? -

Genesis 49:1 talks prophetically about the final day in Israel. The 1960 changes "last days" to "days to come," like the NIV, denying the finality of the judgement of God over Israel.

Deuteronomy 30:11 - The commandments are not hidden -

1909 - "For this commandment which I command thee this day, it is not hidden from thee, neither is it far off."

1960 - " For this commandment which I command thee this day, it is not too hard for thee, neither is it far off."

The 1909 reads just like the Authorized Version and the 1960 just like the New International Version.

ADDITIONS

The 1960 adds to the Scriptures by taking from several sources like the Septuagint, the Qumram (the Dead Sea Scrolls), the Siriaca version, and others. These additions are not those that appear italicized, but are non-authorized additions based on the critical apparatus. Let us look at only a few examples.

Genesis 4:8

The 1960 adds "Let us go into the field".

Philemon 2

The 1960 adds the noun "sister".

Mark 14:70

The 1960 adds the phrase "to that of theirs".

I Peter 3:21

The 1960 adds the word "aspiration"

Genesis 44:4

The 1960 adds the phrase "Wherefore have ye stolen my silver cup?"

II Chronicles 1:15

The 1960 adds the phrase "of the Sefala".

Genesis 4:1

The 1960 adds the phrase "by the will of".

Judges 16:13

The 1960 adds the phrase "and thou fasteneth it with a pin".

I Samuel 14:33

The 1960 adds "the meat".

Ephesians 2:10

The 1960 adds "beforehand".

The revisers of the 1960 Reina-Valera took the liberty to introduce words and phrases that in occasions do not even appear in the critical text! This illicit practice is condemned in Revelation 22:18.

OMISSIONS

Let us talk about the omissions. The Bible also condemns taking away from the words of God. Revelation 22:19, "And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part our of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book." Again in Deuteronomy 4:2, "Ye shall not add unto the word which I command you, neither shall ye diminish ought from it, that ye may keep the commandments of the LORD your God which I command you." Let us look at some examples of omissions in the following words and phrases.

Matthew 5:22

The 1960 omits "without a cause".

I Peter 3:21

The 1960 omits "The like figure".

Genesis 18:19

The 1960 omits "For I know him".

Matthew 1:1-16

The 1960 omits "begat" 22 times out of 39.

Acts 15:18

The 1960 omits "Known unto God".

Matthew 24:22

The 1960 omits "no flesh be saved".

Mark 14:51

The 1960 omits "naked".

Mark 14:52

The 1960 omits "from them".

Mark 14:53

The 1960 omits "with him".

Acts 15:17

The 1960 omits "who doeth all these things".

Nida and his helpers thought of usurping the place of the Holy Spirit when they eliminated the repetition of words and phrases that God gave through inspiration in the Textus Receptus like the conjunction "and" in Matthew 4:24, the phrase "te entregue" in Matthew 5:47, the phrase "a los hombres" in Matthew 15:17, and the word "even".

Deuteronomy 33:2

The 1960 omits "for them" at the end of the verse. Also, the phrase "with ten thousands of saints" was changed for "among ten thousands".

Joshua 18:18

The 1960 omits "northward".

Ruth 4:4

The 1960 omits "before".

Luke 24:12

The 1960 omits "laid".

John 16:3

The 1960 omits "unto you".

Acts 21:23

The 1960 omits "on them".

Romans 9:31

The 1960 omits "of righteousness".

I Corinthians 8:4

The 1960 omits "que aceptasemos la gracia".

Ephesians 4:6

The 1960 omits "you".

Philippians 4:2

The 1960 omits "beseech" (1 of two times).

I Thessalonians 2:2

The 1960 omits "even".

II Timothy 4:1

The 1960 omits "therefore".

James 4:4

The 1960 omits "adulterers and".

Revelation 1:6

The 1960 omits "and". Instead of saying "unto God and his Father", it says "unto God, his Father."

Revelation 5:6

The 1960 omits "and, lo".

Revelation 14:12

The 1960 omits "here are they"

Revelation 18:2

The 1960 omits "mightily".

Lamentations 2:18

The 1960 omits "wall of".

I John 5:8

The 1960 omits "in one".

Leviticus 14:31

The 1960 omits "de lo que alcanzare su mano".

Eugene Nida and his people omitted many more words and phrases. Nevertheless, they were more clever when they omitted a word and added another one in its place, which was different to what we had before in the 1909. We call this reduction.

OMISSIONS

The 1960 also OMITS, or subtracts strength from certain words or phrases. There are also undue substitutions that have nothing to do with the context. Is it the same to say "animal" as "lamb" in Exodus 12:5? Do you remember what Nida did with John 1:29 in the African translation? We refer to these changes as "dynamic equivalences", which has already been explained. In the list that we offer below, the first word is correct, taken from the 1909, followed by those placed by the 1960 revisers.

·   "Hell" for "Hades", "gehena", or "seol". Luke 16:23 and others. The Textus Receptus has it 54 times, while the 1960 RV removes it 42 times.

·   "Charity" for "love" in I Corinthians 13 and others.

·   "Unbelief" for "disobedience". Romans 11:30-32 and others.

·   "Worshipped him" for "knelt down" in Matthew 9:18.

·   "Of her" for "of their" in Luke 2:22.

·   "Impute" for "blame" in Romans 5:13 and others.

·   "Kiss" for "Honor" in Psalms 2:12.

·   "Vessel" for "wife" in I Thessalonians 4:4.

·   "Gergesenes" for "Gadarenes" in Matthew 8:28.

·   "Three" for "thirty" in II Samuel 23:18.

·   "By Jesus" for "with Jesus" in II Corinthians 4:14.

·   "Four faces" for "four sides" in Ezekiel 1:15.

·   "Unbelief" for "little faith" in Matthew 17:20.

·   "The gospel" for "good news" in Romans 10:15.

·   "Dung" for "trash" in Philippians 3:8.

·   "Seed" for "descendent" in Acts 2:16 and 11:11.

·   "My breath is corrupt" for "My breath is tired" in Job 17:1.

·   "Angels" for "winds".

·   "Sabbath" for "day of rest" in Isaiah 58:12 and others.

·   "It is secret" for "it is admirable" in Judges 13:18.

·   "Grove" for "asera" in Judges 6:25 and others. The grove is a place where idols were worshipped. They are two different concepts. The modern Bibles like the 1960, the RSV, the ASV and others loose this meaning.

These examples, and many more, are the supposed corrections, "betterments", and revisions that the 1960 does to the 1909. Preacher, it is best that you don’t neglect your Sword! I want to have a sword of the Word that penetrates, that cuts, and that is worthy of being called the Word of the Spirit.

Therefore not all the changes to "better the quality" of the 1909 are correct. Like the ones mentioned above there are many, many more since the 1960 followed the critical text of Nestle-Aland (Westcott-Hort) a lot, instead of the Textus Receptus. Many said that the 1909 had old fashioned spelling, placing an accent mark over the preposition "a", or reverting the order of the person with the famous reflexives, like "paróse", "llamóla", "vínose", "diciéndole", etc. This problem is not so hard to understand if you get a good linguistic formation. This is precisely the problem: that the majority of the Hispanic people do not understand the Castilian language, and that is why they do not understand the 1909 Bible. I recommend to all a simple solution - - buy a good Spanish dictionary! I recommend the best one in the Castilian language: the Diccionario de la Real Academia Española (DRAE), which you can buy through Internet or in any prestigious bookstore. Only remember that Catholics edit DRAE.

But let us return to the original question. Are there problems with the 1909? The answer is yes, but not like those of the 1960, since I want to emphasize the fact that the 1960 is a revision that is designed to weaken the dependence of the Textus Receptus. Some of the problems of the 1909 are solutioned with the use of a good dictionary, like we have already mentioned. That a word is hard to understand is not a reason for getting rid of the whole Bible. In certain cases, the 1960 is better than the 1909 in the use of certain words. Examples of this is the use of "high priest" instead of "high pontif" (Hebrews); "Spirit" instead of "spirit", when it is referring to the Holy Spirit in the Old Testament; "He" instead of "her" in Ephesians 2:1 to make the direct reference to Christ, and not Mary; etc. But these problems, and others, are not to be compared with all the critical, all the doctrinal, and all the relevant to the modernization of the Bible that you find in the 1960.

The 1960 Reina-Valera was made to join the Evangelicals with the Catholics, or those that sympathize with Catholicism. This is the true hidden agenda of all the modern versions, especially the 1960 RV. In reality, the 1960 Reina-Valera revision was "the trampoline that would impel another gospel", the Catholic, to be accepted by all the religious groups. Dr. Flores says, "Since the beginning, it was never thought that this revision would be definite, but instead a stage in the process of deeply revising the Valera that we still have in Spain." (See "El Texto del Nuevo Testamento", CLIE, 1977, page 225). The changes were concealed, but were effective in the conversion of fundamental Christians towards a liberal theological tolerance. Proof of this is that the United Bible Societies have Protestant and Catholic editors. The criterion of the UBS is to be a pluralist and ecumenical entity. The cardinal from Milan Carlo María Martini, co-editor of the Greek text of the UBS was probably who introduced passages and words with a Catholic tone and meaning. How strange it is that today there are good brethren using Bibles that are edited by united Catholics and Protestants. Although the critical text edited by them (UBS, #3, 1966), and the UBS Greek committee, was not implemented in the 1960 revision, it is believed that they used the UBS #1 or the #2, 1956 and 1957 respectively, which conforms a lot to the 1881 critical text of Wescott-Hort. The brethren that lived during the time when the 1960 was introduced saw this immediately, and it was the reason that they rejected it. Let us look at some examples of passages in the 1960 that are closer to the Catholic Bible than the original 1602 Valera.

ROMAN CATHOLIC INFLUENCES IN THE 1960

I Peter 2:2 – "As newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby unto salvation." The Catholic Nacar-Colunga Bible reads practically the same: "that ye may grow thereby in order to have salvation". To grow "unto salvation" or "in order to have salvation" is a teaching based on a salvation by works, and is not Biblical. The phrase in itself does not even appear in the Textus Receptus. The 1909 says "in salvation", which at least implies that we should be growing in the grace of God after being saved.

We have already shown the difference between "unbelief" and "disobedience". The first, taken from the 1909, is correct. The other is taken from the 1960 and is incorrect since it teaches that salvation is based on works. In fact, in a particular 1960 Scofield edition, that of Publicaciones Españolas of Dalton, Georgia, USA, the verse John 3:36 says "but he that is disobedient to the Son", which clearly shows that everything depends on our behavior. This is Roman Catholicism.

In Luke 21:5, the 1960 uses the word or the concept of "votive offerings", and reads just like the way the Catholic Bible Dios Habla Hoy , which is also of the UBS. According to the official Spanish dictionary, the word or concept "vitivo" is related to the votive mass, which is used to do prayers to the saints accompanied with gifts or monetary offerings in search of divine approval. This appears to be associated with the Catholic concept of salvation by works and it comes from Rome, not from God.

Revelation 19:8 speaks of "the righteous actions of the saints" just like the Vulgate version that says "the righteous works of the saints". The 1909 has it correctly: "for the fine linen is the righteousness of the saints." This righteousness, according to Romans 5:13, is not ones own, but is that which Christ imputed to us when we believed in Him.

The word or the concept "superstition" has to do with the mysticism that is in the Roman Catholic Church. It is for this reason that it is used in the 1960 in Acts 17:22. It also makes the word MYSTERY in Revelation 17:5 something occult, by calling it "a mystery" instead of making it directly a part of the name of the Great Whore. There are more examples, but these are enough to see that the 1960 Reina-Valera was designed by a Catholic who wanted the "separated brethren" to return to the Holy Mother Roman Catholic Church.

Revelation 22:14 in 1960 speaks of "washing their clothes" just like the Vulgate version ("washing their robes") also teaches. The Catholics deny the efficiency of the blood of Christ, and His perfect and only work on the cross, so we could think, if they do not believe that the blood of Christ has power, with what are they going to wash their clothes, detergent? You can laugh at this but look at Jeremiah 2:22 which is a warning to those who defend the "washing their clothes": "For though thou wash thee with nitre, and take thee much soap, yet thine iniquity is marked before me, saith the Lord GOD". The 1909 reads just like the Textus Receptus: "Blessed are they that keep his commandments. . ." Which ones? First: Believe on the name of His Son Jesus Christ (unto salvation) I John 5:23, 24; and second: Keep the faith of Jesus (the pure doctrine) Revelation 14:12.

The word "Verb" to refer to Christ (John 1:1, etc) has its origin in Felipe Scio de San Miguels Catholic Vulgate version, who took the word from the Latin "Verbum" in his 1793 Bible. The prior revisions followed Scio’s pattern here. In fact, I think that with the 1850 edition of the Valera-Scio, many revisers and translators were influenced to please the Catholic by replacing "Word" with "Verb". However, in our case it has nothing to do with the platonic idea of intelligence or reason, but it is what the Holy Spirit gave us in the Greek koiné language. This is why we use what Reina in 1569 and Valera in 1602 originally translated "Word". Although the application with "Verb" is not distorted, what we see here is the tendency of the revisers of following the Vulgate, which comes from corrupt texts like "B" and "Aleph". Nor should we argue about the gender of the word, as it is feminine.

In Numbers 33:52 the 1960 substitutes the word "pictures" for "stone idols", which is the same as the Vulgate and admits to the practice of having pictures with images for their veneration and worship."

Let us look at II Kings 10:25 where the 1960 Reina-Valera describes a place as the "holy city of the house of Baal". The 1909 reads like it should because it took it from the Masoretic Text: "the city of the house of Baal". This 1960 Alexandrian text loans itself to the doctrine of calling "holy" what is unrighteous. The Catholic church is known for recognizing "the holy" in paganism and this is contrary to the Scriptures.

The 1960 Reina-Valera substitutes the word "worship" in Acts 19:27 with the catholic word "venerate" in relation to the Ephesian goddess Diana, which is a synonym with the veneration of the "Virgin" Mary. It is not surprising that the Catholics today defend the right to "venerate" and not "worship" the saints and images. The Catholic Church makes a difference between these two. In verse 35 the 1960 Reina-Valera speaks of the city of Ephesus as being the "keeper" of the temple of Diana. The 1909 and the Authorized Version clearly show that the city is a "worshipper" and not the "keeper". The Catholic priests never speak of "worshipping" images but of venerating them. This agrees with the Diccionario de la Real Academia Española, a Catholic entity, which defines the word "venerate" as "to respect" or "to remember because of virtue." According to DRAE, something that is venerated is considered worthy, virtuous, not necessarily worshipped.

WHEN THE ROMAN CATHOLIC INQUISITION COULD NOT EXTERMINATE THE BIBLICAL CHRISTIANS IN THE PAST, TODAY THEY ARE ACCOMPLISHING IT BY THE BIBLE MONOPOLY THROUGH THE UNITED BIBLE SOCIETIES, THEIR OWN (CRITICAL) "GREEK TEXT OF THE ORIGINAL" OF NESTLE-ALAND, AND THEIR DIVERSE BIBLE TRANSLATIONS AND REVISIONS. The 1960 Reina-Valera was the beginning of this monopoly. The acceptation of this Bible by the Evangelicals would weaken the fundamentalist position of the Textus Receptus, predominate in the 1909 and earlier revisions (for example: 1602, 1831, and 1865). Each time someone buys a 1960 Reina-Valera, 5-10% of the honorarium help this ecumenical entity to print and promote its message of salvation by works. Those who attack the United Bible Societies by showing their Catholic connections are asking for the fury of some "fundamentalist" who are their best clients, since they buy their Bibles constantly. Are you one of those who are supporting the efforts of the Ecumenicals?

THE ANTIGUA VERSION OF CIPRIANO DE VALERA- RESTORED AND REVISED

This will be the title of the Bible that many missionaries and pastors have been working on for more than 10 years. I already mentioned the Iglesia Bautista Bíblica de la Gracia in Santa Catarina, Nuevo León, Mexico. These beloved brethren "carry the baton" with regard to this great project. We thank God for the initiative of Pastor Raul Reyes and his people, who sounded the alarm so that many of us would say more about the issue.

Personally, I recognized many years ago that there were certain problems with the 1909 and 1960 Valera. Other brethren have been analyzing this problem for even longer. As I said before, the Bible I use now is the 1909. I have had the 1960 for years, and I have written many notes, commentaries, and corrections related to the textual problem in it. Several years ago, God allowed me to meet the brethren in Mexico. Since then, I have been helping them, along with other Hispanic pastors and missionaries in Latin America, with the restoration of the Antigua Valera. As royal priesthood, it is necessary to restore what had been transmitted many years ago. The quality of the original Valera was improved with more correct words following the traditional translations of those like Pérez Pineda, Juan de Valdés, Francisco de Enzinas, Ferrara and comparing them with the Authorized Version. Qualified linguists have compared the Spanish used. The chosen words in the verse are found in the Diccionario de la Real Academia Española. This project was accomplished mainly with the help of the lay workers of the church in Mexico and not by "experts" that do not believe as us. Before and about everything, we prayed, fasted, and did everything with as much holiness as could be expected of a revising group.

The desire of these brethren, and mine as well, is that one day we will see the publication of the version that had the greatest acceptance and circulation in Spain and in the rest of the Spanish-speaking world, the Antigua Valera (I speak of the Valera revision as a version). This is what it was called since long ago.

VALERA'S VERSION, NOT REINA'S

Before I continue explaining the why and how of this restoration and revision project, let me explain the reason why we say "Valera's version" without adding Reina's name. It is true that the Bible Societies have wanted to make us think that up to now "Reina's name has been given proper recognition". To want to remember the first man who brought us the complete Bible, Old and New Testaments, in 1569 is praiseworthy, but we believe it is an error to include his name next to Valera's. Here are my reasons.

·        Casiodoro de Reina himself did not depend on something originally his, but depended on others before him like the Roman Catholic translator Santes Pagninus, who had done a Bible translation from the Latin Vulgate in 1541. Then he depended on Francisco Enzinas, who brought to light his New Testament in 1543. Reina also studied the portions and the New Testaments of Juan Valdés and Juan Pérez Pineda who were great Bible translators and revisers.

·        Casiodoro de Reina was more than anything a Lutheran with more Roman tendencies than Protestant (although he was saved). Although it is true that he originally stayed along the Calvinist line, his convictions were not strong enough to reject certain Roman Catholic beliefs. In the documents of Benjamin Wiffen, a historian of the 18th century, the Reformation leaders like Calvin and Beza did not trust Reina when they read his "Christian Faith Confession", which came to light in 1560, which caused alarm amongst the mentioned reformers because of some of the theological incongruities. For example, Reina believed in pedobaptismo, the Catholic practice of baptizing infants. His position concerning the Holy Trinity was also weak, having mencioned this point without offering sufficient detailes en defense of this doctrine, something that worried the leaders in Geneva.  These mistrusts toward Reina provoked ruptures and disentions among Spainards, as we shall see.

            After a time, it seems that Cipriano de Valera decided to cut off contact with Reina for these reasons. Proof of this is that Reina retired to Germany where he spent the rest of his life and where he gave himself completely to the Anglican Church. On the other hand, Valera remained a resigned Calvinist and a student of Beza and Calvin, but living in England. The lack of a totally Calvinist creed was what caused Cipriano de Valera to stay away from Reina from then on. We can mainly point out that Reina maintained the belief in the Anglican doctrine of consubstantiation, although it is thought that there were more reasons of a doctrinal type. The doctrine of consubstantiation admits that the presence of Christ becomes real just during the Lord's supper. Valera seems to have consulted Beza from then on since Teodoro Beza represented the maximum authority concerning Bible translations that followed the Textus Receptus. Proof of this is the translation of Calvin's famous "institution" into Spanish. There is no reason to doubt that Valera took a stronger position about his religious beliefs. It is necessary to remind the readers that the Calvinism of those days is not the same that many Christians profess today. For example, Valera believed in evangelizing all equally. Valera was not a "hyper-calvinist".

                Although they were "friends" they did not share many things. Reina, in his Bible, inserted the Apocrypha books calling them the "Deutercanonical" books, attributing them canonic authority, while Valera called them "Apocrypha" and he placed them between the two Testaments, assuring us that they were only of secular interest. About his respect and friendship towards Reina, Cipriano de Valera remained faithful to their friendship as did Antonio del Corro, another Spanish reformer, and they gave testimony in favor and in defense of Casiodoro de Reina before an ecclesiastical tribune concerning a defaming accusation concerning a moral indiscretion supposedly committed with a young man in London a few years before. The historian, A. Gordon Kinder, supposes, like many, that Reina, guilty or not, suffered the consequences of having been accused of this sin. This "punishment" could be the reason why the people did not want to be associated with Reina.

                The United Bible Societies, to hide the real reason for the union of these two identities (which we know is marketing of a new product) after the publication of the 1960, explain in their documents that the same Valera followed Reina's as much as possible out of respect and nothing more. However, Valera did not intend to call his Bible a "Reina-Valera", given the revisions and corrections that Valera did to Reina's, like removing all the references to the Septuagint (LXX) that Reina had done in his some years before. Valera also removed secular words and phrases like "por ventura" (113 references) and others, because he considered them foreign to the Textus Receptus. Reina quoted a lot of the Vulgate in the New Testament, which tells us he did not have a strong position concerning the Textus Receptus. In fact, Reina himself tells us in his "Amonestación al Lector", page iii, that he did not consider any Greek text as authoritative as he wanted his Bible to be accepted by all the Christian groups. In his introduction, he says that he used the Siriaca Version, and he evaluated it as a good version. See the following list, where some of the versions he included in his 1569 Bible are shown. The reason why the Bible Societies want to join the two names now is to promote what I have just said, that the Apocrypha be included as part of the canon. This is the occult agenda of the ecumenicals; they want to make us think that Reina and Valera were in agreement concerning this.

                Some of the additions of texts and words taken from the Vulgate that appear in the 1569 Biblia del Oso (Acts-Revelation) that appear in brackets are as follows: Acts 2:43; 7:18; 13:30; 16:7; 18:4; 20:18; 21:8; 22:24; 24:1; 24:17; 25:26; Romans 1:3; 7:3; 8:28; 8:39; 9:4; 10:8; I Corinthians 1:8; 11:6; 12:13; II Corinthians 1:14; Galatians 4:5; Ephesians 5:15; Philippians 1:5; 1:14; 3:17; Colossians 2:2; I Thessalonians 2:16; Philemon 2; and II Peter 1:10. In the Gospels we can point out several textual differences. For example, in the 42 places where Reina used brackets or italics (and this to show textual variants), Valera eliminated 12 in his 1602 revision since they do not appear in the Textus Receptus. Eight of these expressions definitely come from the Vulgate (Mark 1:10 ), "y reposaba"; 6:2 "y su doctrina"; Luke 4:19 "y día de pagamento"; 6:39 "también"; John 5:4 "del Señor"; 9:38 "postrándose";14:9 "también"; and 19:3 "veniían a él y"). The last five verses apparently come from the Siriaca Version since neither Westcott nor Hort included them. An example of this is Luke 12:21 and 16:19. In the first verse, the phrase "He that hath ears to hear, let him hear" does not affect basic doctrine, but the second, "And he told them another parable," attacks the fact that here Christ is relating a true story-something that really happened-not a parable like Reina believed!

                Some of the Old Testament expressions that Valera corrected in Reina's Bible come from the Vulgate or the Septuagint (LXX). Compare the following with the 1569 and the 1602: Genesis 46:20; Exodus 2:22; Lamentations 1:1; Psalms 14:3; Proverbs 4:27; 5:2; 7:1; 9:18; 10:4; 12:11; 13:13; 14:15; 14:21; 15:2; 15:5; 16:5; 17:16; 18:8; 18:22; 22:9; 24:32; 25:10; 25:20; 27:21; and 29:27. Valera eliminates all these verses taken from the Vulgate or the LXX in his 1602 revision. Valera definitely followed the Hebrew Masoretic Text since his faithfulness is shown to this manuscript over the LXX and the Vulgate, just like every fundamental Bible Christian should do. He also accomplished restoring proper Hebrew nouns in many verses like I Chronicles 9:19 (Corah) and others. Reina, on the other hand, basing himself on the Vulgate, referred to these proper nouns just like the Vulgate named them (Coré) showing his dependency and favoritism to the Pope's text. Then Valera restored words and phrases that Reina did not include in his Bible, given the fact that they did not appear in the Vulgate, such as: Genesis 27:18 (levántate ahora y siéntate); Exodus 40:24 (en frente de la mesa or "in front of the table"); Leviticus 9:10 (Hizo perfume sobre el altar); Leviticus 14:10 (dos corderos enteros); Numbers 14:14 (dirán los Egipcios); Numbers 19:18 (sobre todas las alhajas or upon the vessels); Numbers 21:34 (a todo su pueblo y a su or all his people and his); Numbers 23:26 (y dijo a Balac or said unto Balak); Deuteronomy 15:4 (que Jehováh tu Dios or the LORD thy God); Joshua 4:18 (el arca del Concierto); Joshua 6:8 (el arca del Concierto); Joshua 8:33 (que primeramente bendijesen); I Chronicles 5:26 and 6:70 (de la medio tribu de Manases or the half tribe of Manasseh); I Chronicles 13:7 (el arca de Dios or the ark of God); Nehemiah 9:3 (la ley de Jehováh su Dios or the law of the LORD their God); Nehemiah 12:27 (muro de Jerusalem or wall of Jerusalem); Psalms 141:8 (Jehováh de los Ejércitos); Isaiah 8:19 (por los vivos or for the living); Jeremiah 36:25 (Dalajas y Guermarias or Delaiah and Gemariah); Daniel 7:5 (tenía en su boca tres costillas or and it had three ribs in the mouth); and Zechariah 12:5 (en Jehováh de los Ejércitos or in the LORD of hosts). An example of carelessness Reina had for each word of God is his elimination of redundant words (repetitive or insignificant) like the conjunction "and". In Numbers, Valera restored them 21 times: 1:20, 22, 24, 26, 28, 30, 32, 34, 36, 38, 40, 42, 45; 3:39, 40, 43: 4:3, 30; 26:2, 4, and 62. The weight of the evidence resulting from the study of the additions, omissions, and changes made by Reina in his 1569 Bible and corrected by Cipriano de Valera in his 1602 revision show a theological distinction between these two men. The true Bible believers follow the right texts, like the Hebrew Masoretic and the Greek Receptus, not the Vulgate, the LXX, or other inferior texts.

                Casiodoro de Reina married twice, although the reason for the second marriage is not known, and he had a good family. After he died, his son Marcos continued working on the Bible that his father had left (1622 New Testament). If Reina had wanted his Biblia del Oso to be joined with Valera's, why then did his descendants opt to go ahead with their father's Bible? It does not make sense to join Reina and Valera's Bibles if his own descendants did not do so.

                Valera's Bible was never known as "Reina-Valera". For over 350 years everyone referred to the Protestant or evangelical Hispanic Bible as "Valera's Bible". The reason is obvious: we see the revision work of greater importance than the translation work since it took Valera 20 years to rectify and correct the errors that Reina had left. Today we consider Valera, as first reviser, was correct in beginning the difficult and long job of eliminating the textual corruption and improving the quality of the Bible that the Hispanic Christian people deserve. We continue ahead with the same vision of purifying more and more the Word of God for our local churches, and for those who want it, and we will not rest until we have it. The question is, were the great leaders of yesterday wrong in not giving "honor" to Reina? I think not. We recognize Reina's great job. But what counts is that Valera had more wisdom in wanting to promote his revision. In fact, Reina himself, according to his biographer A. Gordon Kinder, recognized the need that his precious Bible be revised (Casiodoro de Reina -- Spanish Reformer of the Sixteenth Century, Tamesis Books Limited, London, 1975, pages 90, 91).

                If we want to be "just" in the treatment of the men who gave us the Bible in Spanish, why not call it the "Ferrara-Pagninus-Alba-Enzinas-Pérez-Corro-Valdés-Reina-Valera" version? The reason is that works done by a man or by a couple of them is "critical" work, different to an "authorized" work, that enjoys universal support of the body of Christ, like that of the English 1611. The English-speaking fundamental Baptist brethren do not call their version "Wycliffe, Tyndale, Coverdale, Rogers, Matthews, Great, Geneva, Bishop's, King James" because the place of honor was given to the men who worked on the last revision of the English Bible, that of the King James in 1611, that if it is known as the Authorized Version is precisely because it followed the Textus Receptus more than any other version until them, including Reina's and Valera's. Therefore, every other version prior to the King James is excluded to establish a new precedent: the search for the textual purity in the Bibles according to the Textus Receptus, without altering the style of Bible of the reviser, Valera. I emphasize again that we are not trying to force the English onto the Spanish, as we have been accused unjustly and wrongly. What we look at here are the translation methods, its sources, and its preferences in certain words and phrases.

EXAMPLES OF HOW SOME VERSES, WORDS, AND PHRASES READ IN THE ANTIGUA VALERA VERSION-TR

I want to offer the reader a sample of how certain key verses read in the Antigua Valera Bible which sometimes are used to show corruptions. We have already given some examples in this study, but I want to offer you a few more. Note that these restorations do not appear in the 1909 or in the 1960. In fact, there are some verses in which the 1602 failed to correct some words or phrases that did not follow the Textus Receptus, and therefore, we have restored these following versions that were done in the 19^th century like the 1831 and the 1865 Valera and some others. I want to make clear that all of the publishing houses and editorials have done the same as we when we call our Bible a "Valera". The United Bible Societies, The Trinitarian Bible Society, the International Bible Society, the Iberoamerican Bible Society (recently created with its "Biblia Textual"), and the International Bible Association have revised Valera’s original text one way or another. Their textual alterations are based on the critical apparatus or textual variants, while we follow the line of the Textus Receptus. If they did it to eliminate the Textus Receptus, then we restore it according to the TR. The changes that were done were not done "to our liking", but were done with the necessary care in following the Textus Receptus, and the other faithful translations and revisions that we have already presented. The works prior to that of Reina and Valera include those of Pérez Pineda, Enzinas, and Valdez, among others. When we speak of holy priesthood, we are not implying the use of non-authorized authorities, but that we follow previous revisions that circulated in the Hispanic world before the "scholars" changed them.

·     Romans 1:16: "For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto Salvation to everyone that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek." (Source: 1862 Valera Bible)

·     The word "pagan" for the word "people" when it refers to these. The word "pagan" is more specific and it is based on faithful translations. (Source: Hebrew Masoretic Ben-Chayyim Text)

·     The word "LORD" for "Jehovah" with only the exception of six references. We followed the Antigua Latin version (Vetus Latina) like Pérez Pineda did. Reina and Valera were quick to point out the "superstition" of the Jews while Pérez Pineda, like other scholars, decided for "Adonai" (LORD) from the Tetragrammaton (YHWH) with respect to the Jewish Masoretic Text.

·     Luke 23:42: "And he said unto Jesus, Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom." (Source: 1602 and 1862 Valera)

·     Luke 8:54: "And he put them all out, and took her by the hand, and called, saying, Maid, arise." (Source: 1602 and 1862 Valera)

·     Matthew 15:7, 8: "Ye hypocrites well did Esaias prophesy of you, saying, This people draweth nigh unto me with their mouth, and honoreth me with their lips; but their heart is far from me." (Source: 1602 and 1862 Valera)  

·     Mark 1:2: "As it is written in the prophets, Behold, I send my messenger before thy face, which shall prepare they way before thee." (Source: 1602 and 1862 Valera)

·     Mark 11:10: "Blessed be the kingdom of our father David, that cometh in the name of the Lord: Hosanna in the highest." (Source: 1602 and 1862 Valera)

·     John 1:1 and other verses that refer to Jesus as the Word: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." (Source: 1602 Valera)

·     Philippians 4:2: "I beseech Euodias, and beseech Syntyche, that they be of the same mind in the Lord." (Source: Textus Receptus)

·     All the references to the Holy Spirit in the Old Testament begin with capital letters and several references in the New Testament that do not appear in the 1909 or in the 1960, like II Thessalonians 2:8. (Compared with different sources)

·     The book of "Hechos" (Acts) is "Actos", the book of "Santiago" (James) is "Jacobo", and the book of "Apocalipsis" (Revelation) is "Revelación". (Source: 1602, 1831, 1862, and the 1865 Valera)

·     Job 2:9: "Then said his wife unto him, Dost thou still retain thine integrity? Curse God, and die." (Source: Masoretic Text of Ben-Chayyim)

·     Proverbs 11:30: "The fruit of the righteous is a tree of life; and he that winneth souls is wise." (Source: MasoreticText of Ben-Chayyim; 1893 Mora-Pratt Version)

·     Proverbs 30:5: "Every word of God is pure: he is a shield unto them that put their trust in him." (Source: Masoretic Text of Ben-Chayyim)

·     Isaiah 24:7: "The new wine mourneth, the vine languisheth, all the merry-hearted do sigh." (Source: Masoretic Text of Ben-Chayyim)

·     Daniel 3:25: "He answered and said, Lo, I see four men loose, walking in the midst of the fire, and they have no hurt; and the form of the fourth is like the Son of God." (Source: 1850 Valera-Scio)

·     Acts 7:30: "And when forty years were expired, there appeared to him in the wilderness of mount Sinai the angel of the Lord in a flame of fire in a bush." (Source: 1602 and 1862 Valera)

·     Acts 9:5: "And he said, Who are thou, Lord? And the Lord said, I am Jesus whom thou persecutest: it is hard for thee to kick against the pricks." (Source: 1602 and 1862 Valera)

·     Acts 21:20: "And when they heard it, they glorified the Lord, and said unto him, Thou seeest, brother, how many thousands of Jews there are which believe; and they are all zealous of the law." (Source: 1602 and 1862 Valera)

·     Acts 22:16: "And now why tarriest thou? Arise, and be baptised, and wash away thy sins, calling on the name of the Lord." (Source: 1850 Valera-Scio, 1893 Mora-Pratt)

·     II Corinthians 4:10: "Always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body." (Source: 1602 and 1862 Valera)

·     Matthew 24:2: "And Jesus said unto them, See ye not all these things? Verily I say unto you, There shall not be left here one stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down." (Source: Textus Receptus)

·     Matthew 26:60: "But found none: yea, though many false witnesses came, yet found they none. At the last came two false witnesses." (Source: 1602 and 1862 Valera)

·     Mark 2:17: "When Jesus heard it, he saith unto them, They that are whole have no need of the physician, but they that are sick: I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance." (Source: 1862 Valera)

·     Mark 6:44: "And they that did eat of the loaves were about five thousand men." (Source: 1862 Valera)

·     Mark 9:16: "And he asked the scribes, What question ye with them?" (Source: 1602 and 1862 Valera)

·     Mark 9:24: "And straightway the father of the child cried out, and said with tears, Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief." (Source: 1602 and 1862 Valera)

·     Mark 15:3,4: "And the chief priests accused him of many things: but he answered nothing. And Pilate asked him again, saying, Answerest thou nothing? Behold how many things they witness against thee." (Source: 1850 Valera-Scio)

·     Luke 2:40: "And the child grew, and waxed strong in Spirit, filled with wisdom: and the grace of God was upon him." (Source: 1602 Valera)

·     Luke 4:41: "And devils also came out of many, crying out, and saying, Thou art Christ the Son of God. And he rebuking them suffered them not to speak: for they knew that he was Christ." (Source: 1602 and 1862 Valera)

·     Luke 6:10: "And looking round about upon them all, he said unto the man, Stretch forth thy hand. And he did so: and his hand was restored whole as the other." (Source: 1602 and 1862 Valera)

·     Luke 9:43: "And they were all amazed at the mighty power of God. But while they wondered every one at all things which Jesus did, he said unto his disciples." (Source: 1831 Valera, 1893 Mora-Pratt; In our 1^st edition of the New Testament, it was omitted by mistake)

·     The small exclamation word "oh!" was totally restored. Example: Luke 13:34: "OH Jerusalem, Jerusalem!" (Source: 1602 Valera, etc.)

·     John 6:65: "And he said, Therefore said I unto you, that no man can come unto me, except it were given unto him of my Father." (Source: 1602 and 1862 Valera)

·     Acts 2:41: "They they that gladly received his word were baptized: and the same day there were added unto them about three thousand souls." (Source: 1602 and 1862 Valera)

·     Genesis 3:15: "And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between they seed and her seed: he shall bruise they head, and thou shalt bruise his heel." (Source: Masoretic Text of Ben-Chayyim)

·     Ecclesiastes 12:13: "Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of God." (Source: Masoretic Text of Ben-Chayyim; 1893 Mora-Pratt)

·     All the references to a "metal" are changed to "brass". Example: Numbers 21:9 (Source: Masoretic Text of Ben-Chayyim). Note: Some use "bronze", which although is not incorrect, it is not precise. Bronze is a combination of copper and tin, while brass is a combination of copper and zinc.

·     I Chronicles 28:12: "And the pattern of all that he had by the Spirit, of the courts of the house of the LORD, and of all the chambers round about, of the treasuries of the house of God, and of the treasuries of the dedicated things." (Source: 1893 Mora-Pratt)

·     Isaiah 5:14: "Therefore hell hath enlarged herself, and opened her mouth without measure: and their glory, and their multitude, and their pomp, and he that rejoiceth, shall descend into it." (Source: 1602 Valera)

·     Matthew 2:12: "And being warned of God in a dream that they should not return to Herod, they departed into their country another way. (Source: Textus Receptus)

·     Romans 8:32: "He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things?" (Source: 1831 and 1862 Valera)

·     Psalms 138:2 "I will worship toward thy holy temple, and praise thy name for thy lovingkindness and for thy truth: for thou hast magnified thy word above all thy name." (Source: Masoretic Text of Ben-Chayyim)

·     I Corinthians 7:5: "Defraud ye not one the other, except it be with consent for a time, that ye may give yourselves to fasting and prayer; and come together again, that Satan tempt you not for your incontinency." (Source: 1602, 1831, and 1862 Valera)

·     Genesis 1:2: "And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters." (Source: 1893 Mora-Pratt)

Other restorations have been done. Special attention has been given to the restorations of the name of Jesus; some more examples are: Acts 3:26; 9:29; John 21:5; and Luke 24:36. It is impossible to number all these restorations in this study. The methodology used in this revision was to carefully follow the Textus Receptus in these and many other passages of the Bible, taking into account the original 1602 Valera as the main source, and others like the Old Testament of Ferrara (which both Reina and Valera used), the 1543 New Testament of Francisco Enzinas, the 1569 Reina translation, portions of Juan Valdés, Peréz Pineda, and the 1611 Authorized Version. We were able to discard all of the modernist methodologies to put out a good revision. For example, we used the formal equivalences instead of the "dynamic" equivalences like the modernist translations do. We also rejected the Septuagint (LXX), the Vulgate, the Dead Sea Scrolls, and other rejected sources for being Alexandrians.

According to Eugene Nida, "every reviser and translator is an interpreter". This is true, seeing that the translations reflect the doctrinal position of those who translate or revise them. A reviser has the power to introduce changes and alterations that go along with his theology. It is for this reason that we must work to assure the textual purity of the Scriptures. Those of us who have been working with the brethren in charge of the project of the restoration of the 1602 Valera-R, are all soul winning independent Baptist. Some will question us, wanting to invalidate our project. They say that the 1960 is okay. They prefer to use Bible revised by the modernist than a faithful revision done by fundamental Baptist brethren. How sad! Isaiah 5:20 says, "Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!"

WESTCOTT AND HORT – THE HEROES OF MODERN SCHOLARSHIP

According to "New Age Bible Versions" by Dr. Gail Riplinger, pages 391-457, the editors of the 1881 "Greek text", Mr. Westcott and Mr. Hort, were Anglican apostates who followed the teachings of theosophy of a famous witch named Madam Elena Blavatsky. What is sad about this case is that the 1960 RV contains variants, changes, omissions, and alterations that were introduced by Nida’s committee, the which were born in the corrupt minds of Westcott and Hort. The so called scholarship of Westcott and Hort reveals the true intention behind the modern versions like the 1960 RV: Destroy everything relevant to the Textus Receptus, starting with the Authorized Version and finishing with other good Bibles, because in these God receives the glory and not the devil.

Dr. D. A. Waite, in his book "The Theological Heresies of Westcott and Hort" presents a summary of Wescott and Hort’s doctrines:

1. Page 5: "The Bible only contains the Word of God . . ."

2. Page 5: "God inspired men, not His words . . ."

3. Page 5: "Works are essential to obtain salvation . . ."

4. Page 6: "No Bible is perfect . . ."

5. Page 9: "God is the Father of all men . . ."

6. Page 10: "The Bible should be understood allegorically . . ."

7. Page 10: "There is only one true universal church . . ."

8. Page 10: "Man can become perfect . . ."

9. Page 11: "Man has a spark of God’s divinity . . ."

10. Page 13: "Satan is not real . . ."

11. Page 28: "Jesus is not the promised Messiah . . ."

12. Page 15: "The Holy Spirit is only a positive power . . ."

13. Page 15: "A Heaven with gold streets does not exist . . ."

14. Page 17: "Hell is only a myth . . . it is Hades . . ."

15. Page 18: "Christ did not really raise from the dead . . ."

16. Page 18: "There will never be a rapture . . ."

17. Page 18: "The blood of Christ is not necessary . . ."

18. Page 20: "We are all children of God . . ."

19. Page 21: "All men can be gods . . ."

20. Page 22: "Christ was created by God . . ."

Apostates? Heretics? Blasphemers? Then why do so many defend a revision like the 1960 RV that supports a W&H? A true Bible Christian does not support modernist revisions that follow Westcott and Hort! Better to use a 1909, even if it is more "archaic", it is much more superior textually than the 1960.

"And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? For ye are the temple of the living God; as God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you." II Corinthians 6:16, 17.

THE ORIGINALS

Another aspect that we must mention before concluding this brief study is that the modern movement of the new translations emphasizes the fact that the Bibles that they support are based "on the originals". This lie is based on the supposition that the original documents still exist, when the truth is that they don’t. False teachers have inserted these words in Deuteronomy 17:18 so that they can propose their own criteria about what the original was like. If we read the 1909 or the 1960 RV, we notice that the words "of the original" are in italics, which mean that they are added. The 1602 Antigua Valera does not have these. God never ordered the Levite priests to reproduce the Law "from the original", since it was something impossible to do given the fact that the original documents of the Law had been destroyed or had been lost over the years. Where did the Levites get their copies of the Law? The answer is easy, from the faithful copies that were based on the originals!

CONCLUSION

We pray that the Lord will guide the brethren to support the present revision of the Antigua Valera. I invite you to write to Pastor Raul Reyes to learn more about the issue. The address is:

Pastor Raul Reyes

Iglesia Bautista Bíblica de la Gracia

Apartado Postal 209

Santa Catarina, Nuevo León, México

Email: gracia209@hotmail.com

If you like, you can write me at the following address:

Carlos Donate

Apartado Postal 45 – Monserrat

Guatemala, Centro América

Email: valera1602@aol.com

"For we are not as many, which corrupt the word of God: but as of sincerity, but as of God, in the sight of God speak we in Christ." II Corinthians 2:17

I want to exhort the brethren that are using other versions, including the 1960 Reina-Valera to buy a 1909, even though it might seem difficult. Many have not done so thinking that it has archaic and outdated words. But that is a very weak excuse given the fact that many Bible churches were started throughout Hispano-America with the 1909. Thousands of souls were saved with the 1909! Then I want to ask you to consider the Antigua Valera-R version. The New Testament is already available. If you truly consider yourself a Biblical Christian, you should be worried about all the textual problems that have emerged in the modern versions. The fact that the men behind these versions are anything but Bible fundamentalist should worry you. The Christian who does not have his guidelines defined about the Bible he is currently using will be easy prey for the deceit and lies of tomorrow. I ask the leaders to start studying the issue. I will conclude with the words of José Flores quoted in his booklet "El Texto Del Nuevo Testamento", page 250: "The work that awaits the new generation is double. First, much of the evidence that has come to light over the last eighty years must be collected and published in a readable form; secondly, based on this evidence and possible new discoveries, there should arise a new edition of the Greek New Testament which would lead to more accurate translations. The collection of comparative manuscripts in the phrasal study of the New Testament is called the Critical Apparatus of the New Testament and it is still in progress."

Prophetic words. In the light of so many Bibles on the market, the direction in which the actual fundamentalist movement is going should worry you.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

"An American Bible", by Dr. Paul C. Gutjahr, 1999, Stanford University Press,    Stanford,California, USA

"Bible Believer’s Manual on Manuscript Evidence", by Dr. Peter S. Ruckman, 1978, Pensacola, Florida, USA

"Bible Translating", by Eugene Nida, 1947, American Bible Society, New York, USA

"Casiodoro de Reina, Sixteenth Century Spanish Reformer", by A. Gordon Kinder, 1975, Tamesis Book, London

"Confessión De Fe Christiana", by Casiodoro de Reina, 1560, reprinted by A. Gordon Kinder, 1988, University of Exeter, Manchester, England

"¿Cúal es la Biblia En Español?", by Lonnie Smith, 1990, Imprenta "LCS", Reynosa, Tam, Mexico

"Defending The King James Bible", by Dr. Don Waite, 1992, Bible For Today, Collingswood, New Jersey, USA

"Descubre La Biblia-Manual de Ciencias Bíblicas", 1998, Sociedades Biblicas Unidas, Guatemala

"Diccionario de la Historia de la Iglesia", by W. Nelson, 1989, Editorial Caribe, Miami, Florida, USA

"El Nuevo Testamento de Nuestro Redemptor Y Salvador Jesu Christo", 1543, by Francisco de Enzinas, reprinted facsimile

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"El Texto del Nuevo Testamento", by José Flores, 1977, CLIE, Barcelona, Spain

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"Final Authority", by Bill Grady, 1993, Grady Publications, Schererville, Indiana, USA

"Fundamentalist Distortions on Bible Versions", by Donald Waite, 1999, Collingswood, New Jersey, USA

"Heresies of Wescott & Hort", by D. A. Waite, The Bible For Today, Inc., Collingswood, New Jersey, USA

"Himnario Bautista", 1978, Casa Bautista de Publicaciones, El Paso, Texas, USA

"Historia de la Biblia en España", by José Flores, 1978, Editorial CLIE, Barcelona, Spain

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"Historia De Los Bautistas", Tomo III, by Justo Anderson, 1990, Casa Bautista de Publicaciones, Nashville, Tennessee, USA

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"La Preservación Providencial Del Texto Griego Del Nuevo Testamento", by W. MacLean, 1983, translated from the 4^th edition by Dr. Nadir Carreño, Santiago, Chile, South America

"La Santa Biblia", 1862 Reina-Valera (edición 1900), Sociedad Bíblica Americana, New York, USA

"La Santa Biblia", Anotada por Scofield, Versión Reina-Valera 1960, Editorial Publicaciones Españolas, Dalton, Georgia, USA

"La Santa Biblia", Antigua Versión de Reina-Valera 1909, Asociación Bíblica Internacional, Dallas, Texas, USA

"La Santa Biblia", Versión Reina-Valera 1960 Edición de Estudio Harper-Caribe, General Editor: Mervin Breneman, Editorial Caribe, Miami, Florida, USA

"Las Biblias Castellanas Del Exilio", by Enrique Fernández y Fernández, 1976, Editorial Caribe, Miami, Florida, USA

"Los Bautistas En España", by J. David Hughey, 1985, Casa Bautista de Publicaciones, Spain

"Los Evangélicos En El Tiempo De Perón", by Santiago Clanclini, 1972, Editorial Mundo Hispano, Argentina, South America

"Luces Bajo El Almud", by Justo L. González, 1977, Editorial Caribe, Miami, Florida, USA

"Manuscript Evidence", by Robert Sargent, 1989, Bible Baptist Church Publications, Oak Harbor, Washington, USA

"New Age Bible Versions", by Gail Riplinger, 1993, A.V. Publications Corporation, Ararat, Virginia, USA

"Nuevo Testamento Griego", by F. H. Scrivener, 1898, Sociedad Bíblica Trinitaria, London, England

"O Timothy!", monthly newspaper by David Cloud, Volume 11, #2, 1994, Page 14-20

"Panorama del Protestantismo en Cuba", by Marcos Antonio Ramos, 1986, Editorial Caribe, Miami, Florida, USA

"Sagrada Biblia" de Cipriano de Valera 1602, facsimile reprint by Sociedad Bíblica de España

"Samuel Vila: Una Fe Contra Un Imperio", by Dr. David Muniesa, 1979, Editorial CLIE, Barcelona, Spain

"Text and Translation", 1969, article by Erroll Rhodes, American Bible Society’s Official Magazine, New York, USA

"Textual Criticism of the Old Testament", by Ralph W. Klein, 1974, Fortress Press, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA

"The Blood, The Book, And The Body", by Dr. Jack Hyles, 1992, Hyles-Anderson Publishers, Hammond, Indiana, USA

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"The Holy Bible" 1611 Edition, facsimle reprint by Thomas Nelson Publishers, Nashville, Tennessee, USA

"The Holy Scriptures of the Old Testament: Hebrew and English", by Daniel Bomberg, 1524 revision by J. Ben-Chayyim, facsimile reprint by the British & Foreign Bible Society, London, England

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"Votive Mass", 1955, Religious Encyclopedia, contributed by Georges Barrois, Baker Book House, Gran Rapids, Michigan, USA