Now I have seen in many forums a confusion on this issue and it dawned on me why so many are lacking the understanding or worse think that Christ was created and essentially deny Him as our Lord and Saviour, and part of the GodHead. Many of the new versions such as the NIV have been stripped of the meaning and changed, as they are based on the corrupted Alexandrian manuscripts, the Codex Sinaiticus, Codex Vaticanis, Codex Alexandrius. The American Standard Version (ASV), the New International Version (NIV), the New World Translation (NWT), RSV and many of the other newer versions which seem to be based on these corrupted manuscripts.
If at any point you take a stance or belief that Christ was a created being then you have taken away the diety of Christ. A created being cannot be God, he could not be divine, he could not be worshipped, and worse of all he could not be a saviour to man. We would be lost and Satan would have his victory over God.
This belief that Christ is a created being was started by Arius of Alexandria, where the Alexandrian manuscripts were written and promulgated his doctrine to the world. These Alexandrian codices have been picked up even in todays new versions of the Bible and are having a effect, a systematic removal of the divinity of Jesus Christ.
The problem is that it is not a 'different translation' with these new versions, it basically is editing to take out whatever they disagree with or doesnt fit with their doctrine or traditions. Some have taken out whole chapters out or like the Mormons have done away and written their own... and wipes out the divinity of Christ and makes it hard to prove the GodHead in these new versions such as the NIV...
You can look for Acts 8:37 in most of these 'Modern' Bibles based on the Westcott & Hort corrupted Alexandrian Codices text & you will see that it skips directly from 8:36 to 8:38 without the proclamation of the deity of Christ by the Ethiopian.
Many scholars push the Alexandrian manuscripts, specifically the Vaticanus & Sinaiticus, saying they are the most complete and correct manuscripts. But neither was in the original Greek language, but in a Coptic variation or translation. Coptic placed the origin of these two texts in the area of Alexandria, Egypt the center of the gnosticism heresy.
The Gnostic heresy was a Greek line of thought which came to be known as Gnosticism. We find it specially in the background of the Pastoral Epistles, the Letter to the Colossians and the Fourth Gospel. This Gnostic line of thought had certain characteristics which appear all through the Pastoral Epistles as the characteristics of those whose heresies were threatening the Church and the purity of the faith. It had serious moral and ethical consequences. Its basic belief was that matter was essentially evil and spirit alone was good. That issued in two opposite results.
If matter is evil, the body is evil; and the body must be despised and held down. Therefore Gnosticism could and did issue in a rigid asceticism. The Gnostic looked on creation as an evil thing, the work of an evil god; the Christian looks on creation as a noble thing, the gift of a good God. The Christian lives in a world where all things are pure; the Gnostic lived in a world where all things were defiled.(Titus 1:15)
But Gnosticism could issue in precisely the opposite ethical belief. If the body is evil, it does not matter what a man does with it. Therefore, let him sate his appetites. These things are of no importance, therefore a man can use his body in the most licentious way and it makes no difference. So the Pastorals speak of those who lead away weak women until they are laden with sin and the victims of all kinds of lusts.(2 Timothy 3:6) Such men profess to know God, but they deny him by their deeds.(Titus 1:16) They used their religious beliefs as an excuse for immorality.
Gnosticism tried to blend the new religion but ultimately was against traditional Christian beliefs and attempted to combine Paganism with Christianity. Some Gnostic groups had beliefs that often contradicted the beliefs of other Gnostic groups. The one thing thay all had in common was that all of these groups departed from the orthodox Christian faith, but the Gnostic mixed their beliefs into the manuscripts they made of the scriptures, putting changes of their particular beliefs or taking out what disagreed with it.
The Alexandrian Codices that Westcott & Hort's version used, the Vaticanis & the Sinaiticus reflect this. In fact many, if not all of the passages altered or missing from these codices were in fact quoted by the early church fathers as far back as the late 1st century. For instance, if one reads Irenaeus' Against Heresies 3.10.5-6, he states, "Furthermore, near the end of his Gospel, Mark says:'thus, after the Lord Jesus had spoken to them, he was taken up into heaven, and sits on the right hand of God.'" quoting Mark 16:19. Irenaeus wrote this in AD180, some 200 years before the Alexandrian Codices, yet he quotes word for word all the verses from the missing part of Mark which were supposedly not to have been added until the 4th or 5th centuries.
With the discovery in recent time of the Gnostic Library called the Nag Hammadi, it became clear that the sect known as the "Gnostics" did not believe in the deity of Jesus Christ. Nor did they really believe in His humanity either. They believed He was a "guiding spirit" sent to earth by the "True God" (not the YHWH of the Old Testament, incidentally, whom they considered to be a blind, insane angel who created the material world against Sophia's or "Wisdom" i.e. the True God's will). Jesus' mission according to the Gnostics, was to impart special knowledge or "Gnosis" to spirits trapped in this material world seeking release. Thus, Jesus never died on the cross, was never resurrected, was not God, nor was He human. Mysteriously, but rather conveniently, all the altered or missing texts in the Alexandrian Codices always happen to involve one or a combination of these subjects.
Now, the pieces fall into place. All these "missing" verses were in the original texts written by the apostles. The older manuscripts & the many quotes from the 1st and 2nd century church fathers more than confirm that as fact. However, since these verses did not agree with the theology being taught by the Gnostics, when they made their own Alexandrian copies of the Greek originals, they conveniently altered or deleted them to suit their own ideas of what God should say. Westcott & Hort picked up on these corrupted Alexandrian texts as they were caught up in the views prevalent from darwinism & secular humanist questioning of the validity of orthodox Christianity, if just a few verse could be altered or brought into question, it would serve their purpose. These corrupted Alexandrian texts easily appealed to Westcott & Hort's own non Christian ideas and views. They in my opinion from the letters they exchanged, knowingly made a Greek translation of what was a changed or heavily edited & corrupted Alexandrian translation of a Greek original which has caused great confusion to this day, and specifically in the deity of Christ.
If at any point you take a stance or belief that Christ was a created being then you have taken away the diety of Christ. A created being cannot be God, he could not be divine, he could not be worshipped, and worse of all he could not be a saviour to man. We would be lost and Satan would have his victory over God.
This belief that Christ is a created being was started by Arius of Alexandria, where the Alexandrian manuscripts were written and promulgated his doctrine to the world. These Alexandrian codices have been picked up even in todays new versions of the Bible and are having a effect, a systematic removal of the divinity of Jesus Christ.
The problem is that it is not a 'different translation' with these new versions, it basically is editing to take out whatever they disagree with or doesnt fit with their doctrine or traditions. Some have taken out whole chapters out or like the Mormons have done away and written their own... and wipes out the divinity of Christ and makes it hard to prove the GodHead in these new versions such as the NIV...
You can look for Acts 8:37 in most of these 'Modern' Bibles based on the Westcott & Hort corrupted Alexandrian Codices text & you will see that it skips directly from 8:36 to 8:38 without the proclamation of the deity of Christ by the Ethiopian.
Many scholars push the Alexandrian manuscripts, specifically the Vaticanus & Sinaiticus, saying they are the most complete and correct manuscripts. But neither was in the original Greek language, but in a Coptic variation or translation. Coptic placed the origin of these two texts in the area of Alexandria, Egypt the center of the gnosticism heresy.
The Gnostic heresy was a Greek line of thought which came to be known as Gnosticism. We find it specially in the background of the Pastoral Epistles, the Letter to the Colossians and the Fourth Gospel. This Gnostic line of thought had certain characteristics which appear all through the Pastoral Epistles as the characteristics of those whose heresies were threatening the Church and the purity of the faith. It had serious moral and ethical consequences. Its basic belief was that matter was essentially evil and spirit alone was good. That issued in two opposite results.
If matter is evil, the body is evil; and the body must be despised and held down. Therefore Gnosticism could and did issue in a rigid asceticism. The Gnostic looked on creation as an evil thing, the work of an evil god; the Christian looks on creation as a noble thing, the gift of a good God. The Christian lives in a world where all things are pure; the Gnostic lived in a world where all things were defiled.(Titus 1:15)
But Gnosticism could issue in precisely the opposite ethical belief. If the body is evil, it does not matter what a man does with it. Therefore, let him sate his appetites. These things are of no importance, therefore a man can use his body in the most licentious way and it makes no difference. So the Pastorals speak of those who lead away weak women until they are laden with sin and the victims of all kinds of lusts.(2 Timothy 3:6) Such men profess to know God, but they deny him by their deeds.(Titus 1:16) They used their religious beliefs as an excuse for immorality.
Gnosticism tried to blend the new religion but ultimately was against traditional Christian beliefs and attempted to combine Paganism with Christianity. Some Gnostic groups had beliefs that often contradicted the beliefs of other Gnostic groups. The one thing thay all had in common was that all of these groups departed from the orthodox Christian faith, but the Gnostic mixed their beliefs into the manuscripts they made of the scriptures, putting changes of their particular beliefs or taking out what disagreed with it.
The Alexandrian Codices that Westcott & Hort's version used, the Vaticanis & the Sinaiticus reflect this. In fact many, if not all of the passages altered or missing from these codices were in fact quoted by the early church fathers as far back as the late 1st century. For instance, if one reads Irenaeus' Against Heresies 3.10.5-6, he states, "Furthermore, near the end of his Gospel, Mark says:'thus, after the Lord Jesus had spoken to them, he was taken up into heaven, and sits on the right hand of God.'" quoting Mark 16:19. Irenaeus wrote this in AD180, some 200 years before the Alexandrian Codices, yet he quotes word for word all the verses from the missing part of Mark which were supposedly not to have been added until the 4th or 5th centuries.
With the discovery in recent time of the Gnostic Library called the Nag Hammadi, it became clear that the sect known as the "Gnostics" did not believe in the deity of Jesus Christ. Nor did they really believe in His humanity either. They believed He was a "guiding spirit" sent to earth by the "True God" (not the YHWH of the Old Testament, incidentally, whom they considered to be a blind, insane angel who created the material world against Sophia's or "Wisdom" i.e. the True God's will). Jesus' mission according to the Gnostics, was to impart special knowledge or "Gnosis" to spirits trapped in this material world seeking release. Thus, Jesus never died on the cross, was never resurrected, was not God, nor was He human. Mysteriously, but rather conveniently, all the altered or missing texts in the Alexandrian Codices always happen to involve one or a combination of these subjects.
Now, the pieces fall into place. All these "missing" verses were in the original texts written by the apostles. The older manuscripts & the many quotes from the 1st and 2nd century church fathers more than confirm that as fact. However, since these verses did not agree with the theology being taught by the Gnostics, when they made their own Alexandrian copies of the Greek originals, they conveniently altered or deleted them to suit their own ideas of what God should say. Westcott & Hort picked up on these corrupted Alexandrian texts as they were caught up in the views prevalent from darwinism & secular humanist questioning of the validity of orthodox Christianity, if just a few verse could be altered or brought into question, it would serve their purpose. These corrupted Alexandrian texts easily appealed to Westcott & Hort's own non Christian ideas and views. They in my opinion from the letters they exchanged, knowingly made a Greek translation of what was a changed or heavily edited & corrupted Alexandrian translation of a Greek original which has caused great confusion to this day, and specifically in the deity of Christ.
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