Now I was reading further on Jerome and he clearly recognized the poorly written and cuorrupted manuscripts from the Alexandrian Codices which had been incorporated into the latin translations. So he went back to the original Hebrew and tried his best to come up with a correct and true translation and he came close, but other forces were at work fighting against is.

Jerome when he wrote the Vulgate tried to use only the original Hebrew text or Greek text from the Textus Receptus (Majority Text) but the Roman church leaders force the Apocrypha and some text from the Septuagint which was really from the Alexandrian codices which were in Greek, but its source was well hidden. So the Vulgate allowed some of the partial corruption Alexandrian codices and you see how the Roman Catholic church used it to allow many false beliefs and doctrines including idol worship.

As Jerome completed his translations of each book of the Bible, he recorded his observations and comments in an extensive correspondence with other scholars; and these letters were subsequently collected and appended as prologues to the Vulgate text for those books where they survived. In these letters, Jerome described those books or portions of books in the Septuagint that were not found in the Hebrew as being non-canonical: he called them apocrypha. Jerome's views did not, however, prevail; and all complete manuscripts and editions of the Vulgate include some or all these books which he clearly tried to keep out.
In addition to the biblical text the Vulgate contains 17 prologues, 16 of which were written by Jerome. Jerome's prologues were written not so much as prologues but more as cover letters to specific individuals to accompany copies of his translations. Because they were not intended for a general audience, some of his comments in them are quite cryptic.

A recurring theme of the Old Testament prologues is Jerome's preference for the Hebraica veritas (i.e., Hebrew truth) over the Septuagint, a preference which he defended from his detractors. He stated that the Hebrew text more clearly prefigures Christ than the Greek text which was actually a Alexandrian codice. The Latin Biblical texts in use before the Latin Vulgate of Jerome are usually referred to collectively as the Vetus Latina, or "Old Latin Bible", or occasionally the "Old Latin Vulgate". (Here "Old Latin" means that they are older than the Vulgate and written in Latin, not that they are written in Old Latin.) The translations in the Vetus Latina had accumulated piecemeal over a century or more in a haphazard manner; they were not translated by a single person or institution, nor uniformly edited so there was no standard as in the original Hebrew and Greek text of the Masoretic Text, and Textus Receptus. The individual books of that Vetus Latina varied in quality of translation and style, and different manuscripts witnessed wide variations in readings or did not agree with each other. Jerome, in his preface to the Vulgate gospels, commented that there were "as many [translations] as there are manuscripts". The reason can be found in that the Old Testament books of the Vetus Latina were translated from the Greek Septuagint which came from the Alexandrian codices, not from the Hebrew text of the Masoretic Text, and Textus Receptus.

Jerome's earliest efforts in translation, his revision of the four Gospels, was written under official sanction, but his version had little or no official recognition. Jerome's translated texts had to make their way on their own merits. The Old Latin versions or Vetus Latina continued to be copied and used alongside the Vulgate versions. Nevertheless, the superior quality of Jerome’s translation from the original Hebrew of the Vulgate texts led to their increasingly superseding the Old Latin/Vetus Latina; although the loss of familiar phrases and expressions aroused hostility in congregations; and, especially in North Africa and Spain where the Alexandrian text had spread and been picked up in the Old Latin/Vetus Latina..

So if it says Textus Receptus (Majority Text) it is true to the many manuscripts that Christians used over the centuries, if it has Vulgate, Septuagint, Wescott and Hort (or its many variants such as Nestle-Aland text, editions of Tischendorf, etc..), then it uses the Minority Text which comes from the corrupted Alexandrian manuscripts.

Here is a list of most of the complete Bibles and their sources, so you can see those which picked up text from Westcott and Hort and variants based on the corrupted Alexandrian codices which Jerome had fought so hard to keep out.

American Standard Version
Modern English 1901 Masoretic Text, Westcott and Hort 1881 and Tregelles 1857

American King James Version
Modern English 1999 Revision of the King James Version
Amplified Bible
Modern English 1965 Revision of the American Standard Version

An American Translation
Modern English 1935 Masoretic Text, various[which?] Greek texts.

ArtScroll Tanakh (Old Testament) Modern English 1996 Masoretic Text

An American Translation
Modern English 1976 Masoretic Text, various[which?] Greek texts.

Bishops' Bible
Early Modern English 1568 Masoretic Text, Textus Receptus

Catholic Public Domain Version
Modern English 2009 Sixtus V and Clement VIII Latin Vulgate by Ronald L. Conte Jr., in the public domain

Children's King James Version
Modern English 1962 Revision of the King James Version. by Jay P. Green

Clear Word Bible Modern English 1994

Complete Jewish Bible
Modern English 1998 Paraphrase of the Jewish Publication Society of America Version (Old Testament), and from the original Greek (New Testament).

Concordant Literal Version
Modern English Restored Greek syntax. A concordance of every form of every Greek word was made and systematized and turned into English. The whole Greek vocabulary was analyzed and translated, using a standard English equivalent for each Greek element.

Coverdale Bible
Early Modern English 1535 Masoretic Text, the Greek New Testament of Erasmus, Vulgate, and German and Swiss-German Bibles (Luther Bible, Zürich Bible and Leo Jud's Bible)
First complete Bible printed in English (Early Modern English)
Darby Bible

Modern English 1890 Masoretic Text, various critical editions of the Greek text (i.a. Tregelles, Tischendorf, Westcott and Hort)

Douay-Rheims Bible
Early Modern English 1582 (New Testament)
1609–1610 (Old Testament) Latin, Greek and Hebrew manuscripts Old Testament completed in 1582, released in two parts in 1609 and 1610

Douay-Rheims Bible (Challoner Revision)
Modern English 1752 Clementine Vulgate
EasyEnglish Bible Modern English 2001 Wycliffe Associates (UK)

Emphasized Bible
Modern English 1902 Translated by Joseph Bryant Rotherham based on The New Testament in the Original Greek and Christian David Ginsburg's Massoretico-critical edition of the Hebrew Bible (1894) Uses various methods, such as "emphatic idiom" and special diacritical marks, to bring out nuances of the underlying Greek, Hebrew, and Aramaic texts.
English Jubilee 2000 Bible

Modern English 2000 Reina-Valera (1602 Edition)

English Standard Version
Modern English 2001 Revision of the Revised Standard Version. (Westcott-Hort, Weiss, Tischendorf Greek texts)
Ferrar Fenton Bible
Modern English 1853 Masoretic Text and the Westcott and Hort Greek text

Geneva Bible
Early Modern English 1557 (New Testament)
1560 (complete Bible) Masoretic Text, Textus Receptus
First English Bible with whole of Old Testament translated direct from Hebrew texts

Good News Bible
Modern English 1976 United Bible Society (UBS) Greek text Formerly known as Today's English Version

Great Bible
Early Modern English 1539 Masoretic Text, Greek New Testament of Erasmus, the Vulgate, and the Luther Bible.

Holman Christian Standard Bible
Modern English 2004 Masoretic Text, Nestle-Aland Text.

The Inclusive Bible
Modern English 2007 From the original Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek

International Standard Version
Modern English 2011
Jerusalem Bible
Modern English 1966 From the original Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek, with influence from the French La Bible de Jérusalem.
Jesus' Disciples Bible
Early Modern English 2012 Masoretic Text, Textus Receptus, Tyndale 1526 NT, some Erasmus manuscripts, and Bezae 1598 TR.

Jewish Publication Society of America Version Tanakh (Old Testament) Modern English 1917 Masoretic Text
Judaica Press Tanakh (Old Testament). Modern English 1963 Masoretic Text

Julia E. Smith Parker Translation
Modern English 1876 Masoretic Text, Textus Receptus

King James 2000 Version
Modern English 2000 Revision of the King James Version.
King James Easy Reading Version
Modern English 2010 Revision of the King James Version. The Received Text. King's Word Press. GEM Publishing.[3]

King James Version
Early Modern English
1611 Masoretic Text, Textus Receptus, Tyndale 1526 NT, some Erasmus manuscripts, and Bezae 1598 TR.

King James II Version
Modern English
1971 Masoretic Text, Textus Receptus by Jay P. Green, Sr.
Knox's Translation of the Vulgate

Modern English 1955 Vulgate, with influence from the original Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek.
Lamsa Bible

Modern English 1933 Syriac Peshitta

A Literal Translation of the Bible
Modern English 1985 Masoretic Text, Textus Receptus (Estienne 1550) by Jay P. Green, Sr.
Leeser Bible, Tanakh (Old Testament) Modern English 1994 Masoretic Text

The Living Bible
Modern English 1971 American Standard Version (paraphrase)
The Living Torah and The Living Nach. Tanakh (Old Testament) Modern English 1994 Masoretic Text

Matthew's Bible
Early Modern English 1537 Masoretic Text, the Greek New Testament of Erasmus, the Vulgate, the Luther Bible, and a French version[which?].


James Murdock's Translation of the Syriac Peshitta
Modern English Syriac Peshitta
New American Bible
Modern English 1970
New American Standard Bible
Modern English 1971 Masoretic Text, Nestle-Aland Text
New Century Version
Modern English 1991
New English Bible
Modern English 1970 Masoretic Text, Greek New Testament

New English Translation (NET Bible) Modern English 2005 Masoretic Text, Nestle-Aland/United Bible Society Greek New Testament

New International Reader's Version
Modern English 1998 New International Version (simplified syntax, but loss of conjunctions obscures meanings)
New International Version Inclusive Language Edition
Modern English 1996 Revision of the New International Version.

New International Version
Modern English 1978 Masoretic Text, Nestle-Aland Greek New Testament (based on Westcott-Hort, Weiss and Tischendorf, 1862).

New Jerusalem Bible
Modern English 1985 From the original Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek, with influence from the French La Bible de Jérusalem.
New Jewish Publication Society of America Version. Tanakh (Old Testament) Modern English 1985 Masoretic Text
New King James Version

Modern English 1982 Masoretic Text (Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia, 1983), Majority text (Hodges-Farstad, 1982)

New Revised Standard Version
Modern English 1989 Revision of the Revised Standard Version.

New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures
Modern English 1950 (New Testament)
1960 (single volume complete Bible)
1984 (reference edition with footnotes) Westcott and Hort's Greek New Testament, Nestle-Aland Greek New Testament, Hebrew J documents, as well as various other families of Hebrew and Greek manuscripts

The Orthodox Study Bible
Modern English 2008 Adds a new translation of the LXX to an existing translation of the NKJV in a single volume.

Quaker Bible
Modern English 1764 Masoretic Text, Textus Receptus
Recovery Version of the Bible
Modern English 1985 Revision of the American Standard Version and Darby Bible.

Revised Version
Modern English 1885 Revision of the King James Version, but with a critical New Testament text: Westcott and Hort 1881 and Tregelles 1857
Revised Standard Version
Modern English 1952 Masoretic Text, Nestle-Aland Greek New Testament.

Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition

The Scriptures
Modern English & Hebrew (Divine Names) 1993, revised 1998 & revised 2009 Masoretic Text (Biblia Hebraica), Textus Receptus Greek text Popular Messianic Translation by the Institute for Scripture Research

Taverner's Bible
Early Modern English 1539 Minor revision of Matthew's Bible

Thomson's Translation
Modern English 1808 Codex Vaticanus (according to the introduction in the reprint edition by S. F. Pells) of the Septuagint (but excluding the Apocrypha) and of the New Testament

Today's New International Version
Modern English 2005 Masoretic Text (Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia, 1983), Nestle-Aland Greek text Revision of the New International Version.

Tyndale Bible
Early Modern English 1526 (New Testament)
1530 (Pentateuch) Masoretic Text, Erasmus' third NT edition (1522), Martin Luther's 1522 German Bible. Incomplete translation. Tyndale's other Old Testament work went into the Matthew's Bible (1537).


A Voice In The Wilderness Holy Scriptures Modern English 2003 Masoretic Text, Textus Receptus


Westminster Bible
Modern English 1936 Greek and Hebrew


Wycliffe's Bible (1380) Middle English 1380 Latin Vulgate


Wycliffe's Bible (1388) Middle English 1388 Latin Vulgate


Young's Literal Translation
Modern English 1862 Masoretic Text, Textus Receptus

Now lets look at the "Septuagint" and its origin, I came across some interesting things that show its source and make plain the purpose in the changes and alterations.

The Septuagint is a ancient Greek translation of the Jewish scriptures, and it is claimed that Jesus and His apostles used this Greek Bible instead of the Hebrew text of the Jewish scriptures. So they seek to give the Septuagint legitamcy from Christ himself, but the Septuagint wasnt even around when Christ and the Apostles were spreading the Gospel so how could that be. Well lets back up a bit and see what is its origin. The Septuagint is claimed to have been translated between 285-246 BC during the reign of Ptolemy II Philadelphus of Alexandria, Egypt. His librarian, supposedly Demetrius of Phalerum, persuaded Philadelphus to get a copy of the Hebrew Scriptures and translate into Greek for the Alexandrian Jews. This part of the story comes from early church historian Eusebius (260-339 AD). Scholars then claim that Jesus and His apostles used this Greek Bible instead of the preserved Hebrew text.

Here is a description given online:

"At this time, during the reign of Ptolemy II Philadelphus (285–246 BC), the ruler of Ptolemaic Kingdom, sent a request to Eleazar, the chief priest in Jerusalem. He wanted him to send translators, to translate the Hebrew Scriptures into Greek, for his library at Alexandria. The letter known as the Letter of Aristeas describes how Ptolemy II requested translators and Eleazar sent 72 scribes, who translated the Septuagint in 72-days. Hence, the name Septuagint, means Seventy from the Latin septuaginta,“70”, seventy-two translators translating the scriptures in seventy-two days. This account in the letter is not completely accepted by many because of circumstances surrounding the Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures....The translation had a profound influence on the Jewish Greek speaking community. Greeks could now read and comment on the Hebrew Scriptures without having to learn Hebrew."

But where did this manuscript really come from, lets look closer look at the 'Letter of Aristeas':

The whole argument that the Hebrew scriptures were translated into Greek before the time of Christ so he would have used it rests upon a single document. All other historical evidence supporting the argument either quotes or references this single letter, the so-called Letter of Aristeas. In it the writer presents himself as a close confidant of king Philadelphus and claims that he persuaded Eleazar, the high priest in Jerusalem, to send with him 72 scholars from Jerusalem to Alexandria, Egypt where they would translate the Hebrew Scriptures into Greek, forming what we now call the Septuagint.

Lets see what is verifiable:

Aristeas, the writer of this letter, claims to have been a Greek court official during the time of Philadelphus' reign and to have been sent by Demetrius to request in Jerusalem the best scholars to bring a copy of the Hebrew scriptures to Alexandria to start the Septuagint translation. In the story, Aristeas even goes so far as to give names of Septuagint scholars, yet many of the names he gives are from the Maccabean era, some 75 years too late and others are Greek names, definitely not the names of Hebrew scholars. It appears that this letter from Aristeas is from a different time period, and writer is trying to make the translation appear older than when it was written, but why.

Looking furhter, the supposed "librarian," Demetrius of Phalerum (345-283 BC) served in the court of Ptolemy Soter. Demetrius was never the librarian under Philadelphus and letter quotes the king telling Demetrius and the translators, when they arrived, how they came on the anniversary of his "naval victory over Antigonus" (Aristeas 7:14). But the only such recorded Egyptian naval victory occurred many years after Demetrius death.

So why would someone go through the trouble to make such a obvious fraud or forgery. It seems one much like the forged Donation of Constantine (Latin, Donatio Constantini) which was a forged Roman imperial decree by which the emperor Constantine I supposedly transferred authority over Rome and the western part of the Roman Empire to the Roman Bishop or Pope. Well lets look at the claim again, if this the Bible that Jesus and His apostles used instead of the preserved Hebrew text, someone was trying to give this Greek Text legitamacy. But why is this important to them...

This so called Letter of Aristeas is a obvious forgery that doesn't even fit the time period in which it claims to have been written. Even critical textual scholars admit that the letter doesnt add up and yet people persist in quoting the Letter of Aristeas as proof of the existence of the Septuagint before Christ. Many claim that Christ and his apostles used the Septuagint, preferring it above the preserved Hebrew text found in the temple and synagogues. But if the Greek Septuagint was the Bible Jesus used, he would not have said,

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

Because the jot is a Hebrew letter, and the tittle is a small mark to distinguish between Hebrew letters. If Jesus used the Greek Septuagint, His scriptures would not have contained the jot and tittle. He obviously used the Hebrew scriptures!

In addition, Jesus only mentioned the Hebrew text as "The Law and the Prophets" and "The Law of Moses, the Prophets and the Psalms":

"And he said unto them, These are the words which I spake unto you, while I was yet with you, that all things must be fulfilled, which were written in the law of Moses, and in the prophets, and in the psalms, concerning me." Luke 24:44

The Hebrews divide their Bible into three parts: the Law, the Prophets and the Writings. Jesus clearly referred to this. The Septuagint had no such division as the Hebrew text, so it was not the Septuagint Christ was refering to.

So what is it, and why the fraud or forgery. Well someone was trying to hide something and now we will see what it was..

The supposed text of the Septuagint is found today only in certain manuscripts. The main ones are: Codex Sinaiticus (Aleph); Codex Vaticanus (B); and Codex Alexandrinus (A) or as they are called, the Alexandrian Codices. You can see now the origin, the Alexandrian manuscripts are the very texts that are in the Septuagint. In his Introduction to The Septuagint with Apocrypha: Greek and English (1851) Sir Lancelot Brenton describes how some critical scholars have attempted to call the Septuagint by its real name, the Alexandrian Text, it is nothing but the corrupt Gnostic text used to support the gnosticism heresy, and picked up by those who reject the true manuscripts of the thousand manuscripts of the TEXTUS RECEPTUS or Received Text.

The story of the Septuagint was just a cover to make people believe that it was something older that Christ used, when in reality it is just as later corrupted Gnostic text that has many alterations and changes and not for the better. We have textual critics who try to force these corrupt Alexandrian manuscripts against more than 5,000 copies favoring the Textus Receptus. They use these few codices with their alterations and deletions to translate the new revisions of modern versions of the Bible. But these Alexandrian manuscripts not only put in the Greek line of thought which came to be known as Gnosticism, but also include the Septuagint Old Testament (with the Apocrypha) picking up Gnosticism phoilisophies and changes and alterations and in addition pagan mysteries and beliefs of the Apocrypha.

Now some textual critics argue the following: If you accept the Alexandrian text (which modern scholars use as the basis for all new translations) for your New Testament, then you also have to accept the rest of the Alexandrian text (Septuagint), which includes the Apocrypha. But do we really need any of the corrupted Alexandrian manuscripts?

Now the Alexandrian manuscripts which the Septuagint shows itself to be, makes it the same basic text as the Vaticanus and Sinaiticus which are part of a group of texts which are considered the "Minority" Texts, because they were not accepted into the mainstream as the texts were not in agreement with the manuscripts used by the majority of Christians and even these two texts do not even agree with one another. So they were considered unusable or corrupted text by Christians, yet in the 1800's two men, Westcott and Hort put together their version of the Greek New Testament text from the Minority Text which included Vaticanus and the Sinaiticus. Since Westcott and Horts version another revision was created called the Nestle/Aland. Nearly all of the new translations of the Bible are based upon one of these two Greek New Testaments and not the Textus Receptus. That means that the newer versions of the Bible are based on 5% of the manuscripts in stark contrast to 90% of the manuscripts which the KJV and older Bibles are based on.

The corrupt and unreliable nature of these two MSS (Sinaiticus and Vaticanus) is best summed up by one who has thoroughly examined them, John W Burgon:
"The impurity of the text exhibited by these codices is not a question of opinion but fact...In the Gospels alone, Codex B(Vatican) leaves out words or whole clauses no less than 1,491 times. It bears traces of careless transcriptions on every page…"

In the world today, there only really exists two classes of Bibles; those based upon the
Textus Receptus and those based upon the Westcott/Hort, Nestle/Aland Greek
New Testaments. If a person has a New International Version, New American Standard
Version, or Revised Standard Version, he is reading from the Westcott/Hort,
Nestle/Aland Greek New Testaments that are only supported by 5% of the
existing manuscripts since they use as their basis the Sinaiticus and Vaticanus.

When we understand the differences between the texts, all we have left to do is decide which source we find to be the most trustworthy--the Majority Text, from which the Kings James Bible comes and the scribes who did the text did a word for word translation, or the Alexandrian/Minority texts, which is the source material for almost every new Bible version since Westcott/Hort came out with their version.

You have to keep in mind that the "Septuagint" was not one compiled version but translations that were compiled and used in North Africa and Rome. The Alexandrian codices found their way into these translations or were the basis as we shall see. One of these translations was given the name but with so many versions from the Alexandrian codices, its hard to tell if there was only one. The Septuagint was seen as corrupted and rejected as valid Jewish scriptural texts for several reasons. First, because of the mistranslations and changes. Second, the Hebrew source texts used for the Septuagint differed from the Masoretic tradition of Hebrew texts, which was chosen as canonical by the Jewish rabbis.

Now in addition to the biblical text the Vulgate contains 17 prologues, 16 of which were written by Jerome. Jerome's prologues were written not so much as prologues but more as cover letters to specific individuals to accompany copies of his translations. Because they were not intended for a general audience, some of his comments in them are quite cryptic.

A recurring theme of the Old Testament prologues is Jerome's preference for the Hebraica veritas (i.e., Hebrew truth) to the Septuagint, a preference which he defended from his detractors. He stated that the Hebrew text more clearly prefigures Christ than the Greek text. The Latin Biblical texts in use before the Latin Vulgate of Jerome are usually referred to collectively as the Vetus Latina, or "Old Latin Bible", or occasionally the "Old Latin Vulgate". (Here "Old Latin" means that they are older than the Vulgate and written in Latin, not that they are written in Old Latin.) The translations in the Vetus Latina had accumulated piecemeal over a century or more in a haphazard manner; they were not translated by a single person or institution, nor uniformly edited so there was no standard as in the original Hebrew and Greek text of the Masoretic Text, and Textus Receptus. The individual books of that Vetus Latina varied in quality of translation and style, and different manuscripts witnessed wide variations in readings or did not agree with each other. Jerome, in his preface to the Vulgate gospels, commented that there were "as many [translations] as there are manuscripts". The reason can be found in that the Old Testament books of the Vetus Latina were translated from the Greek Septuagint which came from the Alexandrian codices, not from the Hebrew text of the Masoretic Text, and Textus Receptus.

Jerome's earliest efforts in translation, his revision of the four Gospels, was written under official sanction, but his version had little or no official recognition. Jerome's translated texts had to make their way on their own merits. The Old Latin versions or Vetus Latina continued to be copied and used alongside the Vulgate versions. Nevertheless, the superior quality of Jerome’s translation from the original Hebrew of the Vulgate texts led to their increasingly superseding the Old Latin/Vetus Latina; although the loss of familiar phrases and expressions aroused hostility in congregations; and, especially in North Africa and Spain where the Alexandrian text had spread and been picked up in the Old Latin/Vetus Latina..

Blessings,

Green Cochoa.

Your excellent list, Rich, indicates what tremendous work it is to find just the right manuscript. I see it as a task that is almost impossible. Your list shows which texts different English versions have checked as they were making their translations, but it does not indicate hw much, if any, have been incorporated from the various sources in any of the versions.

Take the information you give on the NIV:



The latest Nestle-Aland Greek New Testament texts have an apparatus which gives the translator a choice which text he uses in his translation. So your list does not give an indication which text is used as a base for each instance. Such a list would, as far as I can see, be a list of thousands of pages, in order to give any meaning in this connection.

Some more stuff on the Septuigent: Septuagint by Scroll Publishing

Some more on Greek usage by Palestinian Jews during NT times: http://www.hebrew4christians.com/Articles/Jesus_Hebrew/Greek_NT/greek_nt.html

So the question still is: KJV or RSV, or NIV, or whatever, does it really matter?