Bible Modifications

The Church History have a significant impact on how translators interpret and modified the Bible to fit their doctrines.

Changes to support the Trinity doctrine

  • God's name was removed (which blur the difference between God with Jesus).
  • Some bibles capitalized all references to Jesus to imply that Jesus is God.
  • "The word" is capitalized to imply that Jesus as God.
  • "The Word" and "the Holy Spirit" were personified in favour of the Trinity doctrine.
  • Adding words to the bible in favour of the Trinity, for example compare 1 John 5:7-8 in KJV with other translations like ESV, NIV, NLT, NASB95, DARBY, CSB, HCSB.
  • Unrelated cross-references were added, for example supposed references to Jesus in the Old Testament to "proof" that Jesus is God.
  • Some bibles print Jesus' words in a bold red color, but God's words are printed in the usual font, for example Luke 3:22 NIV. This gives the impression that only Jesus is God or that Jesus' words are more important than God's.
  • The "with" preposition was changed to "in" (to make Jesus seem more god-like).

Changes to make the bible less Jewish or more Christian

  • Persons' names were changed (to make it English, but lost the meaning of those names).
  • Books' names were changed (to make it less Jewish, but it distorts the purpose of some books).
  • The division between the Old Testament and the New Testament (to deprecate the "Jewish laws" as being taught by the book of Hebrew).
  • Certain keywords were changed for example:
    • "assembly of Jesus' disciples" -> "church" (this replaces discipleship or the body of Christ with a church system)
    • "Messiah" -> "Christ" (in favour of Christianity)
    • "Torah" -> "law" (which discourages people to study the deprecated those "laws" of the "Old" Testament)
  • Terms like "the cross" and "crucifixion" were added in favour of Christianity which is identified with a cross symbol.
  • Terms like "communion", "the Lord's Supper", "Eucharist" and so forth were added in favour of church creeds.

Changes made for convenience

  • Some books were omitted (to support the early church father's views).
  • Some books were added (to support the early church father's views).
  • The order of the books were changed (to find popular books first at the cost of the chronological order of events).
  • Chapters and verses were added (to lookup verses quickly, but at the cost of losing the context of the text).
  • Footnotes and titles were added in favour of the translator's views.
  • Certain keywords were changed for example:
    • "the authority of ..." -> "the name of ..." (it is easier to call a magic "name", than to submit under authority)
    • "revelation of a secret" -> "mystery" (to escape contradictions)
  • Punctuation and quotation makes were added according to the translator's view (for example compare John 3 in different bible translations where it is unclear where Jesus' dialogue stops and where John's commentary starts)
  • The devil was given the name "Satan" (to identify him, but honours him as an important person).