Mightv Men's Hearts

“Kerioth is taken, and the strongholds are surprised, and the mightv men’s hearts in Moab at that day shall be as the heart of a woman in her pangs.” Jeremiah 48:41

The extremism of Nic Kizziah is very unfortunate but must obviously be a compliment to Bible critics. Mister Kizziah has an article on the internet called “Believers Beware of Counterfeit King James Bibles” (http://www.biblebelievers.com/believers-org/counterfeit-kjv.html). In this article, he makes a big issue out of spelling differences in different editions of the King James Bible. For example, ‘asswaged’ or ‘assuaged’, ‘throughly’ or ‘thoroughly’, ‘morter’ or ‘mortar’, ‘to day’ or ‘today’, ‘further’ or ‘farther’, ‘musick’ or ‘music’. He goes so far as to call King James Bibles with American spellings (instead of English spellings) and more modern spellings (instead of the older spellings) counterfeit Bibles. I can see proponents of corrupt Bible versions standing off on the sideline, laughing, as they watch ‘Bible believers’ conducting this kind of nonsense and finding so called errors in perfectly good King James Bibles. After giving a list of 28 word spelling differences in a 3 column chart, showing the Scripture Reference, ‘The Real Bible’ spelling, and the ‘Counterfeit’ spelling, he says, “This is just a very short list of the changes being made by some of the worldly publishing companies. If you find one counterfeit word then that is a pretty good indication there are many more. Don't buy that Bible, check elsewhere.”

If this is really an important issue, why doesn’t Brother Kizziah give us the complete list?

Now in his list, only the first one might be of any real importance. This is the difference between ‘heaven’ and ‘heavens’ in Genesis 1:1. I haven’t seen a King James Bible with the word ‘heavens’ in Genesis 1:1. If I did see one like that, I probably wouldn’t buy it. But I have seen a ‘King James Bible’ with the word ‘wot’ changed to ‘know’. I had purchased one like that many years ago. After discovering the word change, I returned the ‘bible’. The word ‘wot’ is in the Bible 10 times. Wot is an acronym for word of truth which is what the Bible calls itself. The definition of ‘wot’ is easily discernable in its context. This is an implication that the word of truth is easily discernable with the Spirit of God. The word ‘wot’ should remain in the Bible. The word ‘heaven’ or ‘heavens’ in Genesis 1:1 would be of concern except for the fact that it could easily be a typographical error.

In the 2nd paragraph of his article, Kizziah calls the spelling changes in his list “minor changes”. If they are minor then they do not constitute counterfeit words and counterfeit bibles. Counterfeit bibles are books like the NIV, NASV, NKJV, etc. These versions have Major word and meaning changes that affect the truth of the text. He also says, in his 3rd paragraph, “To the best of my understanding this [the standard text of the Holy Bible] is the 1769 edition of the 1611 King James Bible with a few minor printing errors and spellings corrected along the way in the 1800's.” Now stop and think for a moment. How was it ok to make spelling changes in the 1800s but spelling differences are not ok today? Mister Kizziah is contradicting himself.

“All the common ordinary Bible believer wants is the same Bible that his grandmother had and the same Bible her grandmother had and the same Bible her grandmother had etc. that's all.” (Kizziah, 2nd paragraph.)

I checked the verses in Kizziah’s list in a 1863 and a 1871 Bible both published by the American Bible Society and a 1870s Bible published by F.M Dillie & Co. The results follow:

1. All three Bibles have the ‘counterfeit’ spelling of ‘assuaged’ in Genesis 8:1.
2. All three have ‘thoroughly’ in Genesis 11:3. (The ABS Bibles also have ‘thoroughly’ in 2 Timothy 3:17.
3. All three have ‘mortar’ in Genesis 11:3.
4. All three have ‘entreat’ in Genesis 23:8.
5. All three have ‘inquire’ in Genesis 24:57.
6-10. All three have ‘basins’, ‘jubilee’, ‘music’, ‘cloak’, and ‘public’.
11. The ABS editions has ‘always’ in Exodus 25:30.
12. The Bible Association Of Friends In America 1831 edition of the New Testament has ‘public’ in Matthew 1:19 but has ‘throughly’ in 2 Timothy 3:17.
13. The Dillie has ‘to-day’ instead of ‘to day’ in Genesis 21:26.
The Dillie also has the following:
14. ‘chesnut-tree’ in Genesis 30:37.
15. Lower case ‘s’ in Genesis 41:38.
16. ‘to-morrow’ in Exodus 8:23.
17. ‘rere-ward’ in Numbers 10:25.
18. ‘two-edged’ in Psalm 149:6, Proverbs 5:4, Hebrews 4:12, and Revelation 1:16.
19. The ABS Bibles have ‘or’ in Joshua 19:2.
20. The Dillie Bible has ‘and’ in Joshua 19:2.

I have yet to see a Cambridge Bible from the 1800s to check. But look at the sad shape my great grand father, Warren Jefferson Alford, Jr. [1863-1925] was in if his Bible was like one of my old ones instead of a Cambridge (or the ‘real Bible’ Cambridge). And my great great grand father, Warren Jefferson Alford, Sr. [1831-1898] could have had a ‘counterfeit’ Bible with the 1831 Friends New Testament. I also have an ABS pocket New Testament dated 1864 with a clasp to keep it closed. This pocket Testament was possibly owned by a Civil War soldier. It is too bad, isn’t it, that a war soldier couldn’t go into battle with a ‘Real Bible’ if he had an ABS. The ABS soldier’s pocket Testament not only has ‘public’ in Matthew 1:19, but it also has ‘thoroughly’ in 2 Timothy 3:17.

Kizziah mentions, in his 5th paragraph, “The Bible of our forefathers”. Then, later, speaking of a Bible he had purchased, he says, “IT’S A COUNTERFEIT! It’s not the Bible of my forefathers!” Now you can see from the information I have given about the old Bibles from the 1800s that I own, the Bibles of our forefathers had the same spelling variations that we have today. The Bibles of our forefathers also had the variation of ‘or’ or ‘and’ in Joshua 19:2. So, Brother Nic Kizziah has obviously failed to do his homework (research) before spouting off a bunch of silly, nonsense about something so unimportant.

My Large Print Cambridge Bible that I have used since 1989 has a few mistakes in it too. The most noticeable one is in Jeremiah 48:41 where the word ‘mighty’ is misspelled as ‘mightv’. This is an obvious spelling mistake and probably just a typographical error. This misspelled word does not constitute a textual error. It does not affect the truth of the text. Anyone can see that the word is ‘mighty’ misspelled.

Now what Kizziah is doing (intentionally or unintentionally) is surprising the strong holds of good Christian men. And this stupid ranting about minor differences which do not change “the truth of God into a lie” is causing “mighty men’s hearts” to “be as the heart of a woman in her pangs”.


Other mistakes in my Bible:

Exodus 23:15 – The ‘.’ should be ‘:’.

Numbers 12:12 – The verse has 2 lines at the bottom left column and 2 lines at the top right column. The word ‘consumed’ is split with ‘con’ in the 2nd line and ‘sumed’ in the 3rd line. The mistake is that there is no hyphen between the two syllables.

Numbers 23:30 – There is no period (.) at the end of the sentence.

Deuteronomy 22:3 – The word ‘thing’ should be plural.

2 Chronicles 13:19 – Should ‘Ephrain’ be ‘Ephraim’ ?

In conclusion, if you will read all the verses in the Bible that have the words ‘err’, ‘error’ or other forms of the word, you should find that the Bible defines an error as a false statement. So, let’s be sensible and defend the truth of God without wasting our God given time and effort on petty, meaningless nonsense.