And I say also unto thee, that thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. (Matthew 16:18 KJV) It would seem that if, according to Christendom's doctrines, 90% or more of mankind will end up in eternal torment that the gates of hell will prevail, and mightily! Do you believe the Bible, or what most churches tell us about the fate of the wicked? If you say, "I believe in the Bible," then you are faced with the question of "which Bible?" You see, as translators have received more and more understanding of the original languages of the Bible, "hell" and it's "eternal" status are rapidly fading right off the pages of most Bible translations, including the conservative ones!
 

Recently, we received a copy of the Holy Scriptures produced by the Jewish Publication Society. Of course, being the Jewish Bible, it did not contain the New Testament. In reviewing it, we discovered some interesting things. One shocking observation was discovering hundreds of footnotes as the following: Exact meaning of Hebrew uncertain, syntax of Hebrew unclear, the traditional reading madhebah is of unknown meaning, grammar of Hebrew unclear, meaning of first line uncertain, meaning of verse uncertain in part, force of Hebrew uncertain, construction of the verses uncertain, etc.. This was very shocking. Those of us coming from a conservative Christian background are usually told the Bible is inerrant. The Jews were the guardians of the Old Testament who were extremely diligent to preserve the text that not one jot or tittle was added or removed. Nearly all Christian Bibles rely on the Jewish Masoretic Hebrew text for translating the Old Testament into current languages. How was it possible for the translators to produce an "inerrant" Bible, when the "guardians of the so called 'inerrant' Hebrew text", did not know the meaning of many words and passages?
 

Unfortunately, the problem does not lie with the Jews lack of understanding of their own language, but with a false doctrine perpetuated by fundamentalists for many years. The Doctrine of Biblical Inerrancy. This doctrine has caused Christian leaders to have to outright lie to maintain their position. They have to take plain facts and hide them from their followers. Because they have locked themselves into the teaching that the King James Bible is "the inerrant" translation of the "so-called" original texts, they have locked themselves into a position where lying, distorting, and name calling are the only options left to maintain their ground. They say the 66 books of the present King James Bible are inerrant, but they don't tell you it lacks 14 entire books which were in the original King James of 1611. They don't tell you the King James Bible has been changed many times in the last 350 years and there have been thousands of corrections! They don't tell you the King James Bible was never authorized by anyone. They don't tell you the original KJV had a calendar of annual Holy days which all believers were to follow such as: Purification of the virgin Mary, annunciation of our Lady, Innocents day, etc.. They don't tell you the Greek text used by the King James translators produced by Erasmus, a Roman Catholic humanist monk, did not have manuscripts that contained all 27 books of the New Testament, so he borrowed out of the Latin Catholic Vulgate! No, they can't tell you these things because that would be the end of the lie which has kept them in business.
 

As we browsed through this excellent Old Testament translation, marvelling that these Jewish scholars were not ashamed to tell the world they were not perfect and therefore could not produce an inerrant translation, we noticed something else even more startling than the footnotes. We couldn't find the word "hell," even once! This was incredible! The very foundation of Christianity, the Old Testament, three quarters of the Bible, and the word "hell" could not be found. In searching dozens of English translations of the Old Testament, to our absolute amazement, the word "hell" could not be found in most of the leading translations. Abraham, Moses, David, and all the rest of the peoples of the Old Testament only knew one place where all people went, good or bad . . . Sheol, the grave, the place of the departed.

This information aroused our curiosity. The thought occurred: how many times is the word "hell" used in the Christian Bible. Surely, with as much as is taught about the subject in most present day churches, one would think this word would appear hundreds, perhaps even thousands of times in the Bible. The word "heaven(s)" occurs 603 times in the leading Christian English Bible translation, the New International Version. The New American Standard has the word heaven(s) 635 times. To our absolute amazement, the word "hell" in the New International occurred only 14 times! The New American Standard had it 13 times! What was even more astounding was that, like the Jewish Old Testament, neither of these leading Bibles has the word "hell" in the Old Testament! The creator, according to these top selling Bibles, agreed with the Jewish Old Testament that the concept of the place of eternal torment for the unrighteous could not be found in the first three quarters of the Bible. Adam was not warned of "hell." Abraham never heard of "hell." Moses, who brought the Creator's Law into the world warned that "the wages of sin is death," Sheol, the grave. He never ever warned about being roasted, toasted, and endlessly tortured. David, when chasing after Bathsheba, suffered the consequences of his sin, but eternal torment was not on his mind. How could the Creator be so thoughtless, and not warn millions of people of a fate they did not even know awaited them? Could this be just? Could this be loving?

Having several thousand dollars of Bible research software and dozens of English Bible translations, we wanted to see if these top respected English Bibles (NIV, NASB, etc.) just made a serious mistake or whether we stumbled on to something which should cause us to reevaluate what we have just accepted because we heard it so many times and just assumed was correct. Most of us picture an apple tree as the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, but you won't find it in any Bible, none of them! Most of us, I am sure, when thinking of the Passover, think of a lamb, but a goat was equally acceptable. Our minds have been doctrinally contaminated by traditions much more than perhaps we are willing to admit.

Of the many English Bible translations we searched, the King James Bible had the most number of cases where we found the word "hell" in the Old Testament. It translated the Hebrew word "Sheol" as "grave" 31 times, "hell" 31 times, and "pit" 3 times. Almost without exception, all the other leading Protestant Bibles didn't have the nerve to do what the King's translators did, that is, take the Hebrew word "Sheol" where everyone went, according to the Old Testament teachings, and divide it into "hell," a place for the unrighteous, and "grave" or "pit," presumably the place for the righteous. They translated this word according to their theology, and not according to the Hebrew. Most of the translations did not have the word "hell" in any part of the Old Testament. The ones that did, have mentioned it only a handfull of times, always from the Hebrew word "Sheol" which they translated the vast majority of times "grave, underworld, etc.." Those translations that use the word "hell" are so inconsistent with it, that it is impossible to determine which Scriptures clearly refers to "hell" and which refers to "grave." Where one translation had "hell," another had "grave." In other words, those translations that tried to put "hell" into the Old Testament couldn't agree with each other as to which verses spoke of "hell" and which spoke of the "grave."

People, if the love of Christ is in your hearts, this should cause you to really look into this. This world needs to be set free of false images and concepts of our wonderful Father. Please meditate on this very thoughtfully and prayerfully. If eternal torment is the penalty for sin and the Creator did not want anyone ending up there, then it should stand to reason that He would make the warning as absolutely clear as He could make it. If He is not a respecter of persons, as He claims in the New Testament, then that warning should be loud and clear to all mankind, past, present, and future. But the fact of the matter is that Adam was never warned, he was warned the penalty would be death, not eternal torment. Thousands upon thousands were born after Adam and they were never warned. Moses came along and gave to Israel His Law, which was binding only to Israel, and it mentioned that the wages of sin was death, not eternal torment. He wrote about blessings and cursing in this lifetime, not of some pending judgment which would set one's course for all eternity. He destroyed Sodom for great sin and promised to restore them one day and give them to Jerusalem as a daughter. (Ezekiel chapter 16) According to the Mosaic Law, the blessings and cursings dealing with the Law dealt with this lifetime, not with eternity. The consequence of breaking Moses Law was cursings in this lifetime, the greatest of which was a shortened life through an early death. Period!

David, the man with a heart after the heavenly Father, also had a heart after married women. He got one of them pregnant, and had her husband killed in one of his wars so that he wouldn't get caught. See how David paid the price for his sin in this lifetime. He does not warn you in His prophetic Psalms of the place he is going because of his sins. Read the Prophets and you will not find a place of eternal torment for the wicked after death and a place of paradise for the righteous. If the Creator loved us and created such a horrible place for most of mankind, he would surely have plastered the warning everywhere. Yet the Old Testament in most English translations which is three quarters of the Bible, is silent. The handfull of translations that occasionally use the word do not agree with each other as to which verses speak of "hell" as a place of eternal punishment. Is God the author of confusion? No, Sheol is the grave. Very simple and very plain.

Compare Jonah 2:2 from various translations:

• Original King James Version: 1611

  And said, I cried by reason of mine affliction vnto the LORD, and hee heard mee; out of the belly of hell cried I, and thou heardest my voyce.

  The spelling is exactly as in the original. English has changed much since 1611. The original has a note in the margins about the word "hell." It says "or, the grave." Later editions took the marginal readings out to conform to the mythical standard of an "inerrant Bible." Marginal alternative renderings showed that translators were uncertain of the meaning. This did not conform to the "inerrant" idea so the marginal readings, which sometimes were more correct than the text, were taken out in later editions. Please note if Jonah was in "hell," as the KJV has it, then Jonah escaped from a place where, according to modern theologians, there is no escape.

  
  
• The New American Standard Bible: 1977

  and he said, "I called out of my distress to the LORD, And He answered me. I cried for help from the depth of Sheol; Thou didst hear my voice."

• The New International Version: 1973

  He said: "In my distress I called to the Lord, and he answered me. From the depthes of the grave I called for help, and you listened to my cry.

• The Living Bible: 1971

  "In my great trouble I cried to the Lord and he answerd me; from the depths of death I called, and Lord, you heard me!"

• The Holy Bible from Ancient Eastern Manuscripts (Lamsa): 1957

  I cried to the Lord in my distress and he answered me; out of the depths of Sheol cried I, and thou heardest my voice.

• Good News Bible: 1976

  "In my distress, O Lord, I called to you, and you answered me. From deep in the world of the dead I cried for help, and you heard me."

• The Holy Bible an American Translation: 1976

  ...and said: "In my distress I called to the Lord, and He answered me. From the belly of the underworld I cried, and You heard my voice."

• New Catholic Liturgical Bible: 1963

  Jona 2:3 Out of my distress I called to the Lord, and he answered me; from the midst of the nether world I cried for help, and you heard my voice.

• New Revised Standard Version: 1989

  ...saying, "I called to the Lord out of my distress, and he answered me; out of the belly of Sheol I cried, and you heard my voice."

• The Amplified Bible: 1965

  And said, I cried out of my distress to the Lord, and He heard me; out of the belly of Sheol cried I, and You heard my voice.

• The New King James Version: 1985

  And he said: "I cried out to the Lord because of my affliction, And He answered me. Out of the belly of Sheol I cried, and You heard my voice.

As we can see, after 350 years of saying Jonah was in "hell," the New King James finally admitted he wasn't there after all. He was in Sheol, like everyone else who has died. Many people have come out of the grave. The Bible is full of examples.
 

These are just some of the popular translations that have done the Old Testament a bit of justice when translating "Sheol." "Hell" cannot even be found in the Old Testament in dozens of English translations, many of which are accepted by mainstream conservative churches. This should cause them to study this issue out, but so far it seems they are oblivious to the facts. Perhaps in the next century the latest popular translations will see fit to give the New Testament the same treatment with Hades, Gehenna, and Tartarus. Many are now realizing that they have been in error translating these words "hell" as well. More and more Bibles are sorting things out and discovering the pagan concept of "hell" doesn't belong in the Bible at all. We believe as we get closer to the original languages of the Bible, that that awful word "hell" will totally disappear from the pages of Scripture.
 

In the Old Testament, good and evil men both went to "Sheol" at death. One Sheol, one place of death for all men.
 

In the New Testament, three words were translated into "hell" by the King James translators: Hades (unseen), Gehenna (Jerusalem's city dump), and Tartarus (Greek mythology's prison for the Titans). None of these words is the "lake of fire" in Revelation. Most Bibles since the KJV have abandoned the poor translating of all these words into "hell." The many different ways each translation handles these words is beyond the scope of this booklet. It would require a full size book to document it all. We will just say, almost all Bibles have abandoned the KJV's handling of these words. Search it out for yourself. It will be a most enlightening study.
 

The concept of evil men going to a place of torment after death first appeared in Jewish apocryphal writings of 3 to 1 B.C. These writings came from the thoughts of the Babylonian religions which the Jews brought back with them from Babylon. It was these books which spoke of eternal separation of good and evil and equating it to man's ultimate fate. Many Jews mixed these teachings with Judaism which brought about great problems. These writings, found their way into the Greek Septuagint. The Septuagint was used by the early Church. From there these writings got into the Latin Vulgate. Early English translations relied heavily on the Latin Vulgate. Those that used the Greek, also relied heavily upon the Septuagint. The early English translations were either translated from the Latin with the Apocrypha, or the Septuagint, which also contained the Apocrypha. Each translation also relied heavily on other translations. Tyndale, for example, borrowed greatly from Martin Luther. The King James directly copied much from previous translations that came directly from the Latin Vulgate. Many of the early Common Language Bibles contained the Apocryphal writings. These writings had a great effect on their view of things and on how to translate other portions of the Bible. Jewish Bibles of today do not contain them. They do not belong in the Scriptures! But the Roman Catholic Bibles, Orthodox Bibles, and the original King James Bible as well as many early Common language Bibles contained them. As the Roman Catholic church and Protestant denominations begin to hold hands again, Protestant translations are beginning to add the Apocryphal Writings to the Bible again. This is not wise.

As I mentioned earlier, a loving Creator would trumpet the warning very loud, clear, and often, if eternal punishment was the fate of the unrighteous. English Bible translations generally have between 600,000 and 700,000 words. Question. If the Old Testament is basically void of warnings of eternal torment, how many times would you expect a loving Father to warn you in the New Testament if such a horrible fate was His plan for the "unrighteous." The New Testament contains 27 books. Would you expect Him to mention the word "hell" a thousand times? Would 500 times be enough. He used the word "heaven" over 600 times. Would you be surprised if He mentioned it only 100 times? Could He be so cold hearted as to only mention it 50 times? Surely, He would most definitely mention it at least once in each New Testament Book! Right? Wrong! Most translations that mention it at all, mention it only 12 to 14 times, the King James being the King of Hell mentioning only it 22 times in the New Testament, not even once per book! Many translations don't even mention the word "hell" even once! Now if the Creator is the All-Powerful, All-Knowing, Sovereign One, surely He did a terrible job of warning mankind of their terrible fate. . .if eternal punishment awaited them.

Think of it, He gave a commission to Paul the Apostle to write almost half the New Testament. Paul was to declare the Gospel of the uncircumcision to the whole world. Would you believe it if we told you Paul, the apostle to the nations, never used the word "hell" once? King James didn't put the word in Paul's mouth, NIV didn't do it, NASB didn't have the nerve. Check them out. Check every Bible you can get your hands on. The one responsible to warn the nations of the whole world. . .and he forgot to use that nasty little word "hell." Either Paul was very irresponsible or His boss was. . .or maybe our theology is very irresponsible. Who do you think missed it? Perhaps we should look into our own backyard before we accuse the Creator, or Paul, of being irresponsible. But one thing is certain, if one's eternal future is determined in this lifetime, and Paul, as a bondservant to Christ, was to make plain the truth, he plainly forgot to mention that "hell" was part of the deal.

For many of you this information may come as a shock. You have been so preconditioned through tradition that the tree in the garden was an apple tree, the Passover animal was only a lamb, and that hell was plastered all over the Bible, that this article is probably a bit unnerving. It was extremely painful for me (Gary Amirault) when researching Bible translations to come across the fact that in 1851 the American Bible Society compared six different editions of the King James Bible and discovered over 24,000 variations between the editions of the same Bible translation! How could there be an inerrant King James Bible when even the different editions of the King James Bible had ten's of thousands of variant readings!? I was told by tradition not to question the inerrant King James Bible. No one ever told me that even in the very first year of the King James Bible, two different printings of the very same King James were not the same. No one ever told me that the editions of the KJV up until the 19th century contained 14 additional books not in today's editions. We have an exact reprint of one of the 1611 printings that contains books such as: The idole Bel and the Dragon, 1 Maccabees, 2 Maccabees, The prayer of Manasseh, Tobit, Judith, the Song of the Three Children, Baruch, etc.. Can you find these books in a present edition of the King James Bible? If the Doctrine of Biblical Inerrancy is a true doctrine, which of the many editions of the KJV is the inerrant one? The original one contained books no longer in the present editions. Have these publishers "taken away from the Word?" Will the plagues of Revelation be on your head because you are using a KJV missing 14 books?

The Bible Inerrancy Camp and the King James Only Camp teach that we have a perfect Greek text or imply it. It is called the "Textus Receptus" by the KJV camp which is Latin for "Received Text." They teach this text was available to the King James translators which allowed them to produce an inerrant English translation. Historical records regarding this "Textus Receptus" proves their view to be totally false.

First of all, the term "Textus Receptus" first appears in a second edition of Stephanus Greek text produced by the Elzevire Brothers in 1633, twenty two years after the King James Bible was printed! It was an advertising pitch as false as most commercials are today. The so-called Textus Receptus began it's debut in 1516. It started as a work which took a self-proclaimed "humanist" Roman Catholic monk only several months to, in his own words "throw together rather than edit." One critic in England called it the "least carefully printed book ever published." Erasmus in trying to be the first to get a Greek text in print, threw together in a few months what it took his competitors at Alcala de Henares University many years to assemble. The University's text came to be known as the Complutensian Polyglott. Erasmus only had a handful of very late manuscripts to work from, none of which contained the complete Greek New Testament, so he filled in the gaps from the Latin Vulgate. That is why the Textus Receptus has words that do not agree with any known Greek text. He corrected his text in 4 subsequent editions. In the mid 1500's a man named Stephanus took Erasmus text, and combined it with the Complutensian Text. He produced several editions making changes along the way. The Stephanus text, which the King James translators used differed from the self-proclaimed "Textus Receptus" in 287 places. There are no known Greek manuscripts that agree "inerrantly" with either the Textus Receptus or the Stephanus text. Erasmus, the originator of the so-called "inerrant" Greek text later to be called the "Textus Receptus" dedicated his work to Pope Leo X who later would condemn Luther and the Reformation. For a full account of this sad chapter of church deception, read The Text of the New Testament by Bruce Metzger. Foundation Press in Anaheim, California also has some valuable information.

The teaching that the King James translators had a perfect Greek text is denied by the translators themselves. In the original edition of 1611 are marginal notes as follows: Note on Luke 17:36, "This 36th verse is wanting in most of the Greek copies." Note on Acts 25:6 where their text reads: "When he had tarried among them more than ten days," they inserted the following marginal note: "or, as some copies read, 'no more than eight or ten days.'" Unfortunately notes such as these as well as much other information contained in the Original KJV have been removed to support the "Inerrancy" fraud. Enough . . . of this sad chapter of Bible translating. If I got into the personal lives of the people involved here, it would make Hollywood jealous. Often "KJV Only" writers use smear tactics to discredit other translations. They freely use character assination as a screen to throw people off from searching things out for themselves. If we got into the personalities of the people involved in this chapter of Bible productions , we wouldn't have to smear. The truth would shock you! But our desire is not to dishonor anyone, our purpose is to set people free of error which is holding them in bondage to false doctrines and keeping them in bondage to men and women who use the Scriptures deceitfully. Let us go on.

There was a time when Bible writing was strictly in the hands of the church. The end result was the church put the Bible into a "Sacred" language called Latin which common people in latter times could not and were not allowed to read. It was called the Vulgate. The common people could not read the Scriptures in their native tongue of English, German, French, etc.. Getting caught with any portion of the Scriptures in your native language could get one killed by the church! Please believe us. This is true. The Roman Catholic, Greek Orthodox, Russian Orthodox churches did not want Christians or non-Christians reading the Scriptures.

When the first Common Language Bibles began to appear in the languages of the world, the state and church still had much control over the wording, who could read it, and which translations one could read. An Anglican Protestant was not allowed to read a Lutheran Bible. King James did not want the people of England to read the English Geneva Bible produced by John Calvin and his associates. Church leaders used the notes in the Geneva Bible as Scriptural support to tell the King how to rule. Before James the first was king of England, he was King James the sixth of Scotland. The Presbyterians caused him much trouble and their favorite Bible was the Geneva Bible. King James commissioned the King James Bible because of political reasons, not because of a love of the Creator. The English were strongly being influenced by the marginal notes in the Geneva Bible which states that the people of a monarchy had the right to overthrow that monarchy if it did not line up with Scripture? King James believed in the "Divine Right of the King." He called the Geneva Bible "seditious." Therefore, he commissioned the King James Bible. He gave the committee 15 rules which they had to abide by while translating his Bible. Several of those selected for the committee resigned because of these stipulations. This list is printed in most well researched Bible translations reference books. We will mention just a couple to show you that this version was not going to be pure nor "inerrant." "1. The ordinary Bible read in the Church, commonly called the Bishops Bible, to be followed, and as little altered as the Truth of the original will permit." (Doesn't sound like a "new" translation , does it?) "3. The Old Ecclesiastical Words to be kept, viz. The word church not be translated Congregation &c." (This was to insure the old Roman Catholic\Anglican rituals, ordinances, and doctrines be not altered. They couldn't change the word baptize into immerse, for example.) "4. When a Word hath divers Significations, that to be kept which hath been most commonly used by the most of the Ancient Fathers, being agreeable to the Propriety of the Place, and the Analogy of the Faith." (In others words, they must abide by the "traditions of the elders." Remember Jesus' words, "You have made the word of God of none effect by your traditions?)

These examples should be enough to show one that the King James translators were not "anointed by God" to produce an authentically original translation free from political and denominational bias. They were "appointed by James" for political and monetary reasons. King James didn't put a penny into the project, but he could make money out of the project since it was his Bible. Not only were the translators not "anointed," but the King's printers weren't anointed either. The early printings had printers errors which were down right embarrassing for a so-called "inerrant" Bible. In one edition they forgot to put the word not in the 7th commandment!

The translator's have this to their credit. They noted in the preface to the reader that they only took previous men's work and hoped to make a better one, knowing others would follow them and produce even a better one yet. This preface has been also removed from present day King James Bibles because it does not conform to the fundamentalist's "inerrancy" teachings. That is why the translators preface is no longer printed in current King James Bibles. We have made several tapes dealing with the many misconceptions and untruths proclaimed about the KJV. We mention here, only a few points to clearly show that the teaching of an "inerrant" KJV is a pure myth.
 

In 1611 two separate editions of the KJV were printed. They came to be known as the "Great He Bible" and the "Great She Bible" because one printed Ruth 3:15 as "he went" and the other printed "she went." These two original King James Bibles, printed in the first year this Bible was issued, had several thousands differences. When asked to endorse the KJV, Hugh Broughton, foremost Hebrew scholar of England at that time said he would rather "be rent to pieces by wild horses than have had any part in the urging of such a wretched version of the Bible on the poor people." We have printed a list of material at the back of this booklet which will give one much information about Bible translating and what pastors don't want their congregation to know about it..

It is vital to understand that when the Roman Catholic, Greek Orthodox, and Russian Orthodox church removed the Scriptures from the common people, these churches were then able to bring in hundreds of pagan doctrines, idols, and false religious rites. The mythologies of the Romans, Greeks, Teutons, Norse, Druids etc. were incorporated into church teaching which produced great darkness. Read about the dark ages of Europe which were brought about by Christian leaders, the popes, bishops, cardinals, and kings appointed by the pope.

When the Reformation began, the minds of Christian leaders were so cluttered by superstition and false doctrines that the progress they made in breaking away from the total darkness of Romanism was really only a small step out of darkness. We forget that the Anglican Church began, not because of Godly reasons, but from political and personal ones. Also don't forget, King James was much more interested in a Bible to support his view of the "divine right of the king" than to produce an inerrant Bible. Church historians have glorified the Reformation far beyond what was really accomplished. Today, we still have a long way to go.