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Important Information About THE JUBILEE BIBLE ... by Russell Stendal, July 12, 2002 Dear Friends, For some time now I have been thinking of writing a little article addressing the question that I know has been on some of your minds, Why another English Bible translation? Why did you spend so much time on the Jubilee Bible? Let me start with a little background. My father, who has a Masters degree in linguistics with emphasis on New Testament Greek, had been in charge of the technical work for the Wycliffe Bible Translators in Colombia and Panama where translations were in progress in 42 languages until he retired from Wycliffe in 1975. Since that time he (and I) have been working primarily with the Spanish speaking people of Colombia and also with a couple of Indian tribes such as the Kogis on the north coast of Colombia, where my parents have finished a New Testament translation. Nineteen years ago I started writing and translating books into Spanish during and after I was kidnapped for five months by the guerrillas. As far as languages in the world, Spanish is the second most important language after English in this hemisphere and possibly in the world (there are about 500 million Spanish speakers in the world and about 600 million English speakers plus millions more who read or speak Spanish or English as a second language). Imagine my surprise when I was in the midst of translating a book that was about 40 per cent Scripture (the main theme pointed out some of the historic problems of Roman Catholicism in Latin America and elsewhere) and I could not find a Spanish Bible translation which would clearly reflect the essence of the Scripture portions from the English King James Bible embedded in the book I was attempting to translate. I finally had to settle for the Spanish Reina-Valera 1960 revision (which is similar in many ways to the English RSV). This was much better than the NIV or the Living Bible or any of the Catholic versions available down here such as the Nacar-Colunga or the Jerusalem Bible but some references and some of the key terminology had been changed when the Bibles were revised under the guise of modernizing the language. I finally began a search into the history of the Spanish Bible and turned up some amazing facts. The original translation by a man named Casiodoro de Reina had been published in 1569 and then revised and republished in 1602 by Cipriano de Valera (thus the subsequent editions were called Reina-Valera). The original translation was built on two previous editions of the New Testament done by Francisco de Encinas and Juan Pineda (this latter with Psalms). This Bible was then revised in the 1800's and again in 1909 prior to the 1960 revision which was circulating in most of the evangelical churches of Colombia. The 1909 Reina-Valera is, in my opinion, almost as good as the King James Bible in English having a couple of problems that are foreign to the King James but for the most part following the Texus Receptus or Received Text (the same original manuscripts from which the King James (and its English precursors) were translated from.

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There are two basic families of Bible texts. 1.The Texus Receptus or Received Text (which accounts for 90 per cent or more of the manuscripts and which all agree among themselves) and 2.Deviant manuscripts which do not agree in many areas with the Received Text or with one another. The Received Text has its name because of the practice started by the early church of making a new copy of a Scripture text when the old copy started to get worn and tattered. Then after the new copy was made and carefully compared with the original, the old copy was always destroyed before it disintegrated into fragments (they didn't want bits and pieces floating around which could then be twisted or garbled with ease). Therefore the oldest Texus Receptus manuscripts are ninth to eleventh century (and for instance, Isaiah from the Texus Receptus agrees perfectly with the Dead Sea Scrolls). The deviant manuscripts have two in particular that are famous- named Codex Vaticanus and Codex Sineticus - supposedly from the fourth century. The first was supposed to have been “lost” in the Vatican for over a thousand years and the second was also "lost" in a monastery near Mt. Sinai for close to twelve hundred years. Neither agrees well with one another and both have evidence of influence from the wealthy of Alexandria, who were the rich intellectuals of the era. Both are written on expensive skins instead of on papyrus or other forms of paper as with most of the Texus Receptus. The King James as well as the translation by Casiodoro de Reina in Spanish are both direct descendants of the Texus Receptus. There were two main problems, however with the 1909 Reina Valera Spanish Bible. 1). Although Cipriano de Valera did many good things in his revision, he was a proponent of an extreme view of the Doctrine of Predestination which affected his edition of the Spanish Bible to the extent that he narrowed down the possibility of free will either for man or for God. In his view everything was so predestined that both man and God were now seemed to just be actors fulfilling predetermined roles. (One of the end consequences of this extreme doctrine is that it really puts the damper on evangelism). Upon close examination (checking his work against the original work of Casiodoro de Reina), I found that he had changed many words and had even eliminated close to 2000 words from the New Testament in an all out attempt to make his doctrinal views prevail. Later in the 1980's the Baptists attempted a revision of the Reina-Valera but it is not readily available In Colombia in published form, just on the Internet. 2). The 1602 Reina-Valera tongue~twisters that are the product of the Spanish Age of Romanticism affected this edition so as to make certain passages almost unpronounceable (even experienced orators would have to practice and practice in order to read certain passages in public). The final event which had the effect of catapulting me into a Spanish Bible Edition project was when the Bible Society (which produces over 90 per cent of the Bibles down here - the other 10 per cent are Roman Catholic) decided to discontinue first the 1909 Reina Valera, and then they also started to phase out the 1960 Reina Valera in favor of a 1995 revision that they had done and a paraphrase Bible called Dios Habla Hoy complete with Deutercanonical (Apocryphal) books all approved by the Roman Catholics. (Later I found out that the Bible Society had been infiltrated and just about taken over by the Roman Catholics...they even had homosexual priests working on their Bible revisions!) I was able to obtain an original copy of the 1569 Spanish Bible translated by Casiodoro de Reina, and I was delighted to note that it did not have the flowery tongue twisters of the 1909 revision. It also contained the 2000 or so words that had been deleted by Valera in 1602 (when the Baptists did their revision they used the 1602 revision as their base and so were never able to undo the part of the damage that was inherent in the 1602 Bible). The 1569 edition did have some antique grammar and outdated spelling and punctuation which I began to work on. As I

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worked, I also began to compare the old Spanish with the old English translations starting with the King James and working also with the original work of William Tyndale (much of the key wording of the King James Bible is vintage Tyndale). I began to notice that some verses in the King James really shined and that the old English translation was clearer than the Spanish in some areas and vice versa. At this point I began running an exact English translation of what I was doing in Spanish on my computer (so that I had English and Spanish side by side along with the original work of the reformers and the original Hebrew and Greek TR texts). It was like getting the truth of the Reformation in stereo! Now the challenge was to bring forth the same clarity in both Spanish and English. . I soon began to notice that the work of William Tyndale was somewhat less formal English than the King James, which kept a lot of the basic wording of Tyndale, except in the piece from Psalms to Malachi. This part of Tyndale's work was lost in a shipwreck (except the book of Jonah which was saved!) so the King James team used material from a different source as their base for this portion. This meant that the terminology shifted quite a bit in this section through the use of synonyms and brings us to two basic areas of the King James Bible which I saw could be improved on. At this point I want to go on record as being a proponent of the King James Bible which has been used mightily by the Lord for close to four hundred years, and is by far the best Bible translation that has ever been mass produced in the English language. You may ask, if the King James Bible is so wonderful why does it need to be improved on? There are several very good reasons: 1). Old English ...Our young people are having an increasingly hard time with the old English. If we give them watered down paraphrase Bibles, they tend to read it once and then it seems like they take the attitude, "I already read that, why should I read it again?” The depth of the King James is such that a person can read the same passage over and over, and each time the Lord will bring out new facets of truth. This is lost if the Bible is oversimplified. Even worse than oversimplification is when the Bible is revised under the guise of fixing the old English and then key words are removed or watered down. Modern Bibles have taken out references to the blood, to repentance, to judgment and even removed instances of the name of the Lord. This damage is hard to notice unless the Bible is checked against original manuscripts. As a young man I had used the NIV for several years because someone had given me a nice Thompson chain NIV. One day I bought an NIV/King James parallel Bible and in two weeks of seeing them side by side, I was cured forever of using the NIV. Even the word “holiness” had been completely removed from the Spanish NIV (in English they tried the same thing but after getting complaints they restored the word holiness in 44 of the 88 verses where it occurs). As I checked the King James against the old Spanish and against the work of William Tyndale, I began to see ways to tweak the old English without losing any of the depth of meaning. Example: Tyndale sometimes dropped the “th” on the ends of the verbs into a popular style (of his day) which has now become the norm. On the other hand, it is dangerous to change words like Thee, Thy, Thou, and Ye to the all inclusive “You”, because Ye is always plural and the pronouns beginning with T are always singular. In verses such as Matt. 5:14 "... ye are the light of the world" means a plural corporate with “ye” describing the body of Christ with Jesus as the Head. If we change the ye to you, an individual could think that he or she by themselves is the light of the world (which is New Age heresy). With careful editing, I was able to solve about 60 to 70 per cent of the problem of the old English verbs without damaging any part of the meaning. I believe the result is that the Jubilee Bible is very readable and still retains the power and authority of the original.

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2). Synonyms One of the things that I noticed right off the bat with the work of Casiodoro de Reina and also to a lesser extent with Tyndale, was consistency of terminology (the same original word or phrase translated in the same manner throughout the entire Bible). There are limitations to language and terms do not always line up straight across, but Casiodoro did a wonderful job on terminology. On the other hand, when translation is divided into sections and done by committees (like the King James) one section of the Scripture may have a given original word translated a certain way and the next section may vary because the next committee may chose a synonym of the word used by the first committee and so on. (What started out as Mercy may then be translated Tender Mercies and then on to Loving Kindness and so on). The King James sometimes uses over a dozen different English words in the course of translating one original Hebrew word across the course of the Old Testament. On the surface this does not seem like such a big deal because most of the words selected mean the same or almost the same thing. When synonyms are used so extensively, experts need to be called in all the time to interpret the passages and we end up at their mercy (and so many of them seem like TV spin masters defending and enhancing their pet doctrines). On the other hand if the terminology is consistent, the Bible tends to define itself. We can then study a verse list of all the instances of a given word and God begins to define the term with the first usage in Scripture and then builds the meaning all the way to the end. When the terminology is kept unique (a unique English word is matched to a unique Hebrew word and then the correct match is made to the unique Greek word that corresponds to the continuation of this theme in the New Testament), significant number patterns begin to emerge. Let me give just a few examples: “Zion” occurs in Scripture in 153 verses. So does the word Sabbath or Sabbaths (having to do with rest). This is also the number of fish that Peter caught when the Lord told him to cast in the net. Early in the Gospel Jesus told Peter He wanted to make him a fisher of men and towards the end of the Gospel of John He said that He wants us to come where He was going. This is what Zion is all about (the dwelling place of God) and to enter in we must learn to "rest" from our own labors that we might do the works of God. “Hope” occurs in 120 verses. The root word “reconcile” or “reconciliation” also occurs in 120 verses (our hope is to be reconciled to God). The word Gentile or Gentiles occurs in 120 verses in the New Testament (the hope of the Gentiles is the Gospel) and so on. “Meek” occurs in 12 verses and “Meekness” in 18 for a total of 30 verses. 30 is the number in Scripture that describes maturity. “Judgment” occurs in 276 verses. There were 276 souls on board the ship in Acts 27 and 28 when the ship was destroyed, but all the souls were saved when they listened to Paul. Likewise, the systems of this world - (including religious systems) will be destroyed, but God wants to save the people if they will listen to Him. The root word sheep (male or female) also occurs in exactly 276 verses. In the Old Testament small cattle (sheep in the broadest sense) includes both sheep and goats (the daily sacrifice could be either one)... but in the New Testament the sheep and the goats are separated by the final judgment. Under The Law sheep or goats can be controlled (those in the old nature or those in the new) but under the New Covenant only those who have truly been born again by the Spirit of God will enter in. In the King James the word “Judgment” occurs in 285 verses because the translators added the word an extra nine times (mostly in italics) just to make sure that no one would misunderstand certain passages. On the other side, over half of the occurrences of the word “Judgment” have been eliminated in the NIV in which it only occurs in 121 verses. [The reformers used italics in

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the translation whenever they felt that they needed to add a word (for clarity) that was not in the original manuscript...this practice was used by the team that did the King James Bible, and we have continued in this tradition]. Almost every key term in Scripture occurs a symbolic number of times and in a symbolic number of verses in the Jubilee Bible. I do not know how to interpret all the patterns, but I was amazed to find this when we prepared the computer module for the electronic version. [This may be downloaded from www.OnlineBible.net/downloads, then click ‘user supplied modules’, and find the Jubilee download under ‘Jubilee’ (not Russell’s Name) (You first have to download the program- we suggest the starter pack first)]. This Bible is ideal to study on computer for this reason alone. In fact, the checking and tracking of the terminology through the Old Testament and into the New would have been virtually impossible without a computer and the special software that the Lord provided for this project (most of which was supplied by Larry Pierce of Toronto, Canada and is part of his Online Bible project). In addition to the number patterns, greater clarity emerges when key terminology is separated. For example, there are three distinct Hebrew words which have to do with sin -- “sin, iniquity and rebellion”. In the King James the three Hebrew words are randomly translated as any of the three English words. This blurs the distinction between the words. When the terms are separated, a clear distinction emerges according to usage. Sin is transgression of the law or of the word of the Lord. Sin is still sin even if the person does it in ignorance. Iniquity, however, is a bit stronger. It is sin that has come to the knowledge of the person and instead of bringing it into the light and dealing with it they have chosen to hide it. In the first usage of these terms the Lord tells Cain in essence that unless he changes his attitude, “sin lies at the door". After Cain sins and kills his brother, Cain refuses to come clean before the Lord. He coins the famous phrase, "am I my brother's keeper?" Then comes the first usage of the term, “iniquity”, when Cain complains to the Lord that the consequences of his iniquity is more than he can bear, for now he must wander and never be at rest. The consequences of hidden sin are that a person must “wander” and never be at rest. The Lord did not kill Cain right off because he was hoping that Cain would repent. He is still hoping that anyone with hidden sin in their life will repent and therefore they will never be at rest until they do. Rebellion is the final stage. According to Samuel "Rebellion is the sin of witchcraft". Rebellion is not just being overcome by temptation and then covering it up. Rebellion is openly joining the side of the enemy. Fortunately for us, Scripture says that God's plan of redemption can even deal with and eliminate our rebellion if we turn to Him in time. Another word that has been misunderstood is the word for Cain's offering (translated “present” in the Jubilee Bible). The word has to do with the work of our hands being offered as a gift (in most cases to the Lord). This word is then translated in the King James and most other English Bibles as “Grain Offering” in the book of Leviticus and throughout the Old Testament, even though it is a unique term and does not have anything to do with the words for Grain or for Offering (and if we translate it as Grain Offering it wrecks the number patterns for these two words also). This blurs the meaning because in the sacrifice system the Present or Grain Offering (which is the work of our hands by the sweat of our brow) is not acceptable to the Lord unless given together with a blood sacrifice. This is all a huge object lesson throughout the Old Testament to tell us that we cannot be saved by self- works (only the life and sacrifice of Jesus Christ can save us). What we do by the work

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of our hands is only acceptable to the Lord if we are "under the blood" in covenant with him to learn to do HIS work HIS way. When the terminology is lined up the word, “Grace” is used much more extensively in the Old Testament. The total is 205 verses in the entire Bible in English and 208 in Spanish. The first usage is in Genesis... "Noah found Grace in the eyes of the Lord". When all these verses are studied in context, it becomes clear that Grace is much, much more than the definition that we have been taught of "unmerited favor". It is all that and more. Grace is the power of God to save us, to change us and transform us, and do for us that which we cannot do for ourselves or for anyone else. The word “Wise” develops in a sequence that builds from first usage with Esau who was "wise at hunting". In our natural state we are all "wise" at getting what we want. The word ends after a sequence of another 233 verses, however, with the words of the Apostle Paul as he ends several of his Epistles with the phrase "to the only wise God". All these verses about the wise to point out that God is the only one that is truly wise. The words “Reconciliation” and “Ransom” are introduced (first usage) in Genesis 6:14 when God tells Noah to build an ark and "pitch it within and without with pitch". This is the logical translation but there are two new words here which if translated literally make the phrase read “reconcile it within and without with ransom"! In fact, this is the only place in the King James where these two words are translated Pitch (there is another word which is the real word for Pitch - meaning tar). Here in the first usage God is fixing a value on the word “Reconcile” (which is still in many dictionaries as a shipbuilding term). This word means to line all the planks up straight with the keel so that it seals and the water won't come in the boat. God's definition of the word “Reconcile” is to line us up straight with Him. He doesn't bend regarding His standards of what is clean and straight. When they changed the King James Bible to a more modern spelling in the 1700's, they also made changes that affected the meaning of the text in a number of places. There are many places in Scripture where modern translators simply put a footnote and say "Hebrew Obscure" ....this is because they do not know the exact meaning of the Hebrew idiom. If, for instance, English were to become a dead language and a thousand years from now someone came across an old English book that said something like this, “It was raining cats and dogs". How would they interpret it? Literally it does not make sense, and unless they knew our English idiom (it means it was raining very hard) they would be at a total loss to make sense of the phrase. Casiodoro de Reina was one of the last Hebrew scholars to study Hebrew as a living language (from the Jews before they were dispersed from Spain by the Inquisition). He made sense out a many seemingly unfathomable phrases in the Old Testament, particularly in the Psalms, Proverbs and Prophets (precisely the books that do not have the foundation of William Tyndale in our English King James Bible). In his translation of the book of Isaiah alone, I calculate that there are over 300 significant details that help clarify the prophecy. Daniel speaks about certain things being "sealed until the time of the end”, and this is what happened with the Prophetic books. It isn't that there were gross errors in the King James. It is just that certain things were a bit blurred because of the times and the terminology and the mindset of the translators. This is quite different from modernists who have translated from deviant manuscripts trying to change God's plan into man's plan. In a ball game, a long fly into the bleachers can be a home run or it can be a foul ball and sometimes the difference is only a few inches. A foul ball into the left field bleachers will not strike out the batter, but he will not score either. I don't believe that William Tyndale and the men who later edited his work into the King James Bible struck out. However some of their "hits"

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need to be tweaked just a bit in order to qualify for home runs. Now is the time of the end spoken of by the prophet Daniel. Now is the time when God is clarifying things that have been hidden since the world began. After spending over ten years working from nine or ten at night 'til two or three in the morning on these two Bibles (the Spanish and the English), my understanding of the key terms of Scripture has improved remarkably. Now, I am able to concentrate much more truth into my preaching and teaching and present it in a much clearer manner to the listeners. This has really paid off for the radio ministry. All the time I was working on these manuscripts I kept coming across topics and themes that I could see would make good messages but I always had to keep going with my editing (during the same period of time we edited 50 or so books in Spanish and over 20 in English in addition to our normal missionary activities with the Indians, with the different factions of the fighting groups in the civil war here in Colombia, and with the radio stations). Now, after all this, I can preach almost continuously for as long as necessary because the message is not only in my head but is deep within my heart. When we published the English Jubilee Bible in December 2001 in a Proof Edition (we were looking for feedback and help from our readers regarding proofreading etc.), it was the best printing job we have ever done here in Colombia. We also had just the right contact for the binding in the old Spanish style with the hand painted flyleaves (no two are alike). The Spanish Bible is in its third edition, so most of the bugs have been worked out of it by now. We distribute it in many different bindings and styles, including olive drab camouflage for those caught up in the conflict. The New Testament is also available on audio, and we use it on our radio stations. As far as the English Jubilee Bible is concerned, we just printed 1200 copies of this edition, thinking mainly of our friends and supporters. If it is to go into wider distribution, it will only be possible if the Lord opens that door. Russ Stendal, Colombia para Cristo Postscript by Bebe (sec’y) At this time (September 2011) Colombia para Cristo has 16 different radio stations on the air. 2 Shortwave, several AM and FM, plus one internet. Because of the different locations and audiences, programming differs from station to station. This involves much time-consuming editing and programming by the studio engineers. More help and finances are always needed, and this year particularly with the flooding of the editing/recording studio in Bogota and the necessity to rebuild it. The studio crew is also busy with the filming and post-production of a full length movie (similar to Fireproof) that will tell the story of how the Lord used Russell to conquer a vital mountain for the radio stations. For more information on how to procure the Jubilee Bible off-line in book form email "LIFE SENTENCE Publishing, LLC" <contact@lifesentencepublishing.com>, and also for information on the radio stations, frequencies, needs, etc. e mail: Russell Stendal at: martinstendal@etb.net.co