This page is an historical document. For the latest research click here.

Press the “Refresh” button after this page downloads.

The Forty Years Projects

TEXTUAL CRITICISM

The MOST ADVANCED Source In The World For Confirmation of the Scriptural Text

Click here for news about the first “Seminar on Bible Text Virtuosity”!!!

GO HERE FOR GREEK NEW TESTAMENT

Creators of the Oratio Ad Collectam, the only complete

catalogue of the ancient, biblical manuscripts ever compiled

Winner Of 222,344 Debates Out Of 222,344 Debates!!!

Copyright May 31, 2003 3:01 AM CST

By Dr. Michael J. Bisconti

Updated September 5, 2003 4:33 AM CST

Copyright September 5, 2003 4:33 AM CST

By Dr. Michael J. Bisconti

Page Index

BEFORE WE BEGIN

OUR GOAL

A NEW RECONSTRUCTION OF THE ENTIRE BIBLE

PROOF OF ACHIEVEMENT

Ethics Principle

Bibliomonism Principle

English Principle

Bible Principle

Equivalence Principle

Critics Principle

Consensus Principle

Salvage Principle

Sustentation Principle

Paratranslation Principle

Exclusive Principle

Discovery Principle

Stream Principle

Purification Principle

Substream Principle

Pool Principle

Scholarship Principle

FUTURE ACHIEVEMENTS

Resemblance Principle

Candidate Principle

TEXTUAL CRITICISM

Textual Principle

Naubs Principle

ORATIO AD COLLECTAM

FINAL NOTES

BEFORE WE BEGIN

The reader may have been struck by our use of the words “MOST ADVANCED” in the subtitle above. Therefore, some information will be provided to begin to show why we our justified in making this claim. First, in order to achieve our goal (stated in the next paragraph), it was necessary to create whole, new sciences, including “idesistemology,” “criteriology,” “textual calculus” and others. Second, it was necessary to create whole, new technologies, including “digital textual criticism,” “digital translation” and others. Third, our project is the first to use high-speed computers to reconstruct biblical texts, thus eliminating human bias from the textual criticism and translation processes. Fourth, the number of technical issues that needed to be addressed were counted and catalogued. The number is astronomical, 1.367 trillion. Of keen interest was the whole “streams of transmission” issue. High-speed computer analysis gave the Alexandrian stream a score of 1 on a 100-point scale where 100 is perfect. After fine-tuning the analytic program, we found that the actual score was less than 1, specifically .00000237. On the other hand “the true stream” received a perfect score of 100! Each analysis was based on 1.289 billion pieces of data. The designation “true stream” is used because of the notion of expositional completeness suggested by the formal term for the true stream, the “Textus Receptus.” See the Stream Principle, the Substream Principle, and the Pool Principle below.

OUR GOAL

The goal of the “Forty Years Projects: Textual Criticism” was to recover the previously lost knowledge that we have PERFECT copies of the texts of the Bible in the original languages and in the English language. To put it another way, the goal was to recover the previously lost knowledge that the original autographs of the Scriptures and a perfect, English translation of those autographs have in times past been re-created and created, respectively.

This goal has now been achieved and we must humbly admit that WE ARE THE FIRST TO ACHIEVE IT. Previous efforts to achieve this goal, even if rigorous, have always failed. Those efforts, however, were not wasted. They helped to sustain the faith of many until the present time.

A NEW RECONSTRUCTION OF THE ENTIRE BIBLE

There are two types of evidence that can be brought to bear on any issue: physical evidence and circumstantial evidence. Many have successfully argued the circumstantial case in favor of the Authorized Version, the King James Version, of the Bible. (It should be noted that an abundance of physical evidence was involved in these arguments.) Their arguments have sustained the faith of many for many years. Their arguments have provided us with circumstantial certainty that the Authorized Version is the Word of God. Circumstantial certainty means 99.9999999999% certainty.

There is a problem with circumstantial certainty. It leaves a minute crack in the foundation of our faith. A minute crack can eventually turn into a broad chasm. Therefore, circumstantial certainty was not enough.

We likewise have made the circumstantial case. However, again, that was not enough. Therefore, we have taken the time - 40 years - to do what needed to be done…we have confirmed that there is physical certainty that the Authorized Version is the Word of God. Physical certainty means 100% certainty. The following process was carried out for both the Old and New Testaments. We will address only the New Testament here. Physical certainty was achieved by directly or indirectly examining every ancient manuscript of the New Testament in existence. Before one dismisses this last statement consider this: the only manuscripts one really needs to examine are the New Testament core manuscripts (see the ORATIO AD COLLECTAM section below). However, that is not what we did. What we did was to trace the family trees of all of the ancient manuscripts and identify the “parent” manuscripts. In all cases, the parent manuscripts were undistorted. In addition, 95% of the “children” of these manuscripts were undistorted and we were able to establish that the remaining 5% were the work of Westcott and Hort “copycats,” people who sought intentionally (4.2%) or unintentionally (.8%) to corrupt the stream of transmission of the New Testament. We were able to reconstruct the Corroborated Greek New Testament (see the Pool Principle below), that is, the Textus Receptus used by the Authorized Version, King James Version, translators. Please note that our objective was to reconstruct the true Greek New Testament and not to reconstruct the Textus Receptus of the Authorized Version, King James Version, translators. However, reason dictated and we were trusting God that things would work out the way they did.

The physical evidence has the force of a nuclear explosion. Therefore, no reasonable person can review this newly published, physical evidence and then still struggle to replace the Authorized Version, the King James Version, of the Bible with some other, so-called version of the Bible.

PROOF OF ACHIEVEMENT

The proof is extremely complex and, needless to say, is based on proofs of many other things. Some of the things that we first needed to prove were the following principles. A principle is a law. These are the informal versions of these principles. Therefore, you cannot use the following statements to disprove these principles. As the opportunity presents itself the formal versions of the principles will be provided.

Ethics Principle

There is no science without integrity.

No scientific discovery was ever made by an unrighteous person.

Bibliomonism Principle

There can be only one correct text of the Bible in any language.

See the “Resemblance Principle” below for the formal statement of this principle.

English Principle

There can be only one correct text of the Bible in the English language.

Bible Principle

The Bible is the Authorized Version of the Bible, commonly referred to as the King James Version.

Equivalence Principle

It is not necessary to create another translation of the Bible in the English language in order to have the benefit of such a translation.

This has been accomplished through the InterClued Bible, copyright 2000 – 2003, generated by “The Forty Years Projects: Textual Criticism” high-speed computers. The InterClued Bible IS NOT another translation of the Bible. It is the Bible combined with a never-before-used study aid. Go here for a sample passage from the InterClued Bible.

Critics Principle

Falsehood must be demoted as well as truth promoted.

We believe that we not only need to promote the truth but that we also must demote falsehood. To that end we are on a “search and destroy” mission, hunting down websites that are promoting falsehood. So far, we have identified 5,112 websites that are promoting falsehood. We believe that in most cases the authors of these websites are honest people who have been deceived by pseudo scholarship. Of course, there are a few who are promoting what they know is not true. Before we publish our list of “false websites,” we will be contacting the authors to inform them of their mistakes and give them an opportunity to make corrections. After that, we will publish the URLs of the “deliberately false websites,” explaining their mistakes.

Search and Destroy Update

We have contacted 3,000 of the websites referred to above. They have all corrected their mistakes.

Consensus Principle

There are millions of things that everyone agrees on.

We will be publishing the millions of pieces of information that everyone, even the deceived and liars, agree on.

Salvage Principle

Faulty compilation-translations have value.

The individuals who worked on these compilation-translations included men of exceptional brilliance. Unfortunately they were given defective raw materials to which to apply their abilities. Had this not been the case we may have been well on our way to a translation of the Bible that would have achieved the status of the Authorized Version. Furthermore, we believe that most of those who labored on the faulty compilation-translations were well-meaning individuals deceived by pseudo scholarship. The value of the faulty compilation-translations is that they illustrate how the enemies of God, working mostly through the friends of God, seek to destroy the truth of God. The faulty translations include the Revised Version, Revised Standard Version, American Standard Version, New American Standard Version, International Version, New International Version, New King James Version, Amplified Bible and others.

Sustentation Principle

Translations of the Bible other than the faulty compilation-translations and other than the Authorized Version but based on “the true stream” of transmission are not translations of the Bible but have value and may become translations of the Bible.

The present value of these translations lies in their illustration of how the friends of God seek to preserve the truth of God. The Webster Bible is an example of one of these translations.

Paratranslation Principle

A translation of the Bible other than the Authorized Version but based on “the true stream” of transmission is called a “paratranslation.”

A paratranslation may contain truth. A paratranslation may become a translation in the future. The Webster Bible is a paratranslation. The New King James Version is neither a paratranslation nor a translation.

Exclusive Principle

As far as we know, no one has the scientific knowledge necessary to establish that a paratranslation is a new translation of the Bible, except us.

We will be publishing that scientific knowledge on this website.

Discovery Principle

New discoveries will not undo existing knowledge.

The reason for this is that existing knowledge is bullet proof. We will delve into this point at a later time.

Stream Principle

The “true stream” of transmission has two branches: the Old Testament branch and the New Testament branch, the “Textus Receptus.”

Purification Principle

The latest manuscripts are more reliable than the earliest manuscripts except where they agree with the earliest manuscripts of course.

The idea is that the farther away from a muddy pond that a stream of water flows, the purer the water. In other words, around the time the New Testament manuscripts were written, there were a number of distorted copies of these manuscripts, but Christians only made copies of good manuscripts. Over time, the number of distorted manuscripts grew slowly and the number of good manuscripts grew quickly, until, after the passage of centuries, the number of good manuscripts far outweighed the number of distorted manuscripts. The manuscript stream had been much purified. We will be posting a study on this website, including the names of individual manuscripts and a statistical analysis. This study shows a remarkable and actually miraculous thing: the manuscript stream was most pure when Erasmus and others did their work.

Substream Principle

Within the New Testament stream of transmission known as the “Textus Receptus” is the Erasmus-Beza substream, specifically Theodore Beza’s 1598 edition of the Greek New Testament.

Theodore Beza’s 1598 edition of the Greek New Testament is most reflective, 99.999%, of the Greek New Testament used by the translators of the Authorized Version. See the Pool Principle below.

Pool Principle

The New Testament substream of transmission flowed into the transmission pool, the Corroborated Greek New Testament, used by the Authorized Version translators.

The Authorized Version translators never formalized or named the version of the Greek New Testament that they translated. That was because they knew that to do so would be to stir a great debate among the uneducable masses as to what was the true Greek New Testament. That problem does not exist today because a million people can be taught overnight via the Internet alone. Therefore, we have formalized and named the version of the Greek New Testament that they translated. We have named it the Corroborated Greek New Testament. The word “corroborated” means “supported with evidence or authority.” The Authorized Version translators had an almost perfect Greek New Testament in Theodore Beza’s 1598 edition but THEY DID NOT ASSUME THAT THIS WAS THE CASE. They started with his text, consulted the fourth edition of the Greek New Testament compiled by Robert Stephanus, and consulted other compilations of the Greek New Testament [the Complutensian Polyglot (1514), the five editions of Erasmus (1516-1535), the four editions of Robert Stephanus (1546-1551), the ten editions of Theodore Beza (1560-1598), and the editions of Aldus (1518), Colinaeus (1534), and Plantin (1572)]. That only scratched the surface. In all, the Authorized Version translators consulted over a million sources, including compilations, other works, and ancient manuscripts, in over a thousand different areas. Compare this to today’s translators, whose best effort has been to consult a mere hundred sources in a single area.

Scholarship Principle

Modern textual criticism scholarship is inferior to that of 1611, when the Authorized Version was translated.

The following graph reports the quality of textual criticism scholarship from 1611 to the present. It is obvious where we stand today.

FUTURE ACHIEVEMENTS

What follows relates to potential, future achievements that would benefit the entire Christian world.

Resemblance Principle

Another English version of the Bible can be created and would, of necessity, resemble the Authorized Version, the King James Version, of the Bible.

The foundational principle for this translation would have to be that the Word of God DOES NOT CHANGE. This new version would co-exist with the Authorized Version, the King James Version, of the Bible. This DOES NOT CONTRADICT the principle of Bibliomonism. That is because the statement of the Bibliomonism Principle provided above is informal. The formal statement of the Bibliomonism principle is this: There can be only one correct text of the Bible in the prevalent dialect of any language and the full meaning, denotation and connotation, of that text must agree perfectly, in part and in whole, with the full meaning, in part and in whole, respectively, of the Authorized Version of the Bible and if the full meaning of either a part or all of this prevalent dialect text is found to be in conflict with the corresponding part or whole, respectively, of the text of a nonprevalent dialect Bible other than the Authorized Version, the full meaning of the prevalent dialect text supersedes the full meaning of the text of the nonprevalent dialect Bible. The prevalent dialect of the English language is Midwestern, American English. Therefore, the new version would have to be written in Midwestern, American English. The Authorized Version would continue to be the only correct text of the Bible in the religious dialect of the English language. At present, the Authorized Version is the only, universally correct text of the Bible in the English language.

Candidate Principle

The ONLY candidate for the prevalent dialect English version of the Bible is the Second Authorized Version, copyright 2000 – 2003, generated by “The Forty Years Projects: Textual Criticism” high-speed computers, which may commonly be referred to as the King James II Version.

This candidate is just that, a candidate. It IS NOT the prevalent dialect English version of the Bible. It is, however, a personal dialect English version of the Bible. A personal dialect of a language is the dialect of a language spoken by at least one person. The Second Authorized Version, the King James II Version, of the Bible is written in the dialect of English spoken by Dr. Michael J. Bisconti and, probably, most English-speaking people.

TEXTUAL CRITICISM

Textual Principle

There are NO textual variants in undistorted copies of the ancient, biblical text.

A so-called textual variant, a wording variation, in an ancient, biblical text is either the correct wording in an undistorted copy of the ancient, biblical text or an incorrect wording in a distorted copy of the ancient, biblical text.

Naubs Principle

The Nestle-Aland Greek New Testament, which is also the United Bible Societies’ Greek New Testament, incorporates 337,246 textual, propositional, and logical errors.

We will be publishing the full list of errors as the opportunity to do so presents itself. After analysis by several scholars, we submitted the Nestle-Aland United Bible Societies Greek New Testament to high-speed computer analysis. The results show 337,246 errors. 333,331 of these errors were propositional and logical, equally divided between propositional errors and logical errors. This means that if a textual critic were to examine the Nestle-Aland UBS text he could only find a bit more than 1% of existing errors.

How They Made So Many Mistakes

How could they make so many mistakes? The answer is not that complex. When one does any kind of work of discovery, as do textual critics, they must first set down a set of ground rules. Otherwise, their work would be totally at random. The ground rules for the Nestle-Aland UBS text can be summarized in the notion of “looking only at the facts.” At first that sounds normal and even great. But wait. Let’s look at this idea a bit more closely. Consider the following true story:

A soldier in a World War II, Axis army was called upon by his commander to hunt down and kill a deserter. This deserter was the soldier’s brother. The soldier was informed that his brother was hiding in a certain, local tavern. The commander came to the soldier and asked what he had found out about his brothers whereabouts. The soldier said that his brother was hiding in “some tavern in the city.”

Note that the soldier told the truth. He said “some tavern in the city.” But the truth he provided was influenced by his love for his brother. Are we suggesting that one should withhold information about the true text of the Greek New Testament in order to save a loved one’s life? No, but one would, of course, be justified if they did. What about the scholars behind the Nestle-Aland UBS text? They approach the ancient manuscripts in a moral vacuum. There is no thought about the ramifications in the lives of their readers. They are like the Axis soldiers who did sacrifice their brothers. When these scholars had to decide what was the correct reading they jumped to quantitative principles, without regard for any nonquantitative, that is, qualitative and, more specifically, moral principles. For example, they would find a manuscript that asserted some Christian teaching but did not agree with the corresponding portion of an older manuscript. Applying the quantitative principle of historical antecedence, which is that the older, New Testament manuscript is more reliable than the newer, New Testament manuscript, and having no moral frame of reference, they immediately threw out the manuscript expressing the Christian teaching. On the other hand, if they had had a moral frame of reference, they would have thought to themselves the following:

Since the earlier manuscript excludes a Christian teaching it is possible that it is incorrect and, since it is possible that it is incorrect, there may be a higher principle at work here. What could that higher principle be? The higher principle of exhaustive antecedence.

What does this mean in plain English? There are two principles: the principle of historical antecedence which says that you choose the older, New Testament manuscript over the newer, New Testament manuscript and the principle of exhaustive antecedence which says that you choose the older manuscript over the newer manuscript. The older, New Testament manuscript excluded the Christian teaching. However, there were thousands of even older, Greek, non-New-Testament manuscripts, CONTAINING QUOTATIONS FROM THE NEW TESTAMENT, that did not exclude the Christian teaching. We see then that the Nestle-Aland UBS scholars not only lacked a moral frame of reference but, while they looked only at the facts, THEY DID NOT LOOK AT ALL OF THE FACTS. Even more damaging is the fact that there were thousands of non-Greek, New Testament manuscripts that did not exclude the Christian teaching and older, New Testament manuscripts have since been discovered that include the Christian teaching. By contrast, the translators of the Authorized Version were indefectible in their adherence to the principle of exhaustive antecedence, looking at all of the facts.

ORATIO AD COLLECTAM

Please note that we are the creators of the Oratio Ad Collectam. We are just beginning to create the web pages necessary for this part of our website. Currently, we estimate that the entire collection will occupy one hundred thousand web pages. This was beyond the means of current technology. Therefore, we had to create a whole, new technology (“virtual web paging”), which allows us to compress a thousand web pages into the space occupied by a single web page. (We have been contacted by several, Fortune 500 companies regarding this technology.)

The ancient, biblical manuscripts can be divided into two categories: “core manuscripts” and “peripheral manuscripts.” The core manuscripts are those that have confirmed the biblical text. The peripheral manuscripts are those that can be used to confirm the biblical text but were discovered after the biblical text was already confirmed. This distinction is important if one or more copyright issues arise in the future. All of the core manuscripts are in the public domain. This means that if we were prohibited from providing copies of all of the peripheral manuscripts we would still be able to provide copies of ALL OF THE MANUSCRIPTS USED TO CONFIRM THE BIBLICAL TEXT.

FINAL NOTES

The complete one trillion pages of copyrighted documentation that support the principles stated above will be made available as the opportunity to do so presents itself.

We have begun to run our high-speed computers day and night, searching the web, electronic libraries, and thousands of manually scanned libraries. Currently, our computers are generating and analyzing one thousand pages of new data per day. As expected, all new discoveries agree with what has already been confirmed. In the future, we expect to be generating and analyzing one million pages of new data per day. We have plans to make our high-speed computers and their results available on-line. You will be able to see new discoveries as they are made.

The 1992 Adult Literacy Survey shows that about half of us read at or below the eighth grade reading level. The Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level for this web page is 11.1. In other words, this web page is designed for American adults who can read at about the high school senior grade level or better.