Latest / The Week in Bible Prophecy / The Hidden History of the Bible | Chris Pinto

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The Hidden History of the Bible | Chris Pinto · The Week in Bible Prophecy

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Speaker 1: The Week in Bible Prophecy, a Prophecy Watchers podcast.
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Speaker 2: Hello, I'm Gary Steerman. Welcome to this Week in Bible Prophecy,
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Speaker 2: and we have a guest who is absolutely loaded with information.
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Speaker 2: His name is Chris Pinto, Chris High.
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Speaker 3: How are you hey, Good to be with you again, Gary.
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Speaker 2: I am looking here at a film The Untold History
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Speaker 2: of the Bible. Now, what a title. There is a
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Speaker 2: lot of untold history, and you have really done the
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Speaker 2: job when it comes to looking at the historical development
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Speaker 2: of what we call the Bible. There it is our
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Speaker 2: a living room bookcase, and we pass it fifteen times
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Speaker 2: a day, and we don't think about what an absolute
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Speaker 2: treasure is there. Well, watch this particular movie of yours.
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Speaker 2: I'd get the real, I think, the real feeling of
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Speaker 2: what a treasure the Bible is.
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Speaker 1: Well, that's what we were hoping to communicate with the
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Speaker 1: film is really to inspire an audience to recognize the
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Speaker 1: great sacrifices that so many men went through and women
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Speaker 1: as well. I always think of the Apostle Paul and
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Speaker 1: Barnabas when they had the controversy over circumcision, and they
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Speaker 1: chose to send Barnabas and Saul as he was called
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Speaker 1: back then to speak to the gentiles about circumcision and
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Speaker 1: how they didn't necessarily need to get circumcised because they
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Speaker 1: were saved by the grace of God. But they wrote
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Speaker 1: in the letter that they said, we're sending our brothers,
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Speaker 1: Barnabas and Saul, men who have hazarded their lives for
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Speaker 1: the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. And that's really
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Speaker 1: the character of the men who hazarded their lives and
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Speaker 1: laid down their lives in the case of men like
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Speaker 1: William Tyndale, for the sake of the Word of God,
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Speaker 1: so that they could translate the holy scriptures into the
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Speaker 1: languages of the common people, so that people would have
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Speaker 1: access to God's Holy Word, that they would know the
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Speaker 1: way of salvation, that they would understand the Gospel of
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Speaker 1: grace and how Christ died for our sins according to
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Speaker 1: the scripture, and that they would be moved away from
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Speaker 1: a lot of these superstitious teachings that had developed into
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Speaker 1: its own form of legalism there in the Middle Ages.
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Speaker 2: Now here's my Bible. It's been my treasure for I
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Speaker 2: don't know how many years. It's taped together. Here, it's
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Speaker 2: got bookmarks. It's got. It is just you know, my
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Speaker 2: personal Bible, and I think a lot of it. But
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Speaker 2: when you tell the story of the Bible, my Bible
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Speaker 2: then becomes part of a long chain of events. Instead
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Speaker 2: of just a Bible that you go down to the
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Speaker 2: Bible bookstore and buy a copy. The Bible is something transcendent.
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Speaker 2: It is something with a history that is virtually supernatural.
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Speaker 2: In other words, a lot of people have just tried
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Speaker 2: to destroy the Word of God, wipe it out, burn
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Speaker 2: it up many times over the centuries. And your film
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Speaker 2: the Untold History of the Bible really raises the consciousness.
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Speaker 2: It makes you think about wait a minute, this isn't
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Speaker 2: just paper and ink. This is the heart of our Lord.
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Speaker 2: This thing is valuable. That people have died for this
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Speaker 2: so that I could read the Bible.
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Speaker 1: It's amazing, Amen, it really is. And what struck me
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Speaker 1: in doing the research.
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Speaker 3: For this years ago is the the.
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Speaker 1: Very purposeful nature of what the reformers and even before
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Speaker 1: were doing, people like John Wickliffe. When Wickliffe, he's known
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Speaker 1: for his Lollard movement in England back in the fourteenth century,
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Speaker 1: and it was said that if you passed, I mean
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Speaker 1: he was so effective in terms of his evangelism. But
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Speaker 1: what he would do is he would send out his
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Speaker 1: ministers with small portions of the New Testament, in particular
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Speaker 1: that were translated from Latin into Middle English at the time,
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Speaker 1: so they weren't complete Bibles, but they had important sections
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Speaker 1: of the Bible that they were given to go out
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Speaker 1: and use as they were witnessing to people. But they
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Speaker 1: were so effective that it was said at the time
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Speaker 1: that if you passed two men on the street, one
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Speaker 1: of them would be a Lollart, meaning a follower.
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Speaker 3: Of John Wickliffe.
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Speaker 1: So Wickliffe was very, very purposeful in terms of translating
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Speaker 1: the Scripture from Latin into Middle English. He believed that
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Speaker 1: the people you know, as a scripture says, my people
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Speaker 1: are destroyed for lack of knowledge. That the only way
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Speaker 1: that Christian people would be able to oppose the corruptions
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Speaker 1: in both church and state was to have knowledge of
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Speaker 1: the Word of God. And it's very interesting to this
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Speaker 1: day historians acknowledge that the phrase from the opening of
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Speaker 1: the Wickliffe Bible of thirteen eighty four, which is this Bible,
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Speaker 1: he said is for a government of the people by
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Speaker 1: the people, and for the people. In fact, there have
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Speaker 1: been people who have quoted that recently in the past
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Speaker 1: few years, and they attributed to John Wickliffe. Because Wickliffe's
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Speaker 1: understanding was that because we're created by God, we have
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Speaker 1: a right to live according to God's law in God's word.
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Speaker 1: And so a lot of his teachings laid the groundwork
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Speaker 1: for the Great Reformation that would happen later on. But
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Speaker 1: great example, I also like William Tindale. We go to
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Speaker 1: the British Library in the film and we interview some
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Speaker 1: of the scholars there.
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Speaker 2: Well.
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Speaker 1: One of them was doctor Moira Goff, and she came
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Speaker 1: out and she had a facsimile of the Tyndale New Testament,
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Speaker 1: which was the Small Bible, a little bit.
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Speaker 3: Smaller than this one here that I've got in my hands.
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Speaker 1: And it was intentionally made as a smaller book rather
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Speaker 1: than the big giant books that Bibles typically were up
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Speaker 1: to that time. But Tindale wanted it to be a
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Speaker 1: personal Bible, you know, your Bible, one that you could
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Speaker 1: carry with you anywhere you went. You could stop any
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Speaker 1: time of day and read the Holy Scripture. I always
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Speaker 1: think about Tyndale and also Erasmus, because he inspired Tyndale.
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Speaker 1: Whenever I see somebody traveling and they're reading the Scripture,
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Speaker 1: you know, they have a Bible in their lap or
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Speaker 1: maybe on their iPhone. Now today people are reading the
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Speaker 1: Scripture when they travel. That was the great vision of
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Speaker 1: the reforming.
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Speaker 2: You know, we take so much for granted. You know,
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Speaker 2: I've got my phone in my pocket and on that
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Speaker 2: quote unquote, that's so called phone. I have several versions
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Speaker 2: of the Bible, and I read and I can compare it,
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Speaker 2: and I can look up phrases, look up verses, and
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Speaker 2: we're all without even thinking about I take it for granted.
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Speaker 2: And what a miracle that is. You're talking about Tyndale.
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Speaker 2: He went through some absolutely miserable times in order that
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Speaker 2: we could carry that Bible around on our phone today.
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Speaker 2: Just it's amazing when we look back at history, which
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Speaker 2: by the way, I seldom do, but in this film,
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Speaker 2: I'm surprised by a lot of the things that I
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Speaker 2: see that took place in history in order that the
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Speaker 2: Bible could rise to its present full development.
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Speaker 3: Yeah.
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Speaker 1: Tindale was hunted for years because he had translated the
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Speaker 1: Bible from Greek into English and many of the words
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Speaker 1: and phrases that Tyndale chose in his translation work. It
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Speaker 1: said that about eighty five percent of the King James
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Speaker 1: translation is really the translation work of Tyndale, and they
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Speaker 1: just kept the sayings things like fight, the good fight,
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Speaker 1: and the Powers that be and looking unto Jesus the
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Speaker 1: Author and finisher of our faith. Phrases like that, very beautiful,
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Speaker 1: very familiar sayings that we have in the King James
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Speaker 1: the authorized version are originally the translation work of William Tindale.
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Speaker 1: But he was hunted for years by Sir Thomas Moore,
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Speaker 1: who set in motion, it is said by the Europeans
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Speaker 1: he said in motion the system of prosecution and investigation
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Speaker 1: that ultimately hunted down Tyndale and he was arrested and
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Speaker 1: imprisoned in the town of Villvoard, which is in Belgium,
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Speaker 1: north of Brussels. We went there, we showed that in
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Speaker 1: the film, and got to go to the Tyndale Museum
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Speaker 1: and there's also a Tindale monument there. It's kind of
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Speaker 1: sad though, when you go to Villvoard, because the people
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Speaker 1: of that town have forgotten Tindale. Unfortunately, at least they
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Speaker 1: had when we were there years ago, and so we
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Speaker 1: had trouble finding the Tindale Monument, even though it's not
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Speaker 1: a very big town, but we had to go to
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Speaker 1: the Chamber of Commerce. They eventually showed us where to go,
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Speaker 1: and they also put us in touch with a curator
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Speaker 1: of the Tyndale Museum. Very nice man came out and
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Speaker 1: met with us. And the Tindale Museum is actually built
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Speaker 1: inside of a church and they tell the story of
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Speaker 1: Tyndale through Pick and also some artifacts that pertain to him.
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Speaker 1: But it really struck home for me. I still find
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Speaker 1: the most powerful thing that I saw while I was
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Speaker 1: there was the replica that they have of Tyndale's prison cell.
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Speaker 1: And I specifically asked the curator if this was to scale,
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Speaker 1: you know, what was it really because it's very small.
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Speaker 1: It's about the size of a closet, and it doesn't
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Speaker 1: I mean, it looks you know, when we see pictures
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Speaker 1: and paintings of Tyndale, it looks almost romanticized by comparison,
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Speaker 1: where you've got a big table and you know, a
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Speaker 1: big room, like a dungeon type room that you would
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Speaker 1: see in a Hollywood movie.
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Speaker 3: But that's not how he was in prison.
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Speaker 1: He was in prison a very very small space where
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Speaker 1: you could barely stand up in the room, and he
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Speaker 1: was there for about a year and a half before
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Speaker 1: he was finally condemned and then strangled and burnt at
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Speaker 1: the stake.
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Speaker 2: Now, before you continue, William Tindale a name that maybe
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Speaker 2: some of us know. But what did he actually do,
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Speaker 2: which to me was amazing.
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Speaker 3: Yeah.
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Speaker 1: Well, he's the man who translated the Bible from Greek.
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Speaker 1: He was the first to translate from Greek into English.
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Speaker 2: This is no small feat to do it well and
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Speaker 2: to come up with a translation that fit into what
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Speaker 2: would become a long line of translations up to the
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Speaker 2: present day. But that's almost miraculous.
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Speaker 1: Well it really, I agree with you. Part of it
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Speaker 1: was all they had in Western Europe were the Latin texts, okay,
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Speaker 1: because the westerner of the influence of Rome and so on.
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Speaker 1: So this is why Wickliffe used Latin for his translation
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Speaker 1: into Middle English for the Wickliffe Bible thirteen eighty four.
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Speaker 1: Then you have in fourteen fifty three the Fall of Constantinople,
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Speaker 1: where the Ottoman Turks invade Constantinople, which was the capital
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Speaker 1: of the Greek Christian Empire, and then many of your
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Speaker 1: Byzantine Greeks fled and they came into Western Europe because
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Speaker 1: they were fleeing the Turkish invasion. Sure well, they brought
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Speaker 1: with them thousands of these Greek manuscripts from the ancient world,
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Speaker 1: and many of them were the writings of ancient Greek philosophers.
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Speaker 1: But they brought thousands of copies of the Greek New Testament.
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Speaker 1: And the scholars in the West knew that the New
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Speaker 1: Testament was originally written in Greek, but they weren't familiar
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Speaker 1: with the texts. So now this brought the Greek text
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Speaker 1: and language into Western Europe and people like Erasmus Desiderius.
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Speaker 1: Erasmus was actually educated by a Byzantine Greek scholar, and
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Speaker 1: that's how he learned Greek. So then Tyndale wanted to
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Speaker 1: imitate Erasmus. So, but then he also wanted to translate
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Speaker 1: it into English, which he did, and that began the
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Speaker 1: process of translating from Greek into English to give us
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Speaker 1: some more, you know, clear and an accurate translation in
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Speaker 1: the English language.
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Speaker 2: Once again, the untold history of the Bible. You have
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Speaker 2: a long version and a short version of this. But
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Speaker 2: whether you use the long version or the short version,
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Speaker 2: if you react the way I did upon looking at
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Speaker 2: this film, you'll just put your hand on your forehead
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Speaker 2: and say, Wow, I should I really should know more
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Speaker 2: about how my Bible came to be in my possession.
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Speaker 2: A lot of people suffered a long time so that
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Speaker 2: I could just pick up my Bible and read it.
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Speaker 2: And and that comes through the history. And when I
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Speaker 2: say suffer, some of them suffered. Some of them just
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Speaker 2: plain worked hard day and night in order that the
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Speaker 2: Bible might be translated.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, one of the things that we talk about is
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Speaker 1: how we got chapter and verse again with their purposeful approach,
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Speaker 1: you know, where they're looking for innovative ways to get
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Speaker 1: the Bible into the hands of the people and make
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Speaker 1: it easier to understand. So you had Archbishop Stephen Langton
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Speaker 1: back in the thirteenth century. He's the one who added
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Speaker 1: the chapter divisions to the Bible to make it easier
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Speaker 1: to navigate. And then in the middle of the Reformation,
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Speaker 1: Robert Stefanis comes along in the sixteenth century and he
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Speaker 1: adds verse divisions to the text. And then with the
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Speaker 1: Geneva Bible, the Geneva Bible was seen as the Bible
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Speaker 1: of the Reformation. That was the Bible of Queen Elizabeth
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Speaker 1: the Bible of Shakespeare, the Bible of Oliver Cromwell, the
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Speaker 1: Puritans early on. In fact, the Pilgrims that came to
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Speaker 1: America brought a Geneva Bible with them on the Mayflower.
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Speaker 1: Back there there's inside Washington, DC, in the Capitol, there's
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Speaker 1: that big painting of the pilgrim fathers on the boat,
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Speaker 1: and they're holding open a Bible that would have been
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Speaker 1: a Geneva Bible what they brought.
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Speaker 2: And I'm thinking, as you're talking, I've got my bible
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Speaker 2: open the first Theessalonians, chapter four, and then I go
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Speaker 2: to verse sixteen. For the Lord himself shall descend from
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Speaker 2: heaven with a shallow the voice of the archangel, the
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Speaker 2: trump of God, and the dead in Christ will arise first. Well,
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Speaker 2: that's that is First Thesalonians for sixteen. We know that,
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Speaker 2: I mean, so many of us look that up occasionally
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Speaker 2: and just say wow. Except I never think about the number,
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Speaker 2: and I never think about what it took to put
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Speaker 2: that number in my scripture so that I could find
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Speaker 2: it again and again. And we just dropped that, you know,
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Speaker 2: as though nothing ever happened. This is the Bible has
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Speaker 2: always been this way wrong. But it took a lot
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Speaker 2: of work to get what we have today.
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Speaker 1: Yes centuries. So the Geneva translation is it's one of
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Speaker 1: my favorite Bibles from that era simply because of the
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Speaker 1: whole story behind it, and it was it was specifically
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Speaker 1: done during the time of Bloody Mary because Bloody Mary
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Speaker 1: ascends to the throne.
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Speaker 3: You know William Tindale.
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Speaker 2: When he's who's Bloody Mary?
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Speaker 1: For those Bloody Mary was the daughter of King Henry
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Speaker 1: the Eighth. Okay, Henry the Eighth was king during the
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Speaker 1: time of William Tyndale. Ah, and Tyndale cried out right
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Speaker 1: before he died, he cried out, Lord Ope, the King
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Speaker 1: of England's eyes.
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Speaker 3: Wow, that's what he prayed.
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Speaker 1: Amazing And within less than a year, King Henry, after
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Speaker 1: you heard about the death of Tyndale, legalized the Bible. He
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Speaker 1: authorized an official English translation that was called the Great Bible,
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Speaker 1: and that was to be read aloud in all the churches.
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Speaker 2: So Tyndale's dying prayer was answered.
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Speaker 1: That is the way virtually everybody sees the history. It
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Speaker 1: was just a powerful, powerful answer to prayer, especially for
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Speaker 1: that time. But then Henry the Eighth eventually he dies,
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Speaker 1: and then Bloody Mary comes to the throne after a
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Speaker 1: certain period of upheaval. But Bloody Mary comes to the
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Speaker 1: throne and she wants to bring all of England back
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Speaker 1: to Rome. So she outlaws the Bible again and resumes
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Speaker 1: the inquisition, starts burning people at the stake for reading
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Speaker 1: the scripture and also for turning away from the pope.
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Speaker 1: And so many of the English reformers fled during the
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Speaker 1: reign of Bloody Mary, and they went to Geneva where
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Speaker 1: they were protected by the Calvinists there, and they set
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Speaker 1: about working and doing the Geneva Translation. So it's a
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Speaker 1: translation that was done, you know, through the fires of
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Speaker 1: persecution and really in defiance of these powers of darkness
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Speaker 1: that were trying to resist and to silence the word
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Speaker 1: of God. It just really shows the courage of the
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Speaker 1: saints at that time, you know.
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Speaker 2: Coming up to our own era and the Nazi movement
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Speaker 2: in Germany, Bibles were burned again. I mean it seemed
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Speaker 2: it never quits. My comp was distributed and the Bibles
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Speaker 2: were all collected and piled up and burned, and it
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Speaker 2: seems like the fight just goes on.
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Speaker 1: I think, right up into modern times. One of the
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Speaker 1: things that we talk about is the also the counter
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Speaker 1: Reformation that as the as the printing press was producing
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Speaker 1: Bibles and spreading them all over Europe, they were printing
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Speaker 1: bibles faster than the Inquisition could burn them, and so
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Speaker 1: Europe became overwhelmed with Bibles, and the Inquisitors didn't know
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Speaker 1: what to do, so they began to the Jesuits, now
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Speaker 1: reformed as part of the counter Reformation, so they began
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Speaker 1: looking for ways to counter the Bible and the belief
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Speaker 1: of the reformers and really of the church up to
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Speaker 1: that time, anything that was called the Church, whether it
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Speaker 1: was Catholic, Protestant, Greek, Russian, Orthodox, everybody up to that
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Speaker 1: point believed that the Bible was the inspired, in errant
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Speaker 1: word of God. And it's part of the counter Reformation
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Speaker 1: that the Jesuits looked at it and they said, you know,
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Speaker 1: the Bible is the problem. The problem is these Protestants
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Speaker 1: they keep and really the Protestants were really Catholics who
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Speaker 1: were protesting based on what they were reading in the Bible,
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Speaker 1: and eventually they were called Protestants.
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Speaker 3: And so the.
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Speaker 1: Jesuits said, the Bible's the problem. We've got to convinced
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Speaker 1: people that the Bible is not really the Word of God,
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Speaker 1: and so that's what they said about doing, and they
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Speaker 1: developed what is today called higher criticism, where they began
20:11
Speaker 1: looking for ways to undermine faith in the Bible and
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Speaker 1: to teach the Bibles not really the word of God.
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Speaker 2: Higher criticism being sort of a historical grammatical approach to
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Speaker 2: ripping the Bible apart so that it doesn't make much
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Speaker 2: sense right right, And you know, Satan has a million
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Speaker 2: ploys and that was one of the most obvious. But
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Speaker 2: we have come through an era of higher criticism not
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Speaker 2: too long ago.
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Speaker 1: And thankfully there's many people that push back and fight
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Speaker 1: back and the arguments of the higher critics. In fact,
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Speaker 1: Untold History of the Bible is really part one of
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Speaker 1: a three part series that we have, but we talk
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Speaker 1: about in the later sections about higher critical origins and
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Speaker 1: where they come from and how they were developed and
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Speaker 1: so on. Part of the reason that we do it,
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Speaker 1: part of my motivation is really to strengthen believers and
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Speaker 1: their faith and trust in the Bible as the Word
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Speaker 1: of God, and that a lot of the arguments that
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Speaker 1: we hear that they claim are based on science and
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Speaker 1: true archaeology and so on, are actually once you examine
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Speaker 1: them there are arguments that simply don't hold water once
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Speaker 1: you understand what's behind them.
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Speaker 2: You know, as you're talking, I'm thinking about the untold
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Speaker 2: history of the Bible. A film a movie, and it
21:43
Speaker 2: really comes in two different lengths. You know, you have
21:47
Speaker 2: a short version and a long version. But as we're talking,
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Speaker 2: I'm thinking back to World War one and two, and
21:54
Speaker 2: particularly World War two. We've all seen war movies from
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Speaker 2: the of the last eight decades. We've seen movies that
22:05
Speaker 2: attempt to help us understand what was going on, some
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Speaker 2: of the really dramatic developments, the return of Israel to
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Speaker 2: the land, and all the things that were going on
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Speaker 2: world War Two. How many movies have been made like that,
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Speaker 2: and we make those movies. One of the reasons is
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Speaker 2: so that we can understand the era and dramatize the era.
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Speaker 2: And people leave the movie theater and they say, wow,
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Speaker 2: I am really grateful for those people that died so
22:36
Speaker 2: that I could be free. You're a movie does the
22:40
Speaker 2: same thing, except it focuses on another war, and that
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Speaker 2: is of the struggle, the war to keep a pure
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Speaker 2: copy of God's word in front of the people, when
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Speaker 2: in fact, Satan says, let's get rid of those Bibles
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Speaker 2: anyway we can. And this war has been going on
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Speaker 2: for the entire Church age, I suppose.
23:04
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think it's I mean, we show in the
23:06
Speaker 1: film how it's been going on since the early centuries.
23:09
Speaker 1: The the Diocletian persecutions that began at the beginning of
23:13
Speaker 1: the fourth century, and this is under old Pagan Rome.
23:17
Speaker 1: They tried to destroy as many of the Christian scriptures
23:21
Speaker 1: as they could, so they ordered, you know, the destruction
23:25
Speaker 1: of them, the burning of them, etc. Until Constantine intervened,
23:28
Speaker 1: Constantine the Great, and he basically legalized Christianity with the
23:33
Speaker 1: Edict of Milan. We go over that history as well,
23:36
Speaker 1: but that from the fourth century onward. You know, you
23:41
Speaker 1: had for the first three centuries you had the Old
23:44
Speaker 1: Testament in one area. Then you had the various writings
23:48
Speaker 1: of the New Testament Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, but they're
23:51
Speaker 1: in different parts of the old Roman Empire, and then
23:55
Speaker 1: the Letters of Paul in different areas. And because they're
23:58
Speaker 1: being sent out originally just as as letters and epistles
24:01
Speaker 1: and so on, and so by the time you get
24:03
Speaker 1: to the fourth century, once Constantine legalized Christianity, that's when
24:09
Speaker 1: they began to get all of the parts of the
24:11
Speaker 1: Old and New Testament and bring them together into a
24:14
Speaker 1: single volume that eventually we called the Bible.
24:18
Speaker 2: You know, I'm talking just divert the conversation just briefly.
24:23
Speaker 2: The war is going on as we speak here in
24:26
Speaker 2: public schools. There's a battle on right now. Can we
24:30
Speaker 2: have the Bible in school or not? Well, that's that's
24:33
Speaker 2: that war has been going on my entire life. But
24:37
Speaker 2: it's back, you know, it's reached the hot stage once again,
24:40
Speaker 2: and a lot of state legislatures are now basically holding
24:48
Speaker 2: hearings on should we or should we not be able
24:51
Speaker 2: to have the Bible in public school class classes. So
24:55
Speaker 2: the struggle goes on.
24:56
Speaker 1: And I think that we as Christians, if we're going
24:58
Speaker 1: to continue in the the tradition of our Protestant Bible
25:04
Speaker 1: believing Puritan forefathers like Governor John Winthrop, who and the
25:11
Speaker 1: Mayflower Pilgrims, they said in the Mayflower Compact that they
25:17
Speaker 1: came to America for the advancement of the Christian religion.
25:21
Speaker 1: Winthrop and the Puritans that they came here to preach
25:24
Speaker 1: the Gospel in the New world and to establish a
25:26
Speaker 1: bulwark against the Kingdom of Antichrist to oppose the anti
25:30
Speaker 1: Christian powers at Jamestown. They raised up across when they
25:35
Speaker 1: landed on the beach, and they prayed that both America
25:38
Speaker 1: and England would be evangelist to the world. I think
25:42
Speaker 1: the reason I think the history is so important, and
25:45
Speaker 1: we cover it in this film, but also others of
25:49
Speaker 1: our films as well. I think the reason the history
25:52
Speaker 1: is so important is to remind our fellow Americans who
25:56
Speaker 1: are Christians in this country why this country was founded.
26:00
Speaker 1: It really was founded to advance the Gospel of Jesus
26:03
Speaker 1: Christ and to teach the Word of God, not only
26:06
Speaker 1: across this land but throughout the world. That's what this
26:10
Speaker 1: country was founded to do. And so the whole idea
26:14
Speaker 1: of getting the Bible out of the public schools, the
26:17
Speaker 1: public school system was founded for the purpose of teaching
26:22
Speaker 1: children how to read and write so they could read
26:24
Speaker 1: their Bible. It all goes back to an old law
26:28
Speaker 1: called the Old Deluter Satan Act, and it began the
26:34
Speaker 1: words of it began it being one chief project of
26:37
Speaker 1: that Old Deluter Satan to keep men from the knowledge
26:41
Speaker 1: of the scriptures as in former times when they said,
26:44
Speaker 1: as in former times they're talking about the Inquisition, they're
26:47
Speaker 1: talking about.
26:48
Speaker 3: The Dark Age.
26:49
Speaker 1: The Dark Age was so called because the light of
26:52
Speaker 1: God's word was forbidden. So our ancestors wanted children to
26:56
Speaker 1: be able to read the Bible, to read the word
26:58
Speaker 1: of God, and that was why they set originally, why
27:02
Speaker 1: they set forth public education, so that every child would
27:06
Speaker 1: have I mean, you think about what Jesus says, man
27:09
Speaker 1: does not live by bread alone, but by every word
27:13
Speaker 1: that proceeds from the mouth of God. How can that
27:16
Speaker 1: happen unless people have the Bible in their own language,
27:20
Speaker 1: unless they know how to read it.
27:22
Speaker 2: You know, as you're talking, I'm thinking growing up, at
27:29
Speaker 2: one point in my life, we lived out in the
27:31
Speaker 2: country and I went to a country school for the
27:35
Speaker 2: sixth grade. And I love the fact that I went
27:40
Speaker 2: to that country school, one room school, about forty kids
27:45
Speaker 2: from grades one through six, and a wonderful teacher, Miss
27:51
Speaker 2: Driever was her name, and Miss Driver was a Christian,
27:56
Speaker 2: and she read the Bible to us. They're sitting there,
28:01
Speaker 2: you know, and I'm in the sixth grade and I'm
28:03
Speaker 2: following her as she reads scripture, and that really was
28:10
Speaker 2: a pleasant experience for me. I don't know exactly why.
28:14
Speaker 2: But the fact that she was reading and I was
28:17
Speaker 2: following along just really hit the mark for me. Made
28:21
Speaker 2: me feel better. And of course at that time, what
28:24
Speaker 2: did I know except looking back, what a wonderful thing
28:29
Speaker 2: that was, and how difficult would it be to read
28:35
Speaker 2: scripture in all the schools today and times really change,
28:41
Speaker 2: and the resistances out there because there is one being
28:46
Speaker 2: known as Satan who would rather not have the Bible
28:50
Speaker 2: in school.
28:51
Speaker 1: Well, the Scripture is called the sword of the Spirit,
28:54
Speaker 1: the Word of God, so it's an offensive weapon against
29:00
Speaker 1: the enemy. It is if people have knowledge of the
29:03
Speaker 1: Word of God. This is why you know, studying the
29:06
Speaker 1: reformers is so, I think so important because their collective
29:11
Speaker 1: ambition was to get the scriptures in the hands of
29:15
Speaker 1: the common people. I was over a number of years ago,
29:18
Speaker 1: we were doing some filming for a project over in
29:21
Speaker 1: Geneva in Switzerland, and I had a chance to go
29:24
Speaker 1: to the International Museum of the Reformation and I was
29:29
Speaker 1: shooting some b roll inside the museum there and standing
29:33
Speaker 1: there and a woman walks in, an older lady walks in,
29:36
Speaker 1: and there was people just touring the museum, and she
29:39
Speaker 1: walks in and they speak French. There, she says, bonjour,
29:42
Speaker 1: and I said, oh, hello, and so she looked at
29:44
Speaker 1: me like hello.
29:45
Speaker 3: I said, I'm an American.
29:48
Speaker 1: And she and I talked for a minute, and she
29:49
Speaker 1: started talking about the Reformers and how they were brave
29:53
Speaker 1: men and they were so bold and they were courageous
29:56
Speaker 1: to do what they did. And so I I listened
30:00
Speaker 1: to her for a minute and I said, oh, so,
30:03
Speaker 1: are you a Protestant then, And she said, oh, no,
30:05
Speaker 1: I'm Catholic. And I said really and she said yes,
30:09
Speaker 1: But she said I think very much like a Protestant
30:12
Speaker 1: And I said how so and she said, because I
30:15
Speaker 1: believe that I should be able to read the Bible
30:20
Speaker 1: and pray to God and worship God according to my
30:23
Speaker 1: own conscience.
30:25
Speaker 3: That's what she said.
30:26
Speaker 2: Wow.
30:27
Speaker 1: And for her, that was the understanding of what the
30:31
Speaker 1: Reformers accomplished. It was access to the Word of God
30:36
Speaker 1: and the freedom to read and to believe God and
30:39
Speaker 1: according to His word.
30:41
Speaker 2: Wow. And of course, we commonly think of and we
30:48
Speaker 2: teach the concept that we are guided by the Spirit
30:51
Speaker 2: of the Lord. The Holy Spirit guides is. It's not
30:55
Speaker 2: just a book like any other book. You pick this
30:57
Speaker 2: book up and you read it, you read it in freedom,
31:03
Speaker 2: but you are led of the spirit of the Lord,
31:06
Speaker 2: and that is a big factor, and it reflects back
31:10
Speaker 2: on your film because people have preached that for centuries.
31:17
Speaker 2: The spirit of the Lord is leading us in a
31:19
Speaker 2: particular way, and the government disagrees with that way. So
31:24
Speaker 2: it's been a battle between God and government, I suppose
31:29
Speaker 2: ever since Jesus was here.
31:32
Speaker 1: And I would say also since the apostles were strictly
31:37
Speaker 1: forbidden by the Sanhedrin, the Jewish government at the time,
31:41
Speaker 1: from preaching in the name of Jesus, and they said,
31:45
Speaker 1: we ought to obey God rather than men. So and
31:48
Speaker 1: then they went out and they preached the Gospel. And
31:50
Speaker 1: that's what we're called to do, called to call to
31:53
Speaker 1: obey God rather than man.
31:57
Speaker 2: Now in the untold history of the Bible, what's your
31:59
Speaker 2: favorite part? I just have to ask you this, because
32:03
Speaker 2: there are various parts, and I intend to go back
32:06
Speaker 2: and watch this film again because it's very scholarly. Now,
32:10
Speaker 2: when I say scholarly, I don't mean boring. It's in fact,
32:14
Speaker 2: it's exciting. But what's your favorite I guess segment of
32:19
Speaker 2: this film.
32:19
Speaker 1: Well, my favorite segment would be the whole section on
32:22
Speaker 1: William Tyndale. We put a lot of work into that.
32:25
Speaker 1: We found an actor who was just I thought perfect
32:30
Speaker 1: for the role. He looked like William Tyndale and he
32:33
Speaker 1: did a great job. And then of course traveling over
32:37
Speaker 1: to Belgium to Villvoard and being at the town of
32:41
Speaker 1: Villboard and being able to talk to the curator there
32:45
Speaker 1: because for them Tyndale is a very very important figure
32:49
Speaker 1: and they believe keeping his memory alive and that part
32:51
Speaker 1: of the world is very important. But also, you know,
32:55
Speaker 1: and going to the British Library and listening to doctor
32:58
Speaker 1: Moira Goff talk about out the importance of the Scripture
33:02
Speaker 1: as the Word of God and the intentional nature of
33:08
Speaker 1: what Tyndale did that he was such an innovator and
33:12
Speaker 1: he was really just a brilliant word smith in terms
33:17
Speaker 1: of his ability to fashion words and phrases in the
33:22
Speaker 1: English language that communicated beautifully and poetically what the Holy
33:28
Speaker 1: Scriptures are saying from the original languages into the English language. That's,
33:34
Speaker 1: you know, Tendale is really the genius of the modern
33:37
Speaker 1: English Bible.
33:39
Speaker 2: As someone who has written occasionally during my lifetime, I
33:44
Speaker 2: understand that there is writing and then there is writing.
33:47
Speaker 2: There's writing that you know is factual and correct and
33:51
Speaker 2: you get all the information, but it's just a little boring.
33:55
Speaker 2: And then there's writing that's not only illuminating in terms
34:00
Speaker 2: of the message, but it has that what do you
34:03
Speaker 2: what do you call that? Something that makes words jump
34:07
Speaker 2: off the page. And a lot of the people who
34:12
Speaker 2: were led of the Lord over the years had that gift,
34:17
Speaker 2: because to me, the Bible has a lot of jump
34:19
Speaker 2: off the page statements in it, worded in such a
34:23
Speaker 2: way that you just you remember them, you can't forget them.
34:28
Speaker 1: Well, that's what One of the things that we discovered
34:31
Speaker 1: was that the King James Committee, the translators of the
34:35
Speaker 1: King James, who again were using a lot of Tyndale's work,
34:39
Speaker 1: but they added their own work to it, they had
34:43
Speaker 1: exactly that in view. They they wanted the scriptures in
34:47
Speaker 1: English to have a flow to them in such a
34:51
Speaker 1: way that they would be easy to commit to memory.
34:54
Speaker 1: Uh huh, you know that that they you know, verily,
34:56
Speaker 1: verily I say unto thee and things like that.
34:59
Speaker 3: You just think about how the words roll off the tongue.
35:02
Speaker 3: They're very you know.
35:03
Speaker 1: For God so loved the world that he gave his
35:05
Speaker 1: only begotten son, that whosoever believes in him should not
35:08
Speaker 1: perish but have everlasting life. It just flows very very well.
35:14
Speaker 1: It doesn't have that kind of wooden, sort of clunky.
35:18
Speaker 2: God so loved the world that he gave his only
35:21
Speaker 2: begotten son, those words flow, yeah, and it just there's
35:28
Speaker 2: something very much beyond ordinary language.
35:35
Speaker 3: They're elevated, I think so. I've always thought so.
35:38
Speaker 1: I've always loved the King James the authorized versions. It's
35:42
Speaker 1: my favorite all around. I still think it's the most
35:45
Speaker 1: faithful and the most accurate translation that we have.
35:50
Speaker 3: But it's a.
35:51
Speaker 1: Beautiful story how it came into being, because it wasn't
35:55
Speaker 1: really just the King James. There was one hundred years
35:58
Speaker 1: of sacrifice and labor and research and so on that
36:05
Speaker 1: preceded the King James.
36:06
Speaker 2: To me, most people, if you ask them, how did
36:09
Speaker 2: the King James Bible come into being? Well, King James
36:13
Speaker 2: ordered some people to put it together and they did,
36:15
Speaker 2: and that was that. There's more to it than that, right.
36:19
Speaker 1: Yeah, Oh, definitely definitely, And that's really what we're showing.
36:22
Speaker 1: We're showing a lot of the storyline is showing all
36:27
Speaker 1: the events that led up to the great translation of
36:30
Speaker 1: sixteen eleven.
36:31
Speaker 2: And it is a great I still here's my Bible
36:34
Speaker 2: right here. It's a good old King James Bible. I
36:38
Speaker 2: have other translations that I read occasionally, but I come
36:41
Speaker 2: back to this one and it has a poetic drive,
36:47
Speaker 2: some kind of a rhythmic and descriptive method of communicating
36:56
Speaker 2: that is just amazing.
36:59
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a beautiful translation, and it's been I mean,
37:03
Speaker 1: it was called the Bible. I mean, nobody ever thought
37:07
Speaker 1: about another translation. It was just simply called the Bible
37:11
Speaker 1: for close to three hundred years. And of course things
37:15
Speaker 1: changed in the nineteenth century into the twentieth century, but nevertheless,
37:19
Speaker 1: the King James continues to be a powerful, powerful witness,
37:24
Speaker 1: and like I said, I continue to believe it's the
37:28
Speaker 1: most faithful, the most accurate translation we have.
37:31
Speaker 2: You know, when I think back to the days of
37:32
Speaker 2: the Apostles, and I think of Paul traveling on foot,
37:38
Speaker 2: traveling to places that we wouldn't travel in a million years,
37:42
Speaker 2: being jailed, going through all kinds of resistance, and you
37:48
Speaker 2: think of Paul, then the next thought, particularly in a
37:52
Speaker 2: conversation like this, the next thought is he wrote, I'm
37:57
Speaker 2: looking at first Thessalonians right now he wrote in a
38:01
Speaker 2: way that isn't just writing. It is something above writing.
38:09
Speaker 2: It carries a weight, it has rhythm, it has a metaphor,
38:15
Speaker 2: it has a way of stringing words together, and so
38:20
Speaker 2: that they almost have a poetic quality, even though they're
38:24
Speaker 2: not poet poetic as we would think of it today.
38:27
Speaker 2: So this is what comes into my mind, and when
38:31
Speaker 2: when you look at the film, here the untold history
38:36
Speaker 2: of the Bible that comes through. In other words, there
38:41
Speaker 2: is something more than just writing in the Bible. There's
38:47
Speaker 2: the presence of God.
38:49
Speaker 1: Oh absolutely. And the thing that I love about the
38:53
Speaker 1: King James. And without going into you know, without being
38:59
Speaker 1: too critical of let's say modern translations as it were,
39:03
Speaker 1: but nonetheless, the men who were handling the scripture from
39:08
Speaker 1: the time of Erasmus through Tyndale, through Coverdale, through Stefanis,
39:14
Speaker 1: theodore Za and the King James and the Geneva translators,
39:19
Speaker 1: and these were all people who firmly believed that the
39:23
Speaker 1: Bible was and is the inspired and errant word of God.
39:26
Speaker 1: For them, there was no question about whether or not
39:29
Speaker 1: they were dealing with God's book and that they needed
39:32
Speaker 1: to communicate it faithfully and accurately. You know, with the
39:36
Speaker 1: fear of the Lord upon them and a determination to
39:40
Speaker 1: accomplish God's purpose in what they were doing. That's the
39:44
Speaker 1: zeal that they had.
39:46
Speaker 2: And that comes through your film. Let me ask you
39:48
Speaker 2: a question. You're sitting, you're writing a letter, and maybe
39:53
Speaker 2: you're at the dining room table. You've got a sheet
39:55
Speaker 2: of paper, a pencil, and you're writing a letter and
39:59
Speaker 2: you say, de so and so, it's been a wonderful week, Comma,
40:07
Speaker 2: And then you think, now, how should I word the
40:10
Speaker 2: end of this sentence because I want this to have
40:12
Speaker 2: some impact. Ever have that kind of an experience, Well,
40:18
Speaker 2: the whole Bible is that kind of an experience. Every
40:22
Speaker 2: phrase in the Bible is written as though you stopped
40:26
Speaker 2: and thought and thought and thought again until you had
40:29
Speaker 2: exactly the right word and the whole To write a
40:33
Speaker 2: whole book that way, that is so phenomenal. We take
40:39
Speaker 2: it for granted, and we shouldn't.
40:42
Speaker 3: No, no, not at all.
40:44
Speaker 1: It's sixty six books, penned by forty authors over fifteen
40:48
Speaker 1: hundred years. It's it's the greatest literary work that the
40:55
Speaker 1: world has ever seen. And of course we believe it's
40:58
Speaker 1: the way of salvation. It's the word God. It tells us.
41:03
Speaker 1: You know, you think about Luke chapter sixteen, where you
41:06
Speaker 1: have the story of.
41:07
Speaker 3: Lazarus and the rich Man.
41:08
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, and Lazarus dies, he goes into Abraham's bosom
41:13
Speaker 1: ultimately heaven, and the rich man dies.
41:16
Speaker 3: He ends up in hell.
41:17
Speaker 1: And when the rich man cries out to Abraham, who's
41:21
Speaker 1: there with Lazarus, and he says, you know, send Lazarus
41:25
Speaker 1: to warn my five brothers lest they should also come
41:28
Speaker 1: to this terrible place. Abraham says, Tom, they have Moses
41:32
Speaker 1: and the prophets, let them hear them. In other words,
41:36
Speaker 1: he's saying, if they would listen to Moses and the Prophets,
41:39
Speaker 1: if they would listen to the Holy Scripture, then they
41:42
Speaker 1: could be delivered from that place of torment, you know.
41:47
Speaker 1: So it goes back to the fundamental message of the
41:52
Speaker 1: New Testament. He that believes the Son has life, he
41:55
Speaker 1: that believes not the Son shall not see life. The
41:58
Speaker 1: wrath of God abides on him. But how can people
42:02
Speaker 1: believe in Jesus as the Son of God unless they've
42:05
Speaker 1: got access to the Word of God to bring that conviction.
42:08
Speaker 1: So it's a very important story, of course, for I
42:13
Speaker 1: think the world's greatest book.
42:15
Speaker 2: And it's written with perfect metaphor. It's written with weighty
42:23
Speaker 2: subjects placed together in a certain way so that when
42:28
Speaker 2: you read them both you have an insight that you
42:31
Speaker 2: might not have had any other way. This whole book
42:35
Speaker 2: is a miracle of communication. I think it is the
42:39
Speaker 2: greatest miracle of communication the history of the world. Myself
42:43
Speaker 2: and your film really brings us to that level, and
42:46
Speaker 2: I really appreciate your having done it. It's just amazing.
42:51
Speaker 1: Well, it was both a pleasure and an honor to
42:53
Speaker 1: do the work, it really was, And it's a film
42:56
Speaker 1: that's gotten out all over the world. So we've been
43:00
Speaker 1: been pleased at seeing the impact that it's had on
43:03
Speaker 1: people in other countries, even I mean, I had somebody
43:07
Speaker 1: communicate with me not long ago talking about how they
43:09
Speaker 1: had done a translation of it into Korean Korean language,
43:14
Speaker 1: and I thought it was fascinating. But of course we
43:19
Speaker 1: encourage it because we want people to hear the word
43:21
Speaker 1: of God.
43:22
Speaker 3: We want them to believe the Gospel.
43:24
Speaker 2: The untold history of the Bible. You're working on something
43:27
Speaker 2: else now, we are.
43:30
Speaker 1: We just finished a project called American Jesuits that you
43:35
Speaker 1: and I have talked about and talked about with Mondo,
43:38
Speaker 1: but we're working now on one on the Race Committee,
43:43
Speaker 1: kind of a different portion of history. But the Race Committee,
43:46
Speaker 1: which was a Congressional committee in the nineteen fifties that
43:50
Speaker 1: discovered a plan by these tax exempt foundations to rewrite
43:57
Speaker 1: the history books of America and to take our country
44:02
Speaker 1: away from our Bible based foundation toward more of a
44:07
Speaker 1: Marxist oriented worldview called collectivism. So it's another chapter in
44:14
Speaker 1: the fight against the Bible, if you will. But it's
44:17
Speaker 1: very very well documented that, I mean, the US Congress
44:21
Speaker 1: uncovered this in the nineteen fifties. So that's what we're
44:23
Speaker 1: talking about in the new film.
44:25
Speaker 2: Well, may the Lord bless you in your work and
44:28
Speaker 2: keep up the good work. His name is Chris Peno,
44:30
Speaker 2: and he has a gift. It's a gift that I
44:35
Speaker 2: don't have. I could not sit and do the kind
44:37
Speaker 2: of editing and production that you do. And just I
44:42
Speaker 2: pray that the Lord will bless your work.
44:44
Speaker 3: Thank you, Gerrey, God bless you Gerry Steerman.
44:47
Speaker 2: Have a great day.