SCOFIELD’S FOLLIES ACTS 8:37
Some of the most ridiculous Bible “corrections” often are found in footnotes rather than in the text themselves. The following silly footnote that follows these verses is found in the Scofield Bible, or the Old Scofield Bible as it has come to be known. Many true Bible believing Christians own this Bible and never notice such footnotes. They need to look at them and get a real King James Bible.
And as they went on their way, they came unto a certain water: and the eunuch said, See, here is water; what doth hinder me to be baptized? And Philip said, If thou believest with all thine heart, thou mayest. And he answered and said, I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. And he commanded the chariot to stand still: and they went down both into the water, both Philip and the eunuch; and he baptized him. (Acts 8:36-38)
Scofield Note: The best authorities omit v. 37.
The “best authorities” that Scofield is referring to are Vaticanus and Sinaiticus. The first of these was found literally hidden away in the anti-Christ, pagan temple complex known as the Vatican. The latter was found in a garbage can in an Eastern Catholic monastery at a false location of Mt. Sinai. The same agenda-driven spiritualist, Constantine Tischendorff, just so happened to find both. They are both so full of errors that no one could have translated the New Testament by using either of them by themselves, or even by combining the two. They disagree with each other in thousands of places. The variant readings that are presented by these texts agree with four or five other error-ridden texts at the most, and are opposed by over 5,000! They are missing whole books of the Bible, they intersperse the Apocryphal books with scriptural books, and they have thousands of scribal errors that even the modern revisers do not deny, although they wish that they could. These texts were unknown and unused until the late nineteenth century.
This means that either God left us in the dark for all those years and lied about preserving his word, and that an unsaved dumpster diver and a series of heretics with few if any Christian standards uncovered His Word, or that God actually did preserve His Word as he said he would. It only takes an ant’s weight of spiritual discernment to be able to figure out which makes more sense!
The idea that these are the best authorities is ludicrous in the finest sense of the word. The mere fact that these texts survived the ravages of time is evidence against their quality. They survived due to being set aside and left unread in locations where conditions were conducive to preservation. If they had not been the obvious hack jobs that they were they would have been read and flipped through until they disintegrated. I have many KJV Bibles from the turn of the last century and some from the 19th century that are in much better shape than my primary KJV Bible. This is because they have set on shelves for years without seeing much use. My principle Bible was printed less than 15 years ago, but it has been read numerous times, carried all over creation, and it is the first Bible that I reach for when I want to look up a verse because I can find them faster than with my Gideon’s or older KJV editions. Judging it to be the older of my KJV editions is way off the mark and is a product of fallacious thinking. Similarly any coin collector will tell you that circulated coins, which are graded between poor or about good to about circulated, are products of varying degrees of wear, not of age, and that uncirculated coins are so due to lack of wear. The farther back one goes, the fewer uncirculated coins are likely to be found for a certain date, but they are not that rare. An uncirculated quarter from the mid 18th century is so because it was set aside where it would be safe from the world, either by accident or on purpose. A quarter from last year can be worn down to a poor condition if it has gone through enough hands. There are dates on coins, but if there were not some “genius” would undoubtedly make the statement that a Washington Quarter from last year is older than the unworn Seated Liberty quarter.
We know that Westcott, Hort, the main men behind the promotion of these texts were occultists, Catholic sycophants, Marxists, Darwinists, and Bible skeptics. They actually attended seances and even started a club to conjure up demons! One of them promoted beer for filthy lucre! They even admitted that they were not very familiar with the Greek New Testament! These are not debatable facts. They come straight out of the horses’ mouths, or perhaps in this case, the other end of the horses would be more accurate. These are the type of “best authorities” that influenced Reverend Scofield!
As for the text that Scofield wished to cast aside. It tells us why the Ethiopian eunuch got baptized. He did so because he got saved. In Scofield’s preferred readings, as in the NIV, RSV, ASV, and countless other modern versions, Phillip baptized the gentleman for another reason – there was water. The Ethiopian got wet, but he did not get saved. I’ll probably deal more with this verse in a future installment, but any reader with spiritual discernment can see that omitting this verse makes a mockery out of the whole passage, and even converts it into a deceptive one that could help send lost people to hell. No, Reverend Scofield, we do not get baptized because there is water. We take baths because there is water. We get baptized because we believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, and because we wish to make an outward sign to the world that He is our Lord and Saviour.
I won’t even get into Scofield’s promotion of the apostate and nonsensical gap theory. His attack on scripture through his footnotes is bad enough by itself. Acts 8:37 is only one of many verses that are corrupted by the “Old Scofield” Bible. The so-called New Scofield is even worse, but they are both tainted. This is like choosing between drinking out of a lightly poisoned pool and a heavily poisoned one when there is a pool full of pure water in plain sight.
I just have two questions.
(1) How exactly did Scofield define “the best”?
(2) Why would any KJV-only Christian use or sell any Bible that says Scofield on it, if they were aware of such footnotes?
John Hinton, Ph.D.
Bible Restoration Ministry
A ministry seeking the translating and reprinting of KJV equivalent
Bibles in all the languages of the world.