WHAT DO WE NEED WITH AN ETA?
“And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.” (Rev 13:17)
This verse is warning us that, in special circumstances, we may be able to participate in the Beast monetary system without having an actual mark, but only the number or the name that associates us with the Beast. We may not have a chip in our hands or forehead, but the Beast’s number in our wallets or in our heads. This tells us that there may be people who may slip by the marking, or perhaps chipping, process, but will still go along with the system through computers, cell phones, interactive televisions (or hyperactive televisions, which is a term used by Lucent Technologies in describing their Inferno program), or through other means. Christians may be able to participate in black market bartering in future times, but going along with the Antichrist’s system will not be an option even for those who slip through the bureaucratic cracks or who evade getting marked. The perverted new versions conflate the mark with the number by converting the last clause from being an alternative to the mark to being a definition of it, and the NKJV does so with a footnote.
NIV “so that no one could buy or sell unless he had the mark, which is the name of the beast or the number of his name.”
RSV “so that no one can buy or sell unless he has the mark, that is, the name of the beast or the number of its name.”
Neither us Bible-believing Christians nor the Westcott-Hort-only Bible bunch can claim that the other side translated poorly in this instance (not counting the lunatic fringe versions like that of Eugene Peterson). The reason is that both have translated from different texts. The Textus Receptus reads (Greek font is used):
“kai ina mh tiv dunhtai agorasai h pwlhsai ei mh o ecwn to caragma h to onoma tou yhriou h ton ariymon tou onomatov autou.”
The only difference found in the Westcott-Hort (WH) text is that the word for “or” is missing. It is only a matter of one Greek letter, which is eta.
WH kai ina mh tiv dunhtai agorasai h pwlhsai ei mh o ecwn to caragma to onoma tou yhriou h ton ariymon tou onomatov autou
What we of modern times must possess in order to discern which to follow is spiritual discernment, and at least a little common sense. Common sense tells us that the more likely scribal error is the omission of the eta, not the addition of it. Since thousands of other scribal errors are found within the texts used by WH, it should not even require very much common sense to discern which text is more likely to be accurate in this example.
God promised that he would preserve his word, and for a few hundred years Christians believed that he did. Then along came Tischendorf, Westcott, Hort, Wellhausen, Bultmann, and a host of other scoffers and atheists who denied that he had done so, and did everything in their power to convince the public that they had no Final Authority at all. In the case of the first three, their attack was against the Greek text itself.
All of the Westcott-Hort versions are either from one of Nestle Aland’s editions of Westcott’s and Hort’s cut and paste Greek pseudotext, which were mostly drawn from texts hidden in the Vatican along with stolen booty that consists of Egyptian obelisks, pornographic paintings and statues, idols from Egypt, Greece, and Rome, goddess icons, and a huge painting of naked men painted on a ceiling by a sodomite. The other text was found in the trash can of a ghoulish Catholic monastery in Egypt. The same occultist by the name of Tischendorf just so happened to have found both these texts, and in spite of the fact that they were missing hundreds of verses and partial verses, were full of thousands of errors of which even the Westcott-Hort translators who actually know Greek are aware, and are even missing entire books, Westcott and Hort used them for the base of their cut and paste text.
We also know from their own writings, as well as those of the H.P. Blavatsky, the founder of the modern New Age movement, that Westcott and Hort were occultists. They began the Ghostly Guild for calling upon “dead” spirits. They praised both Marx and Darwin in writing. They were friends with Blavatsky and she praised them in her Luciferian writings. They even admitted that they did not really believe the Bible, just the way the bulk of modern version translators do today. Virtually all of the modern versions either follow this text or just copy off of other English versions that used it.
Those Holy Spirit-filled Christians who have been misled by such a thinly veiled attack against God will turn away from such wickedness once they learn how they have been deceived. The true apostate is another story. The modern apostate Christian when given a choice between believing the book that brought about the great revivals that swept the world, as well as the modern missionary movement, or texts from an idolatrous temple and a trashcan, almost always picks the trash. They would rather follow the pseudo-text of non-Bible-believing, demon-conjuring, Marxist, New Agers and the even worse modern apostate “translators” who follow them. The fact that an anti-Christian publishing company that pushes the homosexual agenda publishes the NIV will not move them. The fact that a secret committee prepared the NASV will not move them. The fact that a Catholic-owned publishing company that uses a symbol of Satanism and witchcraft on its cover owns the NKJV will not move them. The fact that an openly socialist collection of New Agers, abortion supporting, sodomites, lesbians and academic atheists publish the RSV will not move them either. I could go on for pages, because there is no evil on the part of the publishers of their versions that they would consider to be too much. Common sense should be enough to tell them what is wrong with this picture, but there is something else at work here that trumps any common sense that they might have. They lack spiritual discernment because they follow a different spirit, and it sure isn’t holy.
We are warned that there will only be remnant in the end. The modern predominance of false Bibles is evidence of this. Those who choose to follow the demonic work of devil-worshippers will foolishly conflate the clauses of this verse and they will be able to add it to their arsenal of lame excuses for going along with the Beast system. The slaying in the spirit, Rock and Rolling, Purpose Drivel, and other entertainment-centered mockeries of churches will be more than happy to encourage their congregations to accept the mark of the beast by altering the verses of this chapter of Revelation. I have already written about the treatment of other passages in the chapter that have been altered to hoodwink the gullible. In the end, however, most of them will cling to altered passages like the one under discussion out of convenience alone. After all, it will be most inconvenient indeed for those who take the verses seriously.
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.