DR. JOHN HINTON PRAYER LETTER
And They Glorified God In Me
Galatians 1:24
Fight the good fight of faith, lay hold on eternal life,
whereunto thou art also called,
and hast professed a good profession before many witnesses.
1 Timothy 6:12
Bible Restoration Ministry Newsletter Sept. 29, 2003
A ministry devoted to the preparing, translating, reprinting and redistribution of KJV-equivalent Bibles
1 Peter 2:2 “As newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby:”
Dear Brothers and Sisters,
I am still hard at work on a number of projects. I will briefly summarize most of them below. In addition, I have been offering free consultation services to anyone who is striving to produce, reprint or distribute KJV equivalent Bibles. I will begin by presenting that offer to those who have not yet seen it. I will be sending my brochure out again. I have made a few changes in it that might be of interest to some.
Consultation
As time permits, I hereby offer my services to anyone who is working to produce, reprint or distribute KJV equivalent Bibles, who need assistance in identifying such Bibles, or who need to know whether a specific Bible is perverted or not. I have studied dozens of languages in my life, learned to read about two dozen, I type quite fast in numerous scripts, and have done library cataloging and translation work in many languages that I do not even know. As a professional translator, I have had an unusual range of experience. For instance, a Colorado company offered me work typing up Vietnamese texts. I know absolutely no Vietnamese, but I was still able to type the language rather quickly. Perhaps, there was a reason that I picked up this skill that I do not yet understand. I could be of use to quite a broad spectrum of people as an editor, proofreader, typist, researcher and in other capacities. My missionary projects are quite time consuming, so I may not be able to accept all requests, or to carry out too many lengthy projects, but I will do the best that I can. My purpose, goal and duty in life is to help get the true Word of God out in as many languages as possible. My own projects are highly important, but that does not mean that I care less about similar projects of others.
I may also be able to help make others aware of KJV equivalent Bible projects through this newsletter or through other correspondences. Send me information concerning such projects and I will list them wherever I deem appropriate, provided that I do find them to be legitimate KJV equivalent/Textus Receptus projects.
If there is anything that I can do for you, in regard to KJV equivalent Bibles, please do not hesitate to contact me. I will not even resent it if someone were to ask me to spend 50 hours typing up a KJV-equivalent Book of John in, for example, some African language. I may say no, but I may go ahead and do it, or at least give you ten or twenty hours of time. In either case, I would consider it a privilege, and not an imposition. There are no strings attached and I will not directly send you a request for missionary support or expect any. If you do receive a request from me it will because it included in a newsletter or a brochure that is a part of a mass mailing that is not directed at any individual.
Hindi
I am polishing up the final work on the Hindi John and Romans. Praise the Lord, I already have a printing ministry lined up to print it. I am still working on other books in Hindi. The whole New Testament will take about a year. I am not ready to make a projection concerning the Old Testament. This is very exciting to me. Hindi is spoken by 487 million people and as of now they have only highly perverted Bibles.
Bengali
Bengali is spoken by somewhere around 200 million people. I am trying to get a KJV-equivalent, out-of-print Bengali Bible through interlibrary loan. There is a slim chance that scanning may be possible with this language, but I suspect that typing will be necessary. Unfortunately, my knowledge of Bengali is limited and I am not yet certain that I am up to the task of typing it myself without the help of a few natives. I am definitely not qualified to make big changes in the text, if it proves to be of lesser quality than I am hoping. Hopefully, it does not require any serious editing. If anyone can direct me to some Bengali speaking Christians, I’d be most grateful.
Pashto
The Lord sent a gentleman my way named Bob Picard who generously contributed much of his time and money to obtaining a Pashto NT for me. I was only able to locate a single copy in a library and it was at Boston University. I had two people who were willing to go and copy it for me, and fortunately for the second gentleman Brother Picard stepped in to do the job. The other gentleman lived 200 miles farther from Boston, while Brother Picard was 40 miles away.
The text is not perfect, but with work it will be a KJV equivalent. I intend on completing John first, and putting the rest of it on hold until I have completed a Persian New Testament. Pashto and Persian are both national languages of Afghanistan.
Persian (Farsi)
I spent some time analyzing a1904 edition Persian (Farsi) Bible that I thought was close to the KJV, but on closer scrutiny found that it is not. All of the currently published Persian translations are Westcott Hort perversions. The 1904 edition is far better than an NIV, but it is still not suitable for republication. I am looking into finding a better edition, or I may choose to take that version and fix its problems. Henry Martyn produced the first Persian Bible translation in 1820 while he was in India. This forerunner of the modern missionary movement and translation movement completed his translation after only two years of work and then he died. I am not sure whether or not his translation would be the best for republication, but it would certainly be useful for helping me fill in gaps from later translations. There is an original Henry Martyn translation in Cleveland, Ohio that I could copy when I am ready to begin serious work on a Persian NT. I have begun the Book of John and already have a copy of Martyn’s translation for John.
French
I have spent some time looking over the French Olivetan-Ostervald Bible. It is a TR Bible, so it is essentially a KJV equivalent Bible, but there are some very serious problems with it. I did further research and found that the earlier Martin French Bible was considerably better, but still not perfect. I have undertaken to revise this edition in line with the KJV. I will have completed my preliminary work on all of the books of the New Testament by tonight, provided no unseen emergencies slow down my completion of Luke, the only book that I have left to do. My next task is to fix the passages that do not match up with the KJV. The Lord led a French woman name Marie Agnes Van Peuter to me to study the work and to answer some difficult questions. Once the work has been proofread by her, and other French Christians, it will be ready for publication. I hope to have it done well before January. The Old Testament may take a full year, but I think that it will be much sooner.
Some will argue with me about the need for altering this Bible in order to make it conform to the KJV. To those critics I have four points, and these points may be applied to many other languages too.
1) The TR French Bible is nearly impossible to find. Perverted French Bibles are the only kind that are currently being published. I had to pay $60 in a used book store to get an antique Olivetan-Ostervald, but it is not perfect.
2) The problems with the TR French Bible may be few, but they are not subtle and minor errors. They are major errors and they were not accidental ones.
3) There has never been anything remotely resembling a Christian revival, they have never been a missionary force, and Christianity is virtually non-existent in modern day France. Why on earth would the we want to maintain the status quo in regard to the French Bible in the world today? Maybe there will never be a revival in the French speaking world, but if they are never given a true Bible, there is no chance that there ever will be. The only way that there will ever be such a revival is if the true Word of God is given to them.
4) The French have never had a really good Bible in their entire history. This is a disgrace.
Once this project is done, the French-speaking world, which includes a huge number of people in Africa, Belgium, Switzerland, various island nations and many other corners of the world, will have a non-perverted Bible for the first time in over a century, and their first KJV equivalent in history. What a true disgrace it is that the true Word of God has been allowed to disappear for such an important language as French!
Urdu
I’ve been trying to obtain an Urdu NT from the 19th century through interlibrary loan for nearly two years without success. There are texts in Chicago and Madison, Wisconsin that could be copied, but cannot be sent through interlibrary loan. I am still praying that someone will undertake this task. Otherwise, I will eventually be forced to drive to one of the two cities. This may prove to be my most challenging typing job, but I’m up to the task.
Other languages
I have ordered NTs through interlibrary loan in Gujarati and Punjabi. Unfortunately, my library cannot obtain them. Somewhere around 70 to 80 million people speak one of these two languages and the only Bibles available to them now are corrupt. The old out-of-print ones are not corrupt at all, and unlike Hindi and Urdu, the letters are separated by spaces, which means they should be scannable. Hopefully, someone in the Boston, Chicago or Madison area will come along to copy these for me too.
As soon as I’m able to get an affordable scanning program (Omnipage 8.0 is over $500) I will start scanning Bibles. I can scan Bibles at the same time that I type and proofread others. I have three scanners and more than three old computers that I have been able to pick up at auctions for pennies on the dollar. I eventually would like to put two or three scanners to work at a time. I do have to study each individual Bible that I work on, but there are many that could be scanned. The apostate Bible societies and churches of the age of the Great Falling Away in which we are living have managed to eliminate nearly all traces of non-Westcott-Hort/Alexandrian Bibles from the face of the earth. Old Bible translations, that are vastly superior to any currently in print, can be scanned and made available through internet and mailed to anyone who wants them. Languages that I am looking at include Swedish, Norwegian, Danish, and a number of African languages, such as Yoruba. These old Bibles may not be nearly as good as the KJV, but they at least do not omit Acts 8:37, 1 John 5:7, call Joseph the father of Jesus, omit half of Luke 4:4, or include any of the other numerous corruptions that the modern apostates love so much. Right now, the people who speak these languages have to own an antique Bible, or use a perverted one. This situation should infuriate Bible-believing Christians; oddly, it does not seem to bother them too much at all.
I also am working to put together a website with KJV/Textus Receptus equivalent Bibles for every language of the world where it is possible. In some cases, these Bible may have some shortcomings, but they will be minor compared with the shortcomings of the Westcott-Hort Bibles of the apostate Bible societies. No WH or Alexandrian Bibles will be found on this website, which means that many languages will be left blank until better Bibles can be made available.
Irish Bible
I am trying to obtain an early 19th century Roman script Irish Bible to assist the Irish Bible project of Craig Ledbetter in Ireland. Apparently, the Catholic church has burnt all copies of the text in Ireland. He is working to publish a KJV equivalent Bible in Irish and an interlinear KJV-Irish Bible. A Columbus church, High Street Baptist, has promised me the free use of their copiers for such projects, so it will only cost me time, but I have yet to obtain a copy through interlibrary loan. Anyone interested in assisting Brother Ledbetter, please contact me or go to his website at: http://www.biblebc.com/Projects/irish_new_testament_project.htm
In regard to support
I have had a fair number of churches write me about supporting my ministry, but have yet to receive any new donations. I spend 70 hours per week on these projects and some weeks more than 80. When I’m not working on my ministry, I’m digging culverts, taking care of my chickens, or doing other forms of physical labor, so I go to bed nearly comatose every evening. I will continue to work at my present pace as long as the Lord allows me, and I am quite healthy and only 44 years old. I am a survival instructor and am willing to eat wild foods and live in a shed as long as I have electricity to run computers and can continue this work, but my wife is less hardy than me. I am not the kind of missionary who gives up due to lack of support or due to hardship, however, I would be grateful for any churches that might find it in their hearts to help sponsor my work. I was able to go to Harvard on account of a full scholarship based on merit, it sure wasn’t because I had money, and I sure don’t have much now.
If your church is sponsoring missionaries abroad, it is a virtual certainty that some of them, if not all, are using perverted Bibles, because that is all that is available in most cases. The fact that most modern allegedly King James-Only churches do not care that the missionaries they support are using perverted Bibles is another sign that we are living in the last days. A world revival is not going to take place without real Bibles. We cannot feed the world with nutrient-lacking Similac and expect young Christians to grow so that they may be able to handle meat. They will grow up deformed, weak and malnourished. My goal is to help see to it the Milk of God’s Word is made available to at least a billion and a half people who have only fake milk available to them.
Your servant in Christ,
John Hinton
Bible Restoration Ministry
c/o 1737 Grace Lane
Columbus, Ohio [43220]
740-226-3222
jhinton@post.harvard.edu
A ministry of Gateway Anabaptist Church of Monroe Michigan