Original subtitles

- [Voiceover] For nearly 2,000 years the Bible has remained

the most controversial and contested book of all time.

While we in our modern world

take for granted the abundance of biblical translation,

there was a time when men who handled or even read

this sacred book had to consider whether

it would cost them their very life.

Since the crucifixion of Christ,

for whom the gospel record was set forth,

it might be said that the Bible has become

the most blood stained book in all of history.

Men have fought for it,

been burned at the stake for it.

Believers have been imprisoned, beaten, killed

and even buried alive just for reading it.

- [Buried boy] Our Father who art in heaven-

- [Voiceover] While others have had their bones disenterred

and for their faith in the word of God,

been accursed to the uttermost.

- [Man] We judge him down with the Devil

and his angels and all the recremate to eternal fire.

- [Knight] So be it.

- [Voiceover] Please, no, no!

- [Voiceover] Bible believing Christians have suffered

all this and more for daring to communicate

the powerful words of the holy scripture

to a lost and dying world.

Through the centuries, there have always been those

who desired to share the love of the Gospel message.

And with them, others who were determined to destroy it.

Yet for those who believe, the light of God's word

shines through even the darkest of times.

- [Voiceover] 2,000 years ago, the life and death of a

Jewish carpenter named Jesus of Nazareth,

forever changed the world.

He was condemned for heresy by the Jewish people

for claiming to be the Messiah

promised in the Old Testament.

He was crucified, died and was buried.

In fear, his followers initially abandoned him.

But in time, they were soon strengthened

and emerged testifying of an empty tomb

and telling all the world that God

had raised Jesus from the dead.

- For David speaketh concerning him,

thou wilt not leave my soul in Hell.

neither will thou suffer thine Holy One to see corruption.

He seeing this before spake of the resurrection of Christ,

that his soul was not left in Hell,

neither his flesh did see corruption.

This Jesus hath God raised up, whereof we all are witnesses.

Let all the house of Israel know assuredly that

God has made that same Jesus whom ye have

crucified, both Lord and Christ.

- [Voiceover] Upon hearing this the Jewish people

were pricked to the heart.

When they asked, "What shall we do?"

They were told, - [Man] Repent and be baptized

everyone of you in the name of Jesus Christ

for the remission of sins

and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost.

- With the passage of time

and the saving of many souls,

the same Gospel preached at first to the Jews,

would also be preached unto the Gentiles

at the house of a devout man, Cornelius the Centurion.

- [Peter] Of a truth I perceive that God

is no respecter of persons.

But in every nation he that feareth him,

and worketh righteousness is accepted with him.

The word which God sent unto the children of Israel,

preaching peace by Jesus Christ,

he is Lord of all.

That word, I say, ye know,

which was published throughout all Judaea

and began from Galilee, after the baptism

which John preached.

How God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with

the Holy Ghost and with power,

who went about doing good,

and healing all that were oppressed of the devil,

for God was with him.

And we are witnesses of all things which he did

both in the land of the Jews and in Jerusalem,

whom they slew and hanged on a tree.

Him God raised up the third day, and shewed him openly.

Not to all the people, but unto witnesses chosen before God,

even to us, who did eat and drink with him

after he rose from the dead.

And he commanded us to preach unto the people,

and to testify that it is he which was ordained of God

to be the judge of quick and dead.

To him give all the prophets witness, that through his name

whosoever believeth in him shall receive remission of sins.

- [Voiceover] From the house of Cornelius the good news

of Jesus Christ spread among both Jews and Gentiles alike.

In time the Apostle Paul would appear

establishing many churches.

And as the Gospel spread, it would be said

that those who preached it had turned the world upside down.

By the middle of the first century the testimony of

Jesus Christ began to be recorded in the four Gospels.

Along with these were letters written by the Apostles

which would collectively establish

the record of the New Testament.

The clearest connection between the Old Testament

and New is found in prophecy.

The scripture says that,

The scriptures foretold of the first coming

of Christ into the world,

and look forward to his second coming,

when he will judge the quick and the dead.

But before that time, Jesus had warned that

the church would endure great trials and afflictions

for the sake of the Gospel.

The Apostle Paul gave a similar warning

when he bade farewell to the Ephesian elders.

- [Roger] Paul and others warned about

what would take place.

Paul, for example, said, "After my departure

"there will come wolves,

grievous wolves who will lead the sheep away."

- [Voiceover] Paul was so adamant about this eminent threat

that he said, "Therefore watch and remember

"that by the space of three years I cease not to warn

"everyone night and day with tears."

He not only warned of grievous wolves but also of the

While the Apostle Peter warned that false teachers

would bring in, what he called, damnable heresies.

And that many would follow their pernicious ways

and because of them, the way of truth

would be evil spoken of.

- [Roger] Satan is very clever in his ways of deception.

He will form a counterfeit spirit,

a counterfeit Christ and a counterfeit Gospel.

- [Voiceover] Jesus had also foretold that his disciples

would be persecuted and killed for their faith.

He said,

The Apostle Paul had also been aspired to write;

Jesus said,

In fulfillment of these warnings,

the Church was persecuted in the early centuries.

Christians were hated and hunted by a succession

of Roman emperors beginning with Nero in the first century

and ending with Diocletian

at the start of the fourth century.

But by 313 A.D., the face of what was called Christianity,

would undergo a dramatic transformation,

when the Roman emperor Constantine the Great

won his famous battle at Milvan Bridge,

a victory that would ultimately make him

the sole emperor of Rome.

Before the battle, Constantine claimed he had

seen a vision of a cross emblazoned on the sun

and heard a voice tell him, "In this sign conquer."

Adopting the symbol, he went forth

and conquered his enemies.

A short time later Constantine would sign

the Edict of Milan granting tolerance and protection

to Christians.

With the emperor's reported conversion,

Christianity would eventually become the state religion.

- There was no Church of Rome when

the book of Romans was written but ultimately

when Constantine comes to power.

I don't think it was a good thing for the church.

I think was a corrupt thing.

He began to put his cronies in power

but ultimately the church begins to develop it's doctrine

and appoint popes and separate them over the leity.

- After Constantine was converted and he issued the Edict

that the Christians were to be protected at least until

331 A.D. when he issued another edict that

those who have not come under the authority of Rome

were to be arrested and persecuted in their

churches and records and all those things burnt.

- [Voiceover] But if Constantine were a true believer

how could he turn and persecute other Christians?

Some researchers believe

it was because his faith was divided.

Researcher Dave Hunt writes that

while heading the Christian Church,

Constantine continued to head the Pagan priesthood

to officiate at Pagan celebrations

and to endow Pagan temples.

Even after he began to build Christian churches.

For the cause of unifying the empire,

the Pagan practices of Rome were eventually combined

with what was called the Universal, or Catholic, Church.

But many Christians saw in this new system

an apostate union between the church

and the powers of the world.

Through Constantine would begin the persecution

of those who oppose the new universal faith.

As a result of his edict against heretics,

it would be said that more Christians were persecuted

after his conversion than before it.

When the Roman empire would eventually suffer its decline,

the bishops of Rome would rise up

and take to themselves the titles of Constantine;

Pontifex Maximus, Bishop of Bishops,

and Vicarius Christi, the Vicor or substitute of Christ.

As 17th century historian Thomas Hobbes wrote,

Because of his influence, some researchers mark

the so called conversion of Constantine the Great

and his persecution of Christians as the real beginning

of the dark ages.

Jesus had warned his disciples saying,

While some may attribute the beginning of the Dark Age to

to Constantine, the record of history shows that the name

of this era was given because the Bible was forbidden.

The psalmist writes,

But in the 13th century, Rome made a concerted effort

to put out that light and to keep men

from the knowledge of the scriptures.

The conflict began with a Catholic priest named

Dominic Goodsman.

It could be said that Dominic, along with Pope Innocent III,

were the two original founders of Rome's most dreadful

engine of terror and destruction, the Inquisition.

The Inquisition itself began, not because of witches,

or as a crusade against Muslims, but rather

because of Bible believing Christians.

These particular believers were known as the Albigenses.

So named because of the city of Albi in France.

The Albigenses often debated with the Catholic priests,

most notably, with Dominic Guzman,

today known as Saint Dominic in the Catholic Church.

Though Dominic accused the Albigenses of believing

heretical doctrines, his famous testimony

against them reveals important details about

their true faith.

He said,

Dominic argued that the holiness of the Albigenses

was counterfeit and should be overcome

by the allegedly true holiness of Catholicism.

Initially, Dominic tried to oppose the Albigenses

through preaching, but his efforts met with little success.

The Albigenses were known for their extensive

knowledge of the scriptures, and they refused

what they saw as Dominic's apostate teachings from Rome.

In the year 1206, the Albigenses made a confession,

It was at the Colloquy of Montreal in 1207 A.D.

where the final theological debate took place

between the Catholic priesthood, represented by

Dominic Guzman and the Albigenses.

Historians relate what was clearly seen as a defeat

for Dominic, who was said to be no match

for the Albigensian leader, Benoit de Tormes.

Researcher James McDonald writes that,

to his opponents.

To carry out his threat, Dominic would eventually form,

the Order of the Dominicans, which became

the chief instrument of Rome's holy Inquisition.

Two years later, partly inspired by Dominic's fury,

Pope Innocent III ordered the famous Crusade

against the Albigenses.

The bloody effort was led by a close friend of Dominic's,

the nefarious Simon de Montfort, remembered by Catholics

as a brave crusader, yet by Protestants

as a brutal mass murderer who was determined to

wipe out not only the Albigensians,

but all traces of their teachings.

We read that,

By 1233 A.D., Pope Gregory IX would establish

the Inquisition as official church doctrine

and thus began some 600 years of bloodshed

against Bible believers.

As a direct result of the Albigensian Crusade,

the Popes began to outlaw the translation, possession

or reading of the Bible.

Historian David Cloud explains that,

Beginning with the Albigenses, Rome's Inquistion continued

it's bloodthirsty cause for centuries.

It's estimated death toll was recorded by

historian John Dowling in 1845, who wrote,

In modern times, it is traditionally thought that

Roman Catholicism was the only form of Christianity

until the Protestant reformation.

But history shows that Bible believers have always

existed outside the Roman church and were hated

by Rome because of it.

A history of these groups can be found in the book,

The Pilgrim Church by E.H. Broadbent.

Broadbent shows that what these groups had in common

was that they did not submit to the Roman papacy,

and they sought to follow God's word

as their final authority.

The Albigenses were one of these ancient groups,

and with them were the Waldenses.

- The Waldenses, as a Bible believing people

actually go back, although this is disputed by

some Bible critics, they nevertheless go back to

the second century.

And it appears that they had what was, in effect,

an old Latin Bible called the Italic version,

as far back as the second century.

And they were known as the Vaudois, which means

the people of the valleys.

Rome persecuted the Waldenses again and again

through the centuries for over a thousand years

and tried to wipe them out.

But because, by the grace of God, they were located

in an area which was easily defended, the mountains

of northern Italy, they were able at least to cling on

to survival for centuries.

- [Voiceover] The Waldenses' commitment to the scriptures

was legendary.

Their early Bibles were in Latin,

but in the 12th century, their most famous leader,

Peter Waldo, would translate the Bible into

what was called the Romaunt language.

Romaunt was a combination of Middle English and Old French.

Yet Waldo's translation was rejected by the Church of Rome.

Pope Alexander III expelled him and his followers.

While Pope Lucius III pronounced a papal curse on them.

- They were persecuted, their records were burned,

destroyed, their names slandered.

Our true church history though, must ever seek to find

this silver stream of believers that were never

a part of Rome, they were in the valleys of the Piedmont,

between northern Italy and southern France,

in the south of France.

They went by different names, the Waldenses,

the Albigenses, the Cathars, the Donatus.

- [Voiceover] Yet in spite of Rome's efforts

to destroy them, the ancient faith of the Pilgrim Church

would prevail.

And their example would influence the great men

of faith that would follow.

When the Reformation occurred in the 16th century,

Rome would accuse Martin Luther, saying,

But before the time of Luther, the faith

of the Pilgrim Church would shine forth in the man

who would be known as the Morning Star

of the Protestant Reformation.

The first complete Bible in the English language

is attributed to John Wycliffe, who would translate

the scriptures from Latin into what is called

Middle English by about 1384.

- John Wycliffe is really called the Morning Star

of the Reformation because Wycliffe believed things

that the Reformers picked up and believed

more than 100 years later.

Like William Tendall and Martin Luther and those

and those Reformers at that time.

- [Voiceover] Wycliffe trained his followers to go out

and preach to the people.

They were known as Lollards and were so effective,

it was said that if a man met two men on the street

in England, one of them would be a Lollard.

But because England was still a Catholic country,

Wycliffe's followers suffered greatly,

and many of them were put to death.

- During the 14th century, before the onset

of the English Protestant Reformation,

Lollards, when they were captured,

they were burned at the stake.

And if they had any copies of Wycliffe's translation,

then those translations were tied around their necks.

And those translations were burned along with their owners.

- [Voiceover] Like the Pilgrim Church

that had come before him, Wycliffe taught that

the authority of the scriptures was greater than

the authority of any man.

He said that,

In addition to translating the scriptures,

Wycliffe became known for rejecting

the most deadly doctrine of the Dark Ages,

transubstantiation.

- J.C. Rial makes it clear in his writings

why the reformers were under attack,

because they went against what the Roman Catholic

church was for.

For example, here's what he wrote, "The point I refer to

"is a special reason why Reformers were burned.

"The principal reason they were burned was because

"they refused one of the peculiar doctrines

"of the Romish church, on that doctrine, in almost

"every case, hinged their life or death.

"If they admitted it, they might live.

"If they refused it, they must die."

The doctrine in question was the real presence

of the body and blood of Christ in

the consecrated elements of bread and wine

in the Lord's Supper.

- Just about everybody who was tried, was tried

for their rejection of transubstantiation.

And so what we have here, is Rome coming down hard

and saying you know, you have to bow to the host,

because that is Jesus Christ.

And that's why you don't let the host drop on the ground,

because that is Jesus Christ.

And you have the whole development of the Mass,

which is a recrucifixion of the Lord Jesus Christ

because literally, they teach that the body and the blood

of Christ is literally, physically,

actually there in the elements.

- [Voiceover] As stated before, Wycliffe boldly rejected

this doctrine.

In his lifetime, the Catholic authorities tried to

condemn him for heresy, but failed repeatedly.

Nevertheless, decades after his death, Rome would

officially occurse him to the uttermost.

- Rome hated Wycliffe so much for bringing forth

the Bible in English, it was the first complete Bible

in English, and Rome hated him so much for that,

that they actually exhumed his corpse

and smashed it to pieces.

And actually burnt the bone fragments.

- [Voiceover] The Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Arondell,

had called Wycliffe a child of the old devil,

who had crowned his wickedness by translating

the scriptures into the mother tongue.

In 1428, the Church of Rome ordered Wycliffe's bones

dug up and burned.

- He's here, I've found him, the heretic is found!

- [Voiceover] One can only imagine the intense hatred

Rome must have had to dig up Wycliffe's bones

44 years after his death.

While Wycliffe had never been excommunicated

in his lifetime, the Council of Constance had officially

anathemitized or occursed him after his death.

In the Middle Ages, when a person was anathemitized,

a ritual was held, known as

the Bell Book and Candle ceremony.

The words to which are well documented.

Wycliffe's official cursing may have sounded

something like this.

- We separate this same Wycliffe, together with

his accomplices, and the batters, from the precious body

and blood of the Lord, from the society of all Christians.

We exclude him from our Holy Mother,

the Church in heaven and on earth,

we declare him excommunicate and anathema.

We judge him damned, with the Devil and his angels,

and all the reprobates to eternal fire.

So be it.

- They dug up his bones out of the Ludderworth

church yard, they burned him to ashes

and dumped him into the River Swift.

Now the historians say that the River Swift ran into

the Severn and the Severn into the narrow seas.

Thus illustrating how Wycliffe's doctrine

spread throughout the world.

- [Voiceover] Indeed, the teachings of John Wycliffe,

and the Bible he translated would continue to influence

Christianity, right up to the present day.

And would dramatically impact the greatest event

of the Middle Ages.

As the Council of Constance had condemned John Wycliffe,

it also condemned one of his most notable followers,

a passionate Reformer in Bohemia, named Jan Huss,

whose disciples were called Hussites.

Inspired by Wycliffe, Huss opposed the doctrine

of papal infallibility and asserted the authority

of the Bible over the opinions of Church leaders.

As a result, he was condemned as a heretic and burned

at the stake in 1415.

But before he died, he claimed that God had given him

a promise.

The name Huss means "goose" in the Czech language,

and so the Lord had told him,

A century later, inspired in part by the sermons of Huss,

Martin Luther nailed his 95 thesis to the Church door

in Wittenberg, Germany, an event that would launch

the beginning of the Protestant Reformation.

While it is often thought that the Reformation was somehow

an anti-Catholic movement, the reality is that most of

the Reformers began as Catholic priests.

- All these guys, originally were Roman Catholic priests.

Wycliffe was a Roman Catholic priest, but he came to know

Christ as his Saviour, and that changed his theology.

And then the same way with William Tyndale.

He was defrocked there in Vilvoorde castle.

He was a Roman Catholic priest.

- [Voiceover] The same was true of Jan Huss and others

such as John Knox, Ulricht Zwingley, and most famously,

Martin Luther.

It might be said that Luther had broken the dam

of a great flood that had been gathering for centuries,

because of the controversies with the Albigenses,

and the Waldenses, because of John Wycliffe and Jan Huss,

and Jerome of Prague, a friend of Huss who with many others

were condemned by Rome and burned at the stake

for reading and believing the Holy Scriptures.

There can be no question that the Bible itself was

the weapon of choice used by the Reformers who took up,

Yet there were certain conditions that came about

in Luther's time that made a Reformation possible,

not just in Germany, but throughout all Europe.

One of them was the invention of movable type

by a man named Johann Gutenberg in 1440.

- Johann Gutenberg who has invented not the printing press,

but the movable type that you could take apart,

put back together.

Gutenberg started out as a goldsmith.

There had been printing on wood blocks for quite some time,

but he makes it easy because you can make type, and then

reformat that type, and so they start producing

numerous books of the Reformation, numerous Bibles

of the Reformation.

- [Voiceover] Prior to Gutenberg's invention, producing

just one Bible took the average scribe

some 10 months to copy.

But in 1455, Johann Gutenberg published the now famous

Gutenberg Bible, along with 200 copies in a single year.

For centuries, Rome had been burning bibles, along with

the books written by men like Wycliffe and others.

But now, these books could be reproduced

at unprecedented levels.

- And that's why Luther could have such an influence.

That's why Tyndale could have such an influence.

That's why books were just starting to be printed

that a scribe didn't have to sit down and 10 months

to do a Wycliffe Bible.

You could do it in a matter of weeks now,

a bunch of them and get them out.

So boy that's what really fueled the Reformation.

- [Voiceover] Gutenberg's first Bible was based on the Latin

Vulgate originally translated by Jerome in the 4th century.

- Vulgate simply means vulgar, the common language.

- [Voiceover] John Wycliffe's translation had also

been based on Latin manuscripts, although it has been

disputed what manuscripts they were.

Yet Wycliffe and others acknowledged that the original

writings of the Bible were mostly in Hebrew and Greek.

The Jewish scribes had carefully preserved the writings

of the Old Testament in the Hebrew language,

with selected passages in Aramaic.

Meanwhile, the writings of the New Testament

were recorded in Koine Greek.

Which brings us to the second great event

that brought forth the Reformation, the

The city of Constantinople was so named because

it had been built by Constantine the Great

in the fourth century, and was originally intended

to replace Rome as the capital of the Empire.

But after Constantine's death, the Roman Empire

was divided, East and West.

While the West was primarily dominated with Latin

as their earliest form of scripture, in the East,

the people continued to read, write, and speak in Greek.

In time, they would be known as the Byzantine Empire.

Then in 1453, the Ottoman Turks, led by the Islamic sultan,

Mohammed the Second, conquered Constantinople

in a victory that stunned the Western world.

As a result, many of the Byzantine scholars fled into

the West, bringing with them thousands of ancient

Greek manuscripts including many copies of

the Greek New Testament.

- You had them fleeing and taking their manuscripts

with them, so you have Mohammedism coming in,

the Ottoman Turks coming in, and they're taking over.

So they're fleeing to Western Europe.

- [Voiceover] In the years that would follow, many of

these Byzantine scholars would begin teaching

the Greek language in the universities of Europe.

One of them was a man named George Hermanimus,

or Hermanimus of Sparta.

It's said that he was the first person to teach Greek

at the University of Sorbonne in Paris.

Among his famous students was the great intellectual,

Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam.

- The Reformation gathered momentum and indeed

was sustained by the work of the great scholar Erasmus,

who produced the first Greek New Testament

as a single edition.

- [Voiceover] For Erasmus and many scholars of the time,

the introduction of the Greek New Testament into

the Western World, opened a whole new understanding

of the Bible.

- [Voiceover] The religious thinking that was modified

had to do with a more in depth and detailed understanding

of the word of God.

Erasmus wrote that, "Latin scholarship, however elaborate,

"is maimed and reduced by half without Greek.

"For whereas we Latins have but a few small streams

"a few muddy pools, the Greek possess crystal clear springs

"and rivers that run with gold."

- When the Greek manuscripts became available,

and scholars began to compare the Vulgate against the Greek,

it became very evident very quickly that the Vulgate

went off in it's own direction.

- Erasmus says that the Vulgate was so corrupt,

he made a completely new translation of the Latin

based upon the Greek and people who could read Latin,

read Erasmus's Latin text, and the Latin Vulgate

of the Roman Catholic church, they said, whoa,

this doesn't agree.

- [Voiceover] Erasmus recognized that what he uncovered

through the Greek and what he would write about,

would strike at the very heart of Catholic tradition.

- [Voiceover] It was Erasmus who confronted certain

key corruptions in the Latin text, translations that had

greatly affected the understanding of the Christian faith.

- For instance, there's a whole big difference between

the word "penance" and "repentance".

Jesus says, except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish.

Well, it had gotten translated in the Latin,

except you do penance, you shall all likewise perish.

Erasmus said, except ye repent,

ye shall all likewise perish.

Not to get into doctrinal things, but there's a whole

big difference between repentance towards God,

and doing penance on the part of a man.

- [Voiceover] Penance, according to the Catholic church,

is a sacrament that requires absolution

from a Catholic priest.

Before granting this forgiveness, the priest may require

fasting, alms giving, prayer, or some other labor

on the part of the person being forgiven.

The Council of Trent stated that,

Yet the word "repent" carries with it a different meaning,

a change of heart and mind.

to turn away from sin and toward faith in God.

And so, as one author puts it, "because of Erasmus,

"the Church's complex and somewhat cumbersome mechanics

"of penance was thus converted at a stroke,

"into a simple demand for a personal change of heart."

- Repent and be baptized, every one of you in the name

of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins.

And ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost.

- [Voiceover] Erasmus also discovered another

major corruption in the Latin.

One that pertained to the Virgin Mary.

For centuries, it had been believed that Mary was somehow

in charge of the grace of God.

The reason is because of the Latin translation

of Luke, chapter one, where the angel Gabriel announces

the birth of Christ to Mary.

The Latin Vulgate reads, "An angel went in and said to her,

Church historian, Allistair McGrath writes that,

But McGrath says that Erasmus was scathing

about this translation.

Still, some Catholics, like Louise Marie de Montfort,

whose writings inspired Pope John Paul II,

took the Latin reading to an extreme, asserting that

all grace comes only through Mary.

Yet in the Greek New Testament, we are told that it is

Jesus, not Mary who is

Needless to say, Erasmus's discoveries

in the Greek manuscripts were like a bombshell

impacting the Church of the Middle Ages.

The crystal clear springs of knowledge that he wrote of

laid the groundwork for the Reformation that would follow.

In addition to his Greek texts, Erasmus wrote extensively

against the immorality of the priesthood at that time.

Condemning the Inquisition and teaching that the Bible

should be read by all.

Meanwhile, Martin Luther had discovered Romans, chapter one,

where the apostle Paul says,

Luther, who had spent years as a monk, struggling to

please God through penance and the works of Catholicism,

realized that according to the Bible,

men could only be justified by God's grace,

his free gift through faith in Christ alone.

- [Voiceover] To him give all the prophet's witness that

through his name, whosoever believeth in him

shall receive remission of sins.

- [Voiceover] Armed with a newly revealed Greek text

published by Erasmus, Luther would produce a German

translation of the New Testament in 1522.

And so it would be said that Erasmus laid the egg

that Luther hatched.

- Let's remember that Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam

he went far and wide collecting manuscripts

and manuscript reading.

What he did is, he went and collected readings and

read manuscripts and wrote down portions of them,

and then what he does is brings those all together

in 1516, he publishes his first edition but it was done

kind of hastily.

So he does another one in 1519.

And it's the 1519 edition that Martin Luther uses

for his September Bible of 1522.

And then his 1522 edition is the one that William Tyndale

uses in 1526 to give us our English Bible.

- [Voiceover] William Tyndale has been called

the Apostle of England, and by some,

one of the finest men who ever lived.

He was a man loved by those who loved God.

But hated and hunted by Rome because he was the first

to translate the Bible from Greek into English.

He was ultimately betrayed by a trusted friend,

and then imprisoned for a time before being strangled

and burned at the stake in a place called Vilvoorde.

- There are not many people here in Vilvoorde who know

who our William Tyndale are, they have forgotten him.

- [Voiceover] Vilvoorde is located just north of Brussels

in Belgium.

While most people there have no idea who Tyndale was.

- [Voiceover] Do you know who William Tyndale was?

- [Voiceover] I just told him, I just had that conversation.

- [Voiceover] Still, there are some who keep

his memory alive.

A grim stone monument bears his name, along with

a bronze plaque of his likeness.

Elsewhere in the town is a local Protestant church

that also houses the Tyndale museum.

- [Voiceover] What does that say?

- Lord speak because your servant listens.

Samuel three, verse ten.

- [Voiceover] Here the curator tells us the important role

played by William Tyndale in the development of

the English Bible and the Protestant Reformation.

- In 1517, he was consecrated as priest, that's one thing.

In the same year, Martin Luther nailed his 95 propositions

on the little church of Wittenberg.

- [Voiceover] Tyndale was influenced by the example

of Luther, along with John Wycliffe, and those who had

come before who desired to communicate the gospel

to the common man.

But from the time of Pope Innocent, it had been declared

by Rome that,

In Tyndale's time, England was still a Catholic country,

and the priests communicated the Mass only in Latin.

A language the common people could not understand.

While Tyndale knew Latin, he desired to know Greek also,

so he could better understand the scripture.

- He went to the University of Oxford, and in 1515,

he had already had his Master of Arts.

But he want to be a theologist.

And because in Oxford, everything was in Latin,

he went to Cambridge.

Because in Cambridge, they teach also Greek.

Why Erasmus,

- [Voiceover] Some think Erasmus may have taught Tyndale

directly, while others think Tyndale arrived at Cambridge

shortly after Erasmus departed.

In either case, it was at Cambridge that Tyndale's conflict

with Rome seems to have begun.

A young Tyndale spoke out against Cardinal Woolsey,

a powerful clergyman, who was also the Lord Chancellor

of England in the court of King Henry VIII.

- Sir Woolsey visits University of Cambridge,

he wore golden rings, golden, he was very,

and William Tyndale shout out that it was a shame

that clergymen lived in such wealth and the poor people

are so poor they don't understand what I say.

They don't know any word in Latin.

The Chancellor went away very angry.

But he came back, John Welch in Little Sudbury.

- [Voiceover] Tyndale was convicted that,

Some believe it was at Little Sudbury where he began

his translation of the New Testament.

- He started translating, I believe,

at Little Sudbury Manor where he had that horrible

run-in with the Catholic priests, because Sir John Walsh,

the Knight there, would invite the Catholic prelates

and the high Church officials there and Tyndale

was the teacher of his children and the pastor

of his church that was behind his house at the time.

And as they were eating dinner one time,

they began talking and every time the priests

would say something, Tyndale would say,

well the Word says this.

And he'd say, well the Word says this, and the guy

finally got mad and said, we would be better to be

without God's law than the Pope's law.

- [Voiceover] Tyndale in his great zeal spoke against

what he saw as blasphemy.

He famously declared, "I defy the Pope and all his laws,

"if God spare my life, 'ere these many years,

"I will cause a boy that driveth the plow to know

"more of the scriptures than thou dost."

- Tyndale got in real big trouble for that.

Tells us in Fox's Book of Martyrs, that he had to appear

before the local religious officials,

ecclesiastical officials, and it says they berated him

as though he were a dog.

But Tyndale had the burning desire to get the scriptures

into the language that the plowboy could read,

because as he would be up in his little room,

at Little Sudbury Manor there, he'd look out across

the Severn valley and he would see the plowboys

plowing the fields and he knew that unless they could read

the scriptures, they wouldn't come to a saving knowledge

of the Lord Jesus Christ.

That was his driving force, to get the scripture out

so the people could read it and come to know Christ.

- [Voiceover] For Tyndale, his declaration about

the plowboy was not spoken in vain, but would become

his life's work for which he would be hated

and persecuted by Rome.

As the Apostle Paul had written, "I suffer trouble

"as an evildoer, even unto bonds, but the Word of God

"is not bound, therefore, I endure all things

"for the elect's sakes, that they may also obtain

"the salvation which is in Christ Jesus

"with eternal glory."

- We have William Tyndale being burned because he claimed

that salvation was by grace through faith.

He claimed that praying to the saints did no good.

He affirmed that people needed the Bible

in their own language.

So they defrocked him, they did show him some mercy,

if you can call it mercy, because they strangled him

before they burned him.

- Inquisitors find he was innocent, and therefore,

before burning on the burn stake, they strangled him.

- [Voiceover] This is the approximate location where

Tyndale was killed, outside the castle at Vilvoorde.

While the castle itself has since been destroyed,

the Tyndale museum has a model of what it would have

looked like on display.

They have also built a replica of the prison cell

where Tyndale was kept.

While paintings of him in captivity present

an almost romantic prison setting, the reality

seems to have been quite different.

The replica was made to scale and is the same size

as the one in which Tyndale was held

for some 16 months before his execution.

- I show you a copy of his prison, how he was prisoned.

- [Voiceover] Now is it believed that the room

was this small?

- [Curator] Yes, yes certainly.

Because the restored correction that is built

with the stones of the old castle, and there are

old cells they are no bigger as this.

Here he sleeps, and there was his toilet.

It was very, very cold here.

- [Voiceover] Centuries later, and debates continue

about Tyndale's life and death.

The European Institute of Protestant Studies

even believes that Tyndale was not fully killed

by strangulation and continued to suffer

while being burned alive.

There is even contention about exactly why

he was put to death.

- [Curator] The only mistake he did, he didn't recognize

about the chief of the Church, the Catholic Church.

- [Voiceover] Why was William Tyndale put to death,

what's the real history?

- I suppose essentially because he translated the Bible

into English and there was a strong feeling that

the Bible shouldn't be translated into the vernacular

shouldn't be translated into English.

He also fell foul of Henry VIII, from a point

where he supported Henry's move towards becoming

Supreme Head of the Church.

Tyndale moved into opposition to Henry's divorce.

He was put to death ostensibly because he was

a heretic, because there was great unease about making

the Bible available in English, where everybody

could read it and get, have their own personal relationship

with God rather than paying attention to the hierarchy

of the Church.

Being under the authority of their betters as it were.

- [Voiceover] There is no question, but that the politics

of England at this time were complicated.

King Henry VIII went to great lengths to achieve

an annulment of his marriage to Catherine of Aragon.

The term "red tape" is said to have originated from all the

red seals Henry had obtained in his petition to the Pope.

While Henry would eventually cast off the papacy

and make himself the temporal head of the Church of England,

at heart, his loyalties were much toward Rome.

So much so, that he was once cautioned about giving

too much honor to the Pope.

To which he replied, "There is no such thing

"as giving too much honor to the Pope."

Henry's Lord Chancellor of England at this time

was Sir Thomas Moore, who would become the chief opponent

of William Tyndale and his Bible.

Sainted by Rome for his undying loyalty to the papacy,

Moore caused Tyndale a beast and a hellhound

in the kennel of the devil.

All in all,

When King Henry made his break with Rome, Thomas Moore

was condemned as a traitor and put to death

because of his continued allegiance to the Pope.

This may be why Pope John Paul II, in the year 2000,

named Saint Thomas Moore,

This declaration was made on October 31st,

which is known as Reformation Day in parts of Europe.

The anniversary of the day when Martin Luther

nailed his 95 thesis to the church door at Wittenberg.

Could this have been intended as a modern day insult

to the Reformation?

Some Protestants in Europe found Moore's

Patron Sainthood disturbing because Sir Thomas Moore

not only hated Tyndale and spent years trying to hunt

him down, but also had a number of his followers

tortured and burned to death for heresy.

Moore even had his Chelsea home equipped with stocks

and a whipping tree so he could interrogate

heretics himself.

Moore had written,

Protestant historians, to this day, believe it was Moore

who orchestrated Tyndale's betrayal and execution.

But in the end, Tyndale's final prayer would overcome

his opponents.

Before he died, he famously cried out,

"Lord, open the King of England's eyes!"

- The sadness in all this story is that six months

after the death of William Tyndale, the King ordered

Miles Coverdell to translate the Bible in English.

And therefore, he used the Bible, the translation,

that William Tyndale had made.

- [Voiceover] To this day, men believe that God

answered the prayer of Tyndale.

Not only would King Henry authorize the translation

of an English Bible, for the first time in history,

but Tyndale's work as a translator would go on

to influence nearly every English Bible that would follow.

- Tyndale has a very large impact that's still

with us today.

I think the most obvious quotation is,

"Let there be light."

Which is often used.

The one that I like best is, "The powers that be."

Which of course occurred in a quite different context.

Tyndale's is the first widely disseminated

translation of the Bible into English.

- William Tyndale, in his 1526 New Testament, is the one

who laid the foundation for

the English language as we know it today.

- Tyndale's given English to the English, if you like.

Because his Bible is printed, and he's been

widely disseminated, it's helping the language to develop.

- The Bible became the most read book,

because previously, it was anathema.

You couldn't read it, the common man couldn't read it.

So it helped people to learn to read.

- [Voiceover] While previous Bibles were very large,

and kept in churches, the idea of Tyndale's Bible

was to make it smaller in size so that a person

could carry it with them wherever they went.

Because most of Tyndale's Bibles were destroyed

by the Inquisition, only a few copies remain.

One of them is at the British library in London.

- Our copy is a very pretty book, it's also

a very important book in terms of it's language.

Because although it was printed in 1526,

it's so familiar to us still today because it survives

in the language of later copies of the Bible.

Notably, the King James Bible of 1611.

With which it's usually exhibited

in our treasures gallery here.

So that people can draw comparison between

the languages of the two versions that are nearly

100 years apart in printing.

- [Voiceover] Before his death, Tyndale would also

be the first to translate much of the Old Testament

from Hebrew into English, including

the first five books of Moses.

Then from Joshua to Second Chronicles

and the book of Jonah.

While he was not able to finish his Old Testament

translation, all his material became the basis

of what was called

the Great Bible, commissioned by Henry VIII.

And the basis for the Geneva Bible, that would be known

as the Bible of the Reformation.

Modern scholars, using computer technology,

even believe that some 83 percent of the King James Bible

was based on the work of William Tyndale.

What follows are just a few of the well known

biblical phrases that come directly from his translation.

- This is the current facsimile of the Tyndale

New Testament and it's approximately the same size

as the original, perhaps just a little bit bigger.

You need a big pocket for this.

The original is definitely a pocketbook.

He produces a wonderful translation of the New Testament.

The issue is a pocketbook of the Bible, that's the idea

of it, your own Bible.

So familiar to people, Tyndale is the man

who sort of got there first.

Given that Tyndale's Bible was ordered to be burned,

we've only got three copies left.

It's amazing that we have, what's almost a complete copy

left and that it's so beautifully decorated.

It was somebody's prize possession.

I have to say I think it's a very beautiful book.

It's a very touching book.

It's a very important volume.

The whole thing comes together.

You can see why it's such an attractive story

to people, it's the Word of God.

Something that people prize, and it's a precious object.

And it's a very rare object and a very special object,

associated with a remarkable man.

- [Voiceover] To this day, some scholars still consider

William Tyndale to have been the single best

of all the English translators.

But his enemies fought hard against him,

burning his Bibles and burning those who dared

to read them.

Furthermore, the Bishop of London, Cuthbert Tunstall,

along with Sir Thomas Moore,

declared that Tyndale, the so-called hellhound,

had thousands of errors in his Bible.

Tyndale's reply was,

Tyndale knew the importance of men knowing

the true Words of God, because Jesus said,

A brief history of how the the English Bible developed

from the time of Tyndale onward, might be told this way.

Miles Coverdale had been a friend of Tyndale's

from their time together at Cambridge.

Making use of Tyndale's work, Coverdale finished

the translation of the Old Testament

and produced the Coverdale Bible in 1535.

This was the first complete Bible with

the Old and New Testaments to be printed

in the English language.

Tyndale was executed in 1536, and afterward,

one of his followers, a man named John Rogers,

would publish a complete Bible

under the pseudonym, Thomas Matthews.

The Matthews Bible of 1537, combined the work of Tyndale

with that of Miles Coverdale.

This was the first complete Bible to be printed in England.

Before this, Tyndale's New Testament was printed

in Germany and the Coverdale Bible in Switzerland.

Both had to be smuggled illegally into the country.

But after Tyndale's dying prayer, Thomas Cromwell

compelled King Henry VII to officially authorize

an English Bible for the new Church of England.

Cromwell then commissioned Miles Coverdale

to revise his original translation.

The result was the Great Bible of 1539.

It was called the Great Bible because of it's size.

But is also known as the Cromwell Bible,

or the Cranmer Bible because of the preface

written by Thomas Cranmer, the Archbishop of Canterbury.

This was the Bible, commanded to be put in all

the churches of England, where it was then called

the chained Bible, since it was chained to the pulpit,

as shown here.

As a result of this authorized Great Bible,

the Word of God in English was openly and freely proclaimed

to the people of England.

Needless to say, the Catholic clergy were not pleased.

Since England had not only cast off the authority

of the Pope, but now all the people could read

and hear the words of the true gospel, which from the days

of Dominic and even before, were always contrary

to the papal teachings of Rome.

But then, in 1547, King Henry VIII died,

and his nine-year-old son, Prince Edward VI took the throne.

The new King Edward believed in the cause of the Reformers

and with the help of Archbishop Cranmer,

England would become, for a time,

a firmly Protestant nation.

The new King Edward was seen as a Josiah figure,

who was to fully reform England from idolatry and popery.

There is no question but that English Protestants

saw their cause as a struggle between

the Word of God and the deceptions of Rome.

This painting shows the young Edward sitting

on the throne with the Pope at his feet,

and the words, idolatry, superstition

and all flesh is grass, written about him.

While above the Pope's head is an open book that reads,

the word of the Lord endureth forever.

A typical view is portrayed in this Protestant allegory,

where the four evangelists, Matthew, Mark, Luke,

and John are stoning a fallen Pope.

As if crushing him with the Word of God.

At age 11, the young King Edward even wrote that,

But the reign of the new king was short lived

and within six years he fell ill and died.

Edward tried to preserve the Reformation by naming

his Protestant cousin, Lady Jane Grey, to be his successor.

But she would be known as the "Nine Days Queen",

because within such a short time, Edward's Catholic sister,

Mary, would object and claim the throne.

The would be Queen Jane was put to death

and the reign of Bloody Mary took hold.

Queen Mary's nefarious title would begin with her desire

to deliver England back into the arms of Rome.

Author Gary DeMar writes,

But not content with that, Mary would also burn

those who were reading the Bibles,

including some of the translators.

The first martyr she burned at the stake

was John Rogers, who had published the Matthews Bible.

But he died in faith and it was said that

even his children assisted, comforting him in such

a manner that it seemed as if he had been led to a wedding.

Thomas Cranmer, the Archbishop of Canterbury,

who had written the preface to the Great Bible,

was also put to death.

When his life was threatened by Mary, the elder Cranmer,

out of fear, agreed to renounce his faith

and write things in favor of Rome.

But his conscience overtook him and he recanted again

and was sent to the stake.

Before they burned him, Cranmer said,

And so, thrusting his hand into the flames,

Thomas Cranmer was burned at the stake.

And with him, many other Protestant believers

during the days of Bloody Mary.

John Dowling, in his history of Romanism, writes that,

With this outbreak of persecution, some 800

English scholars fled the country.

Many of them found refuge in Geneva,

under the protection of John Calvin

and the Reformers of Switzerland.

Among the English exiles were Miles Coverdale

and the renowned Scottish Reformer, John Knox.

At Geneva, they determined to produce yet another revision

of the English Bible.

This time, one that would be based on the best manuscripts

of the original Hebrew and Greek languages, without

the limitation of either the crown of England or Rome.

Before his death, William Tyndale had produced

a revision of his New Testament in 1534.

At Geneva, they made use of this edition to produce

the first part of the Geneva Bible in 1557.

The following year, Queen Mary died,

and her Protestant sister, Elizabeth,

ascended to the throne.

By 1516, a complete version of the Geneva Bible,

Old Testament and New, was published and dedicated

to the new Queen of England, Elizabeth I.

- The first Bible that was translated completely

from the Hebrew, the Aramaic, and the Greek,

was the Geneva Bible of the Pilgrims.

- [Voiceover] The Geneva translation is often called

the Bible of the Pilgrims because it was this Bible

that they brought with them to America when they landed

at Plymouth in 1620.

- And they loved that Bible.

- [Voiceover] The Geneva translation became the most popular

and widely used English Bible that had ever been produced.

With over 200 editions from 1560 to 1644.

It is also considered the first study Bible

because it was filled with extensive footnotes from

the leading Bible scholars of that era.

Including John Calvin, Theodore Beza, John Knox,

Miles Coverdale and other Reformers of the time,

with over 300,000 words of commentary on the Holy Scripture.

- It was like a Bible college education.

There's all kinds of the Reformer's notes

packed into the Geneva Bible.

- [Voiceover] The Geneva translation was the Bible

used by John Bunyan, John Milton, Oliver Cromwell,

William Shakespeare and William Bradford.

It was also the first complete Bible to divide

up the scriptures into chapter and verse.

Chapter divisions had been established in the 13th century

by Stephen Lankton, the Archbishop of Canterbury.

While the verse divisions for the Old Testament were done

by the Jewish rabbi, Nathan, in 1448.

Meanwhile, it was Robert Stephanus, who was also

at Geneva with the Reformers, who had first employed

verse divisions for his publication of

the Greek New Testament in 1551.

And so the translators of the Geneva Bible

made use of all these methods, Old Testament and New,

for a complete English Bible in 1516.

- It's the first Bible to have verse divisions.

So the people loved that, because that's the first time

there's a John 3:16.

- [Voiceover] The Geneva translation would continue

to dominate until it was replaced by the Bible destined

to be called, "the best selling book of all time",

the King James version of 1611.

But this would only occur after the Geneva Bible

was outlawed in England.

With some even being arrested for owning it,

it seems to have been forbidden because of

the very footnotes that had made it so popular.

Commentaries that represented the collective views

of the Reformers at the time,

but were in direct opposition to the church of Rome.

Rome's ongoing persecution of Bible believers

only convinced them that she was indeed

the great whore of Revelation chapter 17.

The woman that sits atop the scarlet colored beast,

full of names of blasphemy.

In the Geneva translation, we read,

The scripture says the woman is a city

that sits upon seven mountains or hills.

The Geneva translators wrote,

Meanwhile, their view of the Pope is shown in

Revelation 11:7, which speaks of,

The Reformers wrote,

Needless to say, these teachings were offensive to Rome.

But had been handed down for centuries.

After the death of King James,

his son, Charles I, took the throne.

King Charles was a controversial monarch,

accused by Protestants of,

And was suspected of supporting

It was during his reign that the Geneva Bible was outlawed.

Could the footnotes concerning Rome

have been the reason why?

Originally, the word "Protestant" was a reference to those

who protested the claims made by the Roman church.

Even in the 19th century, Charles Spurgeon said,

But in times past, such teachings from the Albigenses,

the Waldenses, and to a great extent, those of Wycliffe

and the Lollards were suppressed and nearly stamped out

by the Crusades and Inquisitions.

Yet, with movable type and the printing of books

and Bibles, faster than the Popes could burn them,

the teachings of the Reformers

spread like a fire across Europe.

But some claimed that it was not simply the teaching

of salvation by grace that brought the Reform,

but the recognition of the papal system

as the fulfillment of God's greatest warnings to the Church,

as set forth in the prophesies of the Bible.

Was it this teaching that created such determination

in men like Tyndale, Luther, and others?

Protestant minister, Dr. Ian Paisley writes,

Yet Luther himself acknowledged that what he was teaching

did not begin with him, but had been handed down

from centuries earlier.

He wrote,

Believing that the papacy is anti-Christ was standard

for Reformed believers, who claimed the Pope was

the prophetic fulfillment of the Apostle Paul's warning.

They held to this view because in the New Testament,

the church is called the Temple of God.

And the Popes were well known for exalting themselves

in the midst of the church.

Paul wrote,

Early Christians, and the Reformers, were very familiar with

the blasphemous declarations from the papacy,

which were often the subject of intense debate.

Because from ancient times, the Popes had declared

themselves to be equal to God.

Jesus said,

Yet the Popes took to themselves the name Holy Father,

along with all claims of authority that might be

assumed by such a title.

Pope Innocent III, who fathered the Inquisition, said,

Meanwhile, Pope Nicholas said of himself,

Nicholas even claimed that the Popes had the power

to change the Gospel itself, saying,

But in the Bible, Jesus says,

The Apostle Paul warned that,

Yet despite these biblical warnings, the Popes

repeatedly claimed they were equal to, and above God.

And were even called by Catholics,

The Lateran Council, while addressing Pope Julius II,

said to him,

In the 19th century, Cardinal Giuseppe Sarto,

who would later become Pope Pius X, declared,

Jesus said of himself,

Yet Pope Pius IX, blasphemously declared,

The Popes have not only made claims to be God,

but have insisted that salvation itself depends

directly upon obedience to them.

Pope Boniface VIII, said,

Pope Clement VI said,

Even in modern times, Pope John XXIII, in 1958 declared,

In 1984, Pope John Paul II was quoted as saying,

The quote was based on a Los Angeles Times article,

which reported,

Furthermore, according to traditional Catholicism,

obedience to the papacy is said to be required,

no matter how dreadful the Pope might be.

Catherine of Sienna, one of the patron saints of Italy,

whose mummified head is still preserved

in Rome today, said,

Such demands for blind obedience were confirmed

by the Popes themselves, but confronted by the Reformers.

By men like Martin Luther, who said,

Because of this evidence, Luther declared,

It is important to understand that this belief was not

just confined to Luther, but was held by all the Reformers

from John Wycliffe, in the 14th century,

to Charles Spurgeon in the late 19th century.

Spurgeon said,

The Westminster confession of faith, along with

the Savoy confession, the old Baptist confession,

and the Methodist views of John Wesley, all included

the declaration that,

This was also the belief of the men who translated

the King James Bible.

In their opening dedication, they commended the King for

The view of the anti-Christ, not as a single man,

but of many men in a single office, was based in part

on a teaching of John Wycliffe.

In the Gospel of Matthew, the disciples ask Jesus,

"What shall be the sign of thy coming,

"and of the end of the world?"

Jesus said to them,

Wycliffe believed that the many who say, "I am Christ",

are in fact, the Popes.

The Popes' title, Vicarius Christi, literally means,

another Christ.

Wycliffe concluded that,

In further explaining the Pope's title,

author Dave Hunt writes,

But the view of the papacy as anti-Christ is not

widely held by Protestants today.

Still, there are those who continue to uphold

the Reformers' original beliefs.

Perhaps it has something to do with this official

Vatican portrait of the current Pope.

It is called,

But can this really mean, that in the modern world,

there are some who still believe the Pope

to be equal to Christ, and God?

- Mr. President, final question.

- Yes, Sir.

- You said, famously, when you looked into

Vladimer Putin's eyes, you saw his soul.

- Yeah.

- When you look into Benedict XVI's eyes, what do you see?

- God.

- Good way to end the interview.

- Thank you Sir.

- Thank you Sir, my pleasure.

- [Voiceover] In contrast, Dr. Ian Paisley

is a Protestant minister, with a long history

of opposing Rome's influence in Great Britain.

He has been a member of the British

and European Parliaments and retired in 2008

as the first Minister of Northern Ireland.

Paisley considers himself a modern successor

of the Reformers.

What follows is typical of his preaching.

In 1988, when Pope John Paul II delivered a speech

at the European Parliament, Paisley opposed him,

shouting the words of Archbishop Cranmer,

who had been burned at the stake.

Like the Reformers of old, Paisley held up a sign

and announced the Pope as the anti-Christ.

- [Pope John Paul II] Permit me to say how much I...

- Mr. Paisley, I call you to order and I ask you

to stop this disturbance.

- [Voiceover] There was another poster in his pocket

for each one snatched away.

Waiting with a text that spoke of Europe as a beacon

of civilization, looked on with faint amusement.

- [Member of Parliament] Mr. Paisley, I now exclude you

from this house and for the remainder of the city.

- [Voiceover] Mr. Paisley claims that he was punched

and that he later received a personal apology from

the head of security for failing to protect him.

The poster stated simply, "John Paul II Antichrist".

- [Paisley] I am in the historic succession of

the Reformers, I mean what we levy, wrote in to the press

and said I wrote the confession of faith and called

the Pope the anti-Christ.

I mean, I was far from the first person who accepted

the fact that the church of Rome was a false church.

And therefore was the church as depicted in the 17th chapter

of the Book of Revelation.

Now that has historic Protestants.

- [Voiceover] Paisley makes it clear that he still

believes the Pope or papal system, is the fulfillment

of the biblical warnings about anti-Christ.

Yet it is only fair to acknowledge that many

prophesy teachers today believe that the anti-Christ

is yet to come.

But like the Popes, he will claim to be equal with God.

- Someday, there will emerge a man

who proclaims that he is God.

And, of course, according to the Bible,

this will be the anti-Christ, but he is a man.

But the Bible says Satan will empower him.

- [Voiceover] But for the Reformers, the anti-Christ

had already been revealed, through the papacy.

John Wycliffe was so convicted about it, he even said,

In Second Thessalonians, when warning about

the man of sin, Paul wrote,

Martin Luther believed that the Reformers were

themselves as the Spirit of the Lord's mouth.

And by preaching the Word of God, they were consuming

the papacy, even as fire consumes a bundle of wood.

Luther wrote,

Luther believed that the papal anti-Christ would

continue to be thus consumed until the Lord

completely destroys him at Armageddon.

As such, the need for translating and publishing

the Word of God was greater than ever.

- Luther recognized that people were being held

in darkness because they did not have the Light of the Word.

So when the Word was translated so the people could

understand what it had to say, of course this is what

brought the Reformation about.

People were being led away from Catholicism

to true Christianity.

- One thing about the Roman Catholic church,

they adhered very strongly to what I would call

sacramental salvation.

And John Fox in his Fox's Book of Martyrs, that's where

he takes Rome to task because, you know,

you had to take the communion, and you had to do

all these sacraments for salvation.

John Fox says that they built a whole new foundation

for the Roman Catholic church and left the original

salvation which was by grace through faith,

that was free, it was the gift of God.

In other words, Rome you have to work for it.

- [Voiceover] In Catholicism, the concept of suffering

for one's own sins, and the sins of others,

runs throughout.

The work of Atonement is centered around

the Catholic Mass, in which the priest summons

the presence of Jesus Christ into the Eucharist,

where he is offered over and over again to atone

for the sins of the living and the dead in Purgatory.

- The idea of transubstantiation places the power

or the ability in the hands of a priest,

to take a wafer and conjure up the presence

of Jesus Christ, and then offer this wafer

as Christ, as an unbloody sacrifice for the sins of man.

- [Voiceover] Through the regular practice of the Mass,

an ongoing atonement is made for the dead souls

that are burning in Purgatory.

These are said to be true believers who need

to spend some time burning to have their sins

completely purged.

This image from a Catholic church

shows the process perfectly.

The priest offers the Host, then conjures forth Christ,

who is pouring out his blood again and again,

each time the Mass is performed.

For the sake of the souls who are still suffering

in Purgatory, because supposedly their sins

have not yet fully been atoned for.

According to Rome, only an ordained Catholic priest

has the power to call forth Christ into the Eucharist.

Also,

- So a priest then, intervenes, or becomes the one

that's necessary in dispersing salvation unto man.

Because it's necessary to take part in the sacrament

of the Eucharist, which requires a priest.

- [Voiceover] Furthermore, Rome makes it clear that

a person does not have the freedom to believe that

the Mass is merely symbolic and not a literal sacrifice.

She declares that,

Let them be accursed.

- See, this whole idea that a church has to

disperse salvation, in no way is found in the scriptures.

- [Voiceover] It was this doctrine that the Reformers

fought so hard against.

According to the Gospel of John, when Jesus was crucified

he cried out, on the cross,

As was revealed in the Greek manuscripts, the word

for finished is,

And so, in the book of Hebrews, we read that,

- It is absolutely clear that Jesus Christ died upon

the cross, his blood was shed, and the sacrifice was made.

There's no other sacrifice that can be made.

- [Voiceover] The message of salvation was plainly

set forth in the New Testament.

When the Philippian jailer asked Paul and Silas,

They simply answered,

- But the church, headed by a man and other men,

came up with the idea that they would disperse salvation.

And that people would have to go through them.

It is completely contrary to what the Bible teaches.

- They had, in my opinion, a neat little thing going.

You could get money for this, and money for that.

You have the mendicant friars going around begging.

The poor people were even supposed to give to them,

provide them food and all this kind of stuff,

cause that was all a part of their salvation.

And then at the end, you had to pay money to have

Masses said to get your soul out of Purgatory.

- [Voiceover] The Reformation itself, had begun over

the issue of merchandising the souls of men

through the sale of Indulgences that were literally,

written licenses authorized by the Pope as pardons for sin.

The Indulgences were sold to pay for the building of

Saint Peter's Basilica in Rome.

This was the principal issue that compelled Luther,

and the rest of the Reformers, to speak out.

- They all rediscovered that salvation wasn't of works.

It was as the Bible said, a free gift.

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only

begotten Son that whosoever believeth in Him shall

not perish but have everlasting life.

Rome didn't like that.

- When the Reformation, the Protestant Reformation

was gathering momentum, thanks to Martin Luther,

and other great Protestant leaders,

Rome was desperate obviously to counter the Reformation.

- And so obviously, if the God of this world is behind

the deception, there's going to be a counter attack.

And that's what took place.

- [Voiceover] After more than 20 years of preaching

the gospel of grace, and denouncing the Pope

as anti-Christ, the world had been turned upside down again.

And the authority of Rome was greatly diminished.

But in response, the powers of darkness

would not be silent.

- Satan raised up individuals in the name of Christ,

who would then attack those who were

becoming true Christians.

- Counter Reformation is definitely Rome's plot

to destroy the Protestant Reformation.

- [Voiceover] What happened next was as if the bowels

of hell itself had opened, and spat forth

the most dreadful and wicked society ever assembled.

In the New Testament, the Apostle Paul warned that,

This was certainly through of the progressive efforts

Rome put forth to fight against the teachings

of the Reformers and the widespread publication

of the Word of God.

In 1540, just one year after England had published

the Great Bible, Pope Paul III would commission

a new Order in Rome.

Their purpose was to specifically combat and if possible,

overthrow the Protestant reformation.

- When Rome saw the consequence of the Word of God

being translated so that the people could understand

without the priests, they had to meet this

with some sort of opposition.

- [Voiceover] This new company of priests was founded

as a military order, by a former Spanish soldier

named Ignatius Loyola.

- Ignatius Loyola, actually his name was Inigo Lopez,

born in Spain, 1491, has become known as the founder

of the Jesuits, or the Society of Jesus.

Without question, the major group of individuals who

throughout history have played a significant role

in an attempt to bring the separated brethren back

to the mother of all churches.

- [Voiceover] The term, separated brethren,

is a reference to Protestant heretics, who are to be

reunited with Rome by whatever means necessary.

Historically, the Jesuits are known for their insidious

methods of deception, spying, infiltration,

assassination, and revolution.

- I believe you can not understand history unless

you understand the Jesuits and the role that they played.

- [Voiceover] In his book, The Babington Plot,

author J.E.C. Shepherd writes that,

President John Adams, in a letter to Thomas Jefferson,

once wrote,

19th century author, Edwin Sherman, called them

the Engineer Corps of Hell.

In this modern copy of his book, we see

the assassination of Abraham Lincoln on the front cover.

Because it was claimed by 19th century Catholic priests,

Father Charles Chiniquy that the Jesuits

were responsible for the killing of Lincoln.

Chiniquy details this in his own book, titled,

Lincoln himself had said,

Even in the 20th century, author Edmond Paris,

in his book, The Secret History of the Jesuits,

documents how the society influenced Adolf Hitler,

and his Nazi party.

In particular, he says,

Hitler referred to Heinrich Himmler as

his Ignatius of Loyola.

And even obtained the swastika symbol at a Catholic abbey,

from a priest named Father Hagen.

The Jesuit General, a position created by Loyola himself,

is often referred to as,

Because of the black robes he wears,

and the tremendous power he is said to hold.

Former Jesuit General, Michelangelo Tamborini,

once boastfully said,

Even in modern times, Ian Paisley has spoken openly

against the Jesuit order in mainstream media.

He had this to say,

To justify his association of the Jesuits with

the Gestapo, Paisley quoted from the book by Edmond Paris.

He related words that were published under the authority

of Francisco Franco, the Spanish dictator

during World War II, shown here with Adolf Hitler.

- [Voiceover] Concerning this quote, Edmond Paris writes,

During the second World War, it was the Jesuit Order

who put forth that,

In all their history, the ultimate aim

of Loyola's Society is said to be the same

as it was from the beginning.

Within less than a century after their formation,

Rome's Jesuit order would become an elite company

of spies, assassins, and intellectuals.

Hated and feared by kings and commoners alike.

With all these things in mind, consider that it was

this Society that was specifically commissioned

by the Pope to launch

Under the direction of Ignatius Loyola.

- He decided, and along with his friends, to form

some kind of an organization that would be loyal

to the Pope, and that would counter the Reformation.

So that's exactly what occurred.

The Counter Reformation was a way to resist

what had taken place, the Reforming that had occurred,

and take people back to Roman Catholicism.

- [Voiceover] Countless books and essays have been written

about the Jesuits, repeatedly warning the church

and others of their grand scheme to take over the world

to take over the world for the Pope.

But exactly how would they do it?

- In various ways, through education,

through social programs, and through infiltration

of organizations to advance the cause

of the Roman Catholic church.

- [Voiceover] There is perhaps no more chilling

and enlightening detail than the dreadful oath

the Jesuits are made to swear.

This oath was well known prior to the 20th century,

and can be found in the Library of Congress.

The oath begins with an admonition from

the Jesuit Superior, one that reveals the methods

of infiltration used by the Order, he says,

- The contribution of Loyola

and his followers to the Inquisition

and to opposing the Reformation, would be

in the academic and educational sphere.

And that they would become leaders in all disciplines

of learning, and that they would pursue an intensive

academic, intellectual strategy which would capture

the universities and the centers of learning.

- [Voiceover] The plan of the Society was to overthrow

the Bible based education of the Protestants.

In his book on the Jesuits, Rulers of Evil,

F. Tupper Saussy writes that,

In the 19th century, Charles Spurgeon warned of

the impact of Jesuit education.

He spoke of certain preachers saying,

But even with their intellectual methods,

the Jesuits would not abandon the centuries old practice

of persecuting heretics who would not convert.

As the rest of their dreadful oath reveals,

the initiate is made to swear that he will do the utmost

in his power to destroy all opposition to papal authority.

He says,

Once the bloody oath is finished, the Jesuit Superior says,

Professor Arthur Noble writes,

Among the horrors the Jesuits instigated

were the Saint Bartholomew's Day massacre of 1572,

in which some 70 to 100,000 Protestants

were slaughtered throughout France.

They also famously manipulated King Louis XIV,

to revoke the Edict of Nantes in 1685.

Which had once protected the rights of French Protestants.

It's revocation made the Protestant faith illegal,

and ultimately,

King Louis' father confessor was a Jesuit priest

named Pierre LaChase.

His revoking of the Edict of Nantes outlawed the reading

of the Bible in France for the next 100 years.

In England, the Jesuits worked closely

with WIlliam Laud, the Archbishop of Canterbury,

who had outlawed the printing or importation

of the Geneva Bible into England.

We read that,

One prominent Protestant, William Prynne,

Laud was eventually found guilty of conspiring

with Jesuits to bring England back under popery,

and was put to death for treason.

Among his private papers was found a letter,

addressed to the Jesuit Superiors in Brussels.

The Jesuits would also continue Rome's centuries old

persecution of the Waldenses, in their dogged attempts

to finally annihilate them.

Several of the Reformers explained why Rome hated them.

Theodore Beza, called the Waldenses,

He said,

Meanwhile, Heinrich Bullinger said,

- The most well known persecution of the Waldenses,

happened in the year 1655.

And it was really the armies of the Duke of Savoy,

who was another papal puppet, who was sent in to

wipe these people out once and for all.

Now the Waldenses managed to resist the first attack,

but then, again, the Jesuit subtlety, the Catholics

resorted to a different tactic and they persuaded

the Waldenses that they would have another army,

which would come in to protect them.

And sadly, the Waldenses believed this and when

the army, when the troops, these Vatican troops were

billeted amongst them, the Waldenses, they turned on them,

and carried out the most horrific massacre.

And it's known in history as

the Massacre of the Piedmont, and it's even

commemorated by the England poet, John Milton.

It was called, On the Late Massacre at Piedmont,

to commemorate the sufferings of the Waldenses.

There are some famous lines which go,

Avenge oh Lord thy slaughtered saints,

whose burns lie scattered on the alpine mountains cold,

even they who kept thy truth so pure of old,

when all our fathers worshipped stock and stones,

that is to say, idols.

And, surviving Waldenses actually appealed,

or managed to appeal, to Oliver Cromwell who was at the time

the Lord Protector of England for protection.

And Oliver Cromwell successfully managed to negotiate

with Cardinal Mazarin of France to actually get

the persecution lifted.

But I think it's worth remembering the words,

the eyewitness account of one of the Waldensian pastors,

Jean Leger, he actually tried to persuade his

Waldensian fellow believers that they should not fall

for Rome's duplicity.

Which then, as I said, resulted in the Massacre.

After the Massacre, he managed to escape.

He came and tried as best he could as a Christian pastor,

to minister to these shocked survivors.

And he even wrote about it, and he said,

"The tears mingle with my ink when I write about

"these deeds of darkness, yea, worse even than the deeds

"of the Prince of Darkness himself."

Because he saw first hand the horrible cruelties

that these Catholics had inflicted

on these innocent Bible believers.

- [Voiceover] During the Middle Ages, the Jesuits were

without question, the most radical society ever conceived.

Professor Arthur Noble writes,

The Society was repeatedly repressed, and became

known and feared for their revenge.

In a letter to Thomas Jefferson, John Adams wrote,

Pope Clement XIV suppressed the Order in 1773

by a perpetual decree,

A year later, he died by poisoning, and is said

to have perished in great agony.

But for Rome, the real stronghold of the Reformation

was in England.

The Jesuits made more than 25 attempts on the life

of Queen Elizabeth I.

And tried repeatedly to invade the country

with foreign armies.

The reason for their tenacity was summed up by

Cardinal Manning in 1859, who said,

To understand the Jesuit goal, we must consider

the statue of founder Ignatius Loyola, which can

be found inside Saint Peter's in Rome.

Loyola stands with an open book in his hand.

On one side is written the constitutions of

the Society of Jesus.

On the other side, is a Latin phrase, meaning,

"to the greater glory of God".

Meanwhile, the Jesuit's foot is found on the neck

of a wild-haired figure, with a serpent beneath him.

The figure is said to symbolize Protestantism.

Notice that Protestantism has a book beneath his arm.

While there are no discernible markings on it,

we ask the viewer to consider what that book might be,

as we unfold the following evidence.

Through the Middle Ages, the source of Protestant authority

was the Holy Bible, the words of God which justified

all rejection of the papacy.

The Bible became known as the paper Pope of Protestantism,

a term of derision applied by Rome.

To counter the authority of the Bible, the Jesuits

developed a confession for Protestants to make

who converted to Roman Catholicism.

Protestant converts were made to say,

Let the viewer consider that these confessions

are confirmed by a number of sources

in the 19th and 20th centuries.

We have listed only one of them here.

On the intellectual front, the Jesuits were largely behind

the Council of Trent, which began in 1545.

- The Counter Reformation really got underway

to a major extent when Pope Paul III convened what

became known in history as the Council of Trent.

And the Council actually ran in, I think, at least

three sessions for 18 years, up until the year 1563.

- [Voiceover] Trent was specifically designed to refute

the doctrines and teachings of the Reformation.

- So whatever the Reformers were for,

the Jesuits were against.

- [Voiceover] The key point of contention

was the issue of grace and salvation.

The Council declared that,

It is worth noting that the declarations of Trent

were reconfirmed by Vatican Council II in the 20th century.

Vatican II is the most up to date

doctrinal declaration from Rome.

But also on the agenda at Trent, were the Jesuit's

attacks against the Bibles which had been

translated by the Reformers.

- And the Council was certainly dominated by the Jesuits,

who, as I've said before, captured the universities,

and majored in academic and intellectual endeavors.

And it was by their intellectualism

and their scholarship that they ultimately aimed

to discredit the Protestant Bibles.

Well they dominated the Council and it appears that

the major resolutions of the Council were all against

the pure Bibles, the Protestant scriptures.

- [Voiceover] In his book on the history of

the English Bible, author Benson Bobrick writes that,

- And it appears also, that what the Council did

was actually take from the writings of none other than

the great Reformer, Martin Luther, and they just

condemned these directly.

For example, they condemned the belief that

the apocryphal books which are in the Catholic Bibles

as part of the Old Testament, they condemned the belief

that the apocryphal books were not scripture.

And they were quite prepared to punish by death

any so called heretic who said that

the apocryphal books were not scripture.

- Now it is true, it is true, that the apocrypha was

in the early Bibles.

I have early Bibles in my office, just across the hallway,

where you see the apocrypha was, some people say it's not,

but in the 1611 King James version of the Bible,

the apocrypha was there.

And previous to that, the Geneva Bible, the apocrypha

was there, except in some bootleg editions

of the 1599, where it was left out.

But mind you, it was never to be accepted

on the level of scripture.

It was never considered to be inspired.

While the Roman Catholic church makes

a pronouncement that it is.

- [Voiceover] But Rome and her Jesuits would not

be content with merely condemning Protestant doctrine.

They intended to counter the Reformation Bibles.

- The next step of the Jesuits was to produce their own

version in English of the New Testament, that became known

as the Jesuit Reims version, because it was compiled

by Jesuit scholars in the town of Reims in France.

It later on became known as the Douay-Reims version.

- [Voiceover] The Jesuits inserted curious words

and footnotes into their translation,

in part to justify Catholic doctrine.

- That's why they worked so hard to translate

the Douay-Reims Bible, because in Matthew chapter six,

instead of saying like Wycliffe did, like Tyndale did,

like the Geneva Bible, "give us this day our daily bread",

they say "give us this day our super substantial bread".

And so they change, and the Greek word is not

"super substantial" whatsoever, but nonetheless

they do that to be able to support

their doctrine of transubstantiation.

- [Voiceover] The Douay-Reims also countered

the Reformers' view that the Church of Rome had been

mass murdering the saints through the Inquisition.

In Revelation 17:6, where it describes mystery Babylon,

saying she is drunken with the blood of the saints,

and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus,

the Jesuit footnote reads,

Oddly enough, the Douay-Reims also acknowledged that

the whore of Babylon symbolized the city of Rome.

But they insist it must have been pagan Rome,

during the time of Nero.

But by far, the most nefarious conspiracy the Jesuits

set forth during the Middle Ages was

the Gunpowder Plot of 1605.

- The Gunpowder Plot came about because

when Elizabeth I died in 1603, Rome was very interested

to have a Catholic monarch on the throne.

And the Pope at the time, sent the Jesuit Provincial,

Father Henry Garnet of England two Bulls which set out

this strategy and urged him to ensure that no one

should ascend the throne of England unless

they declared themselves to be a faithful Roman Catholic.

What happened of course, was that James I, when he

ascended the throne, he declared himself to be a Protestant.

And therefore, Rome decided that he had to be removed.

- [Voiceover] The instrument Rome would employ to get rid

of the new King, was a Spanish soldier named Guy Fawkes.

A man whose name is remembered every year to this day,

as the English burn effigies of him on Guy Fawkes night.

Why?

Because Fawkes planted some 36 barrels of gunpowder

beneath the houses of Parliament, intending to blow up

King James and the entire government of England.

Out of the chaos that would follow,

Rome and her Jesuit Order had planned

to re-establish control of the country.

- Well Guy Fawkes was what I think we would call

a Jesuit co-agitator, he wasn't a Jesuit priest

as such, to my knowledge.

But he was a professional mercenary soldier,

and he had fought in the Catholic army of Spain.

- [Voiceover] Fawkes was discovered just moments

before detonating the gunpowder, in what the English people

clearly saw as an act of God.

Fawkes was publicly executed, as was his fellow conspirator,

the Jesuit Provincial, Henry Garnet.

But Garnet was not the only Jesuit

to be involved in the plot.

At the trial, the esteemed lawyer, Sir Edward Koch, said,

Tupper Saussy writes that during this era, the play Macbeth,

by William Shakespeare, was actually a so-called

"powder play" commemorating the Gunpowder Plot,

and that,

But the year before the Jesuit plan was overthrown,

Puritan leader, John Reynolds, had proposed that

a new Bible translation be set forth.

King James gave his approval, and the work began

on the King James Bible.

Was it just a coincidence that one year later,

the Gunpowder Treason took place?

- Certainly, an expected outcome of a successful plot

would be that all work on the new Bible translation

which was taking place at that time, it started in 1604,

that all that work would be terminated,

and terminated permanently.

There's no doubt in my mind that,

that is what the Jesuits intended as well.

- [Voiceover] But by the grace of God, the Gunpowder Plot

was overthrown, and King James would survive to see the

famous Bible that would bear his name come to completion.

After nearly 100 years of laboring through the fires

of persecution and bloodshed, all the while, their chief

object being the preaching of the Gospel

and the communication of the Word of God

in a language the people could understand,

the English Reformation arrived at what many believed

to have been their finest achievement,

the translation of the King James Bible in 1611.

- Since 1526, there was a rash of Bible translation

and Bible publication, and it all came to a screeching halt

after the King James Version of the Bible.

They finally got it right, they finally, because as we

follow through, Tyndale only gave us the New Testament,

although he did Genesis through Second Chronicles and Jonah.

But they were published individually, they were never

in a Bible, so Coverdale took his work, and then they added

translated from the German and from the Latin,

and makes the first English Bible.

However, it's not completely from the original languages,

so John Rogers comes and he takes all of Tyndale's work,

and puts it in there, but he has to use some of Coverdale.

And so, we get done with that.

And finally, we get to the Geneva Bible.

And the Geneva Bible does all the translation from

the original languages.

But in my opinion, it's still a little rough,

though it's based on the Textus Receptus.

And the Hebrew Masoretic text, it's very close

to the King James, but I can see

where there's some rough spots.

So now you have the King James.

It's all of the Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek stuff,

and it is accepted.

- [Voiceover] In the preface to their work,

the King James translators wrote,

to the reader, in which they spoke of those translators

and translations which had come before them.

They said,

- And we would look to translators, who,

like the preface to the readers,

the A.V. translators sought Him that hath the key of David.

And they were humble men, and they were scholars,

but they were spiritual men.

- [Voiceover] The King James committee deemed it important

to confess their faith that the Holy Scriptures

were given by inspiration of God.

- Inspiration refers to the author, holy men of God spake

as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.

That's the original.

- [Voiceover] Concerning the Greek and Hebrew scriptures,

they said,

- All scripture is given by inspiration of God,

pasa graphe theopneustos.

So God gave it, the Church recognized it.

- [Voiceover] In their preface, the King James committee

also said,

They went on to say that, to that purpose,

there were many chosen that were greater

in other men's eyes than in their own.

- These men, every one had to be so skilled

in the languages that they themselves

had to do the translating.

This was a team technique unsurpassed

either before or since.

- [Voiceover] 54 scholars were originally chosen,

but it is said that only 47 of them actually took part.

What followed, over the next seven years, was perhaps

the most ingenious, the most detailed,

the most exhaustive, and systematic translation process

ever conceived or carried out.

- So they had, they called them companies, they had

six companies, in three different cities and then London.

It's called the special team technique.

Each of the men had two divisions, each of the teams

had two divisions, Old Testament

and New Testament in the team.

And they had a very ingenious method of translating.

They had an average of seven men per team,

just take that as an average.

They went through every word of the King James Bible

fourteen times.

Here's how they did it.

Each man on the team had to translate for himself

that portion of Scripture, Old or New Testament,

assigned to him.

One, two, three, four, five, six, seven.

Seven different translations came in, and they met with

their team and they went over everyone's translation,

which is the best.

Throw out the bad, keep the good.

That's the eighth time they went through it,

in the team.

Then the King James was very specific, I want you to take

what you have in each team and give it

to the other five teams.

So here's eight and five, is thirteen times,

the other teams went into it.

When they looked at things, and they wanted to change

some things, they didn't agree with these teams,

then they had a fourteenth time at the end of the time,

when it was finished.

Two from each of the teams, twelve men,

the leading men, at the final, went over everything.

So there were 14 times everyone went through it.

And that wasn't the end of it, because the King

was very specific.

Each of the bishops, or leaders of the Church of England,

had a copy of this draft of the King James Bible.

And they sent these bishops, sent to everyone

in their charge who were skilled in Hebrew,

skilled in Greek, to go over this and see if

there's any problems that they had, and to give that

information to these teams in these

three different cities, the six different teams.

And that was the way the thing was done.

Their method there that was used, two things,

verbal equivalence and formal equivalence.

Verbal equivalence meaning they wanted to translate

Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek words into English words.

Not messages, or thoughts, or ideas, but they wanted

to have words and words wherever possible.

The formal equivalent had to do with the forms of the words.

They wanted to be as surely as they can of a noun

in Hebrew, Aramaic or Greek,

put it over in a noun in English.

Pronouns to pronouns, adjectives to adjectives.

They didn't want to have dynamic equivalents, which is

add, subtract and change of the words of God.

They didn't want to change any of these things.

- [Voiceover] In addition to it's detailed translation,

the King James committee was instructed to keep

the footnotes of the new Bible to a minimum,

only providing cross references to other Scriptures,

or brief notes on the original languages.

Because of it's simplicity, trusted accuracy,

and the poetic beauty of the language,

in time, the King James version would overtake

all the other English translations.

- It ultimately, down the road a little ways, replaces,

not right away, but down the road replaces Geneva Bible.

People had a rough time giving up their Geneva Bible

because it was like a study Bible you know.

But then there wasn't any need to do that.

- [Voiceover] English Protestants would become

very familiar with the Bible and it's doctrines.

And the King James translation would come to symbolize

the unified efforts of all the Reformers who had

hazarded their lives for the sake of the Word of God.

- The authorized version of the Bible is seen as almost

as a unifying text for English Protestantism,

produced in 1611.

This is the first edition of the King James Bible.

And what actually happened in the first instance of course,

it was produced to be put in churches.

So as you can see, it is a very large folio volume.

And i just opened it to the beginning of

the Gospel according to Saint Luke.

This is the final chapter of Mark.

An angel declareth the resurrection of Christ

to three women, Christ himself appears to Mary Magdelene,

two going into the country, then to the apostles.

Who he sendeth forth to preach the Gospel

and ascendeth into Heaven.

- [Voiceover] Sometimes called the bestselling book

of all time.

There is perhaps no other version that has brought about

more controversy.

The translation was no sooner completed than it

came under attack by Romanists and some Protestants.

One scholar in particular, a Puritan named Hugh Broughton,

said he would rather be torn to pieces by wild horses

than to impose the King James Bible on

the poor churches of England.

Yet there are other curiosities about Hugh Broughton.

Dr. Matthew McMahon writes that,

In centuries past, the Jesuits were known

for seducing men with money and laudation.

And it was not uncommon for someone

to outwardly oppose Rome,

while secretly supporting their cause and doctrines.

But could this have been the case with Hugh Broughton?

The famed English poet, John Donne, who would become

the Dean of St. Paul's in London, and who lived

during this era, recorded the following

in one of his letters, he said,

According to John Donne, Broughton was offered

a stipend to avoid controversies with the Catholic church.

It seems that he cooperated to some extent, since he

compelled his congregation to refrain

from conflict with Rome.

We read that,

To modern eyes, Broughton's words are curious.

Especially when one considers this image

of Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury,

and religious head of the Church of England,

bowing down to Pope John Paul II,

and kissing his ring in 2003.

Or this image, of Britain's Prime Minister,

Tony Blair, signing the Constitution

of the European Union beneath the gigantic statue

of Pope Innocent X.

The agreement was signed on Capitoline Hill,

which is one of the seven hills of Rome.

Could these things suggest that Rome's

Counter Reformation continues even today?

- I believe that the Counter Reformation continues

to this day, yes.

I think there are a number of indications of that.

Britain is of course, part of the European Union,

And the European Union, although it's based

in Brussels, is very definitely

a Vatican project and is described as such

by a researcher named Adrian Hilton

in the book, The Principality and Power in Europe.

Very definitely, a Vatican Counter,

ongoing Counter Reformation tactic.

- [Voiceover] Just before leaving his office

as Prime Minister, Tony Blair had a private audience

with Pope Benedict XVI in July of 2007.

- [Voiceover] This was a meeting the Prime Minister

was unlikely to miss.

His visit to the Vatican was to be

his last foreign engagement.

Significant, certainly to some Catholics.

And though today there was no mention of whether

he might one day convert,

there are plenty who think he will.

Which perhaps explains the Prime Minister's

choice of gift.

In the frame, were photographs

of Cardinal John Henry Newman, a former Anglican priest

who did convert to Catholicism.

In the 19th century, he was a major figure in trying

to bring the Church of England back to it's Catholic roots.

- [Voiceover] John Henry Newman is a very significant

character in the history of England, Rome, and the Bible.

In a nutshell, he is the perfect symbol

of Rome's Counter Reformation.

Newman began as one of the Protestant leaders

of what was called the Oxford Movement

in the middle of the 19th century.

- The Oxford Movement, which began in 1833, was an attempt

effectively to Romanize the Church of England.

And to get the Church of England away from the Scriptures

and back to the ritualistic practices of Rome.

- [Voiceover] Some believe that a parallel to the

Oxford Movement is the current emerging church movement

in America today.

- In the emerging church, where people are being encouraged

to go back and find the experiences of the past

that brought people to church,

where are they being led?

To Roman Catholicism, to statues, idols, icons, incense.

These various kinds of things.

Contemplative Christianity, going back and studying

the monastic disciplines.

None of this is in the Bible.

The inherent Word of God is under attack by people

who have ideas and beliefs that are unscriptural.

- [Voiceover] Such was the environment

of 19th century England.

John Henry Newman was one of the leading lights

of the Oxford Movement, and caused many Anglicans

to turn away from the Church of England

and convert to Roman Catholicism.

Newman himself became a Catholic priest

and was eventually made a Cardinal.

Two of his chief admirers were Brook Foss Westcott

and Fenton John Anthony Hourt.

It was these two men who developed a new Greek manuscript

in the late 19th century.

One that would radically change the world

of Biblical scholarship.

But what was their real intention?

For over 100 years, debates have continued

about their work and whether or not

it was a deceptive effort.

- This is not what they claim it to be.

They claim it to be being the version set forth

in A.D. 1611, it is not, it is an entirely new translation

based on the new Greek text created by Westcott and Hourt.

- [Voiceover] Considering that both men spoke favorably

of the Oxford Movement, and greatly admired Cardinal Newman,

is it possible that Westcott and Hourt were somehow

a part of Rome's Counter Reformation?

It is curious that their revised Greek text would be

further developed by the Nestle Aland Committee

in the 20th century, whose members included

Carlo Maria Martini, a Jesuit priest who would also become

a Roman Catholic Cardinal.

To more fully consider the significance of a Jesuit priest

on a Bible committee, we looked to the year 1825,

shortly before the beginning of the Oxford Movement,

and to a famous meeting of Jesuit leaders

in the town of Chieri, Italy.

The meeting was recorded by a Jesuit initiate

named Abbate Leone.

In his book, Leone records how the Jesuits spoke of,

As part of their plan for world domination,

Leone wrote that the Jesuits intended to take control

of the Bible.

In particular, one Jesuit Superior said,

- And the main target is the crowning achievement

of the Protestant Reformation, which of course

is the 1611 authorized King James Holy Bible.

That is the fruit of the Reformation that the Jesuits

want to destroy above all.

Because until they do that, they cannot be sure

of getting, indeed the entire world,

and especially England, back under the thrall of the popery.

- [Voiceover] 18 years after the Jesuit meeting in Chieri,

a German scholar named Constantine von Tischendorf

would travel to Rome for what he described as,

with the Pope.

One year later, Tischendorf arrived at

St. Catherine's monastery, at the base of what is called

Mt. Sinai in Egypt.

Here, he discovered a manuscript that he claimed

was more ancient than any of those used by the Reformers.

In time, and after further visits to the monastery,

the manuscript he found would be named Codex Sinatticus.

Oddly, it had more corrections or changes in it

than any other manuscript in Biblical history.

- Tischendorf claimed there were some 14,800 corrections

done in the manuscript, is that true?

- It sounds about right.

- Sinatticus is the most corrected manuscript

or Greek manuscript, of the Scriptures.

- [Voiceover] Years later, after Tischendorf published

the manuscript, a copy would be presented to Pope Pius IX.

The Pope would send a letter in which he expressed

his highest appreciation of the publication.

About this same time, a second manuscript emerged

from the Vatican library, named Codex Vaticanus,

the Vatican Book.

Also said to be more ancient than the manuscripts

used by the Reformers.

- Vaticanus now has a very strange appearance,

when you look at it, as a manuscript expert,

although you know that people tell you that it's

a 14th century manuscript, it actually looks like

a 15th century manuscript.

And there's one very simple reason for that.

Almost the entire text has been overwritten

by a 15th century scribe.

- [Voiceover] Vaticanus and Sinnaticus are the two

Greek manuscripts that would be embraced

in the 19th century as older and more reliable

than the texts used by the Reformers.

Westcott and Hourt would combine them into what is

now known as the critical Greek text that would be used

for Biblical translation throughout the 20th century.

According to the Vatican website, Cardinal Martini

completed his studies in Theology at the Faculty of Theology

in Chieri, Italy,

where he was first ordained a priest in 1952.

In 1967, with the help of a man named Eugene Nida,

the United Bible Society entered into a

The term, functional equivalence,

is another way of saying "paraphrase".

Many believers have expressed a concern over

the progressive use of paraphrase in the newer Bibles,

with each edition becoming farther and farther removed

from the original languages.

Since the Scripture says that,

How do such changes impact the faith that was

once delivered to the saints?

- In Luke 18:8 I believe it is, when the Son of Man cometh,

will he find faith on the Earth.

That word "faith", which is pistus, is articular

with an article.

"Hapus" the faith, will he find the faith on the earth.

Every time, in the Greek language, the New Testament,

whenever "The faith" is mentioned, it means

the body of doctrine, held by the churches.

The doctrine of the deity of Christ,

the bodily resurrection, the blood atonement, the miracles,

all these doctrines, "The faith".

And so that is implied, he will not find "The faith".

As it says in other portions of Scripture,

there will be deceivers, deceiving and being deceived.

All these different signs of the last times.

- [Voiceover] In October of 2008, delegates from

the American Bible Society presented Pope Benedict XVI

with a special polyglot Bible that bears the seals

of the Vatican and the American Bible Society.

The American Bible Society also publishes

the contemporary English version, a newer Bible

that has now completely removed the word "anti-Christ"

from it's translation.

In it's place, they use the term "enemy of Christ",

which removes half the original meaning.

- "Anti" has two meanings in Greek.

"Anti" means "instead of" and also, "against".

The anti-Christ is against the Lord Jesus Christ and

he's in replacement of the Lord Jesus.

And to have a version like the CEV that takes away

"anti-Christ", and all these things, it's making provision

for this man who calls himself God, as it says

in Second Thessalonians, chapter two.

The Man of Sin, who says he's God and goes into

the temple, says, maintains he's deity, that's anti-Christ.

- [Voiceover] How these prophetic events

will fully unfold, only time will tell.

But the understanding of Bible prophecy will surely

be affected by how the words of God are translated.

Some are even predicting that

a new international Bible is being planned,

one that will completely omit the Book of Revelation.

Through various Bible societies, the Vatican now influences

Biblical translation in hundreds of languages

around the world.

The question that all Christians should ask is,

after a thousand years of persecuting and killing

the saints for reading the Holy Scriptures,

has Rome now turned over a new leaf?

Or, is she simply pursuing new tactics

to achieve an ancient agenda?