A Conspiracy Against the Word of God?

And Jesus answered him, saying, It is written, That man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word of God.

In the NIV the bold words are omitted.  This one could be nit picky

I believe the biggest question we need to face is whether there truly is a conspiracy against God's Word. If there was an attack, I believe it would be a consistent attack. In other words, we would see the same problem in parallel passages. We don't see this, though. Please note the parallel verse in Matthew 4:4.

Luke 4:4
KJV And Jesus answered him, saying, "It is written, That man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word of God."
NIV Jesus answered, "It is written: 'Man does not live on bread alone.'"

Matthew 4:4
KJV But he answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.
NIV Jesus answered, "It is written: 'Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.'"

We find that the parallel verse actually includes the debated words in Matthew 4:4. This shows that the translators thought Luke 4:4 was more accurate. Of course they could be wrong in their judgment but at least it is not because they are trying to alter the text.

That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life.

In the NIV the bold words are omitted and replaced with 'may'.  This change seems serious!

If there was a conspiracy to eliminate the concept of hell by erasing the word 'perish', then they would have taken the word out of the next verse (John 3:16) too! The meaning, no matter which way it is written, is still there.

John 3:15
KJV That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life.
NASB that whoever believes may in Him have eternal life.
NIV that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life.

John 3:16
KJV For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
NASB For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life.
NIV For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

The real problem centers around whether there is a redundancy in the original text. The KJV (Byzantine Text - BYZ) prefers the longer text while those of the other theory (Westcott-Hort - WH) eliminate the few words when certain Greek manuscripts do not have them. They believe they were probably added in later.

And without controversy great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into glory.

In this one God is replaced with He.  For the longest time I thought this verse referred to Jesus

This is a bit more complicated but the issue is the same. The Westcott-Hort approach believes that the word "God" was added in. They go by the principle that the more unclear a text is the more correct it would be. In other words copyists purposely or inadvertently made slight adjustments to the text to make the sense clearer.

Please note, they do not deny it refers to God. They just don't want to add anything to the original Greek text. There are many manuscripts that have the "Who" rather than "God." If there was a conspiracy, they would not have mentioned the support for the 'God' version.

1 Timothy 3:16
KJV And without controversy great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into glory.
NASB And by common confession great is the mystery of godliness: He who was revealed in the flesh, Was vindicated in the Spirit, Beheld by angels, Proclaimed among the nations, Believed on in the world, Taken up in glory.
NIV Beyond all question, the mystery of godliness is great: He appeared in a body, was vindicated by the Spirit, was seen by angels, was preached among the nations, was believed on in the world, was taken up in glory.

The BYZ stands for Byzantine Greek text (The KJV Received Text) while WH stands for Westcott-Hort (Basis for most modern texts). BYZ has 'theos' meaning 'God' while the WH has 'os' meaning 'whom.' There are many manuscripts that support each side. Which is true? A decision has to be made.

My NASB has in the side column "Some later mss. read God." (mss = manuscripts). I wouldn't buy a personal Bible unless it had such notation. But for the sake of learning let us step into the world of Greek texts. Please go to the next question if you are not interested in the details.

At the bottom of the Greek Bibles are detailed footnotes. Remember even these do not mention all the manuscripts that give support, but it does give us a good feeling for where things generally stand. Below is the detailed footnote from the Westcott-Hort Greek Bible.

Here are a few of the notations used in the beginning and their meaning. Although it all might look Greek, much of it is readable even without knowing Greek. Look carefully at the first notes.

16   | Refers to the verse 1 Timothy 3:16 which is written above in the Bible.
{B} | Means they are fairly sure "who" is the originally written text. {A} means sure.

In order to better understand the other notations, we have broken this footnote down into the following chart.

There is support for six different wordings. This is unusual. Most verses fully agree on all the words used. A little confusion, however, can cause great confusion. The two lines are used to separate support for one wording from another. The Greek word(s) that is used in the Greek texts is mentioned after the parallel lines (See the box on the right). There are two well-supported texts.

(1) WH - os (who)
Aleph (), A, C, G, 33, 2127, L599, syr, goth, eth, Origen, Jerome, Cyril and other Church fathers.

(5) Byz - theos (God)
Aleph(e), A2 C D K P Psi 81 104 181 326 330 ... Didymus Chrysostom and other Church fathers.

The English or Greek letters are uncial manuscripts (capital letters). Most numbers represent miniscules (small letters -later manuscripts). syr, cop and vg stand for translations (Syrian, Coptic and Latin). The church fathers are listed after this with names like Origin and Augustine. Please remember this second chart has eliminated much information from the first to clarify the six readings. Use the full footnote to compare. You will see there are really only two major options: "Who" or "God." An extreme amount of research has gone into this work at a time when the original texts were not easily reached. The Byzantine Greek Bible has similar footnotes although it is presented a bit different.

The argument as to which wording is the original is not so simple. The conspiracy overlooks support for both positions. Because of the multitude of texts, the translator must make some decisions on how to select which texts to use. This is the reason each side holds rather tenaciously to its principles of selection (such as 'more simple' (WH), 'less redundant' (WH), use of Byzantine texts (BYZ), etc.).

You can see there is support for both sides. Until we unravel the problem a bit more, this tension will remain. KJV supporters need to understand that they themselves do what they accuse the other side of doing - excluding evidence. Personally I like "God" because it is clearer, but I am not sure that it was originally stated in this way. It is just like a lot of our songs that refer to God but do not say God. Poetry can be subtle.

And Joseph and his mother marvelled at those things which were spoken of him.

"In the NIV Joseph is replaced with 'his father'. Is this a big error?"

It seems that you are suggesting that the NIV created a theological problem. It is not NIV's problem as much as a difficulty that arises from the many Greek manuscripts. Just as in the prior cases, there is support for both sides.

Luke 2:33
KJV And Joseph and his mother marvelled at those things which were spoken of him.
NASB And His father and mother were amazed at the things which were being said about Him.
NIV The child's father and mother marvelled at what was said about him.

There could have been a text copyist who thought, like you, that it was theologically vague and so he substituted Joseph. Technically speaking, Joseph was his father but not his biological father. Joseph had authority over him and that is why the angel appeared to him. Luke 2:40-41 says,

And the Child continued to grow and become strong, increasing in wisdom; and the grace of God was upon Him.
And His parents used to go to Jerusalem every year at the Feast of the Passover.)

(5) Luke 11: 2-5

And he said unto them, When ye pray, say, 'Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done, as in heaven, so in earth. 3: Give us day by day our daily bread. 4: And forgive us our sins; for we also forgive every one that is indebted to us. And lead us not into temptation; but deliver us from evil.

"The NIV omits all of the bold. Why would they decide to do that?"

As above, there are various texts supporting the different sides. In this case you can see there was no conspiracy because the parallel passage in Matthew 6 does not exclude the key words. This is like question #1 above.

Matthew 6:9
KJV After this manner therefore pray ye: Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name.
NASB Pray, then, in this way: 'Our Father who art in heaven, Hallowed be Thy name.'
NIV This, then, is how you should pray: "Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name,"

Matthew 6:10
KJV Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven.
NASB Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done, On earth as it is in heaven.
NIV your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

Matthew 6:14
KJV For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you:
NASB For if you forgive men for their transgressions, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.
NIV For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.