Chapter 22

The Quiet Erasure

What happened to page 159 after Dake died, and what the Bible never told its readers

Open four Dake Bibles to the notes on Acts 17:26 and you will find four different notes. In the original printings, the first item on New Testament page 159 is headed “30 reasons for segregation of races.” In the 1990 printing the same thirty reasons are still there, but the heading now reads “30 reasons nations separated,” and softer words have been pasted over the old ones in a different typeface. In the 1992 printing the note has been set in new type and rewritten, still thirty reasons under the 1990 heading. In the newer typeset edition the list is gone from that place. The note beside the verse sends the reader instead to a note called “Separation in Scripture,” on page 275.¹

Taking the racism out of the Bible was right. The way it was done was wrong, and wrong twice over. For several years the publisher kept the doctrine and changed its vocabulary. Then it replaced the note with one that restates about twenty of the old reasons in new words. At no stage did the Bible itself tell its readers that the old note had existed, what had been changed, or why.

The publisher did speak about the matter outside the Bible, and I report what it said below. I make no claim about anyone’s motives. What follows is the pages themselves, set side by side in the order they were printed.

The note Dake left

Dake died on July 7, 1987. Nothing in the race note changed while he lived. My own copies show the changes beginning with the 1988 printing, the first after his death, and going on printing by printing after that.² The 1988 and 1991 pages have not yet been photographed, so the stages below are the ones the photographs document: the original wording, the 1990 printing, the 1992 printing, and the newer typeset edition.

The original note is the subject of Chapter 20, and Chapter 21 answers it from Scripture, so I will describe it only briefly. It stands at the top of the left column on N.T. page 159, a page of continued notes on Acts. It gives thirty numbered reasons under the heading “30 reasons for segregation of races: (Acts 17:26).” The verse itself is printed on page 144, and its note c sends the reader to the list. In the New King James Version the verse reads this way.

And He has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined their preappointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings, . . . Acts 17:26 (NKJV)³

My 1965 printing carries the note, and so does my 1979 Large Note Edition, whose copyright page dates its first printing to August 1979. In that printing the index still lists the note, and the pointer beside Acts 17:26 still sends the reader to it.⁴

1990: new words pasted over the old

The 1990 page is the same page in the same type. The running head and the page number have not moved, and the thirty reasons stand in their old order. What changed is a set of words, each covered by a patch in a different, typewriter-style face. The heading is one of them.

30 reasons nations separated:
(Acts 17:26) Dake’s Annotated Reference Bible, 1990 printing, N.T. p. 159, heading⁵

Here are the changes, set against the original wording.

Whoever made these changes read closely. They found every use of one word and softened the phrase that named two races by color. They even repaired a reference that had been missing its book name since the note was first printed. Yet the doctrine was left standing. Reason 2 still says that “Kind means type and color or He would have kept them all alike to begin with.” Reason 19 still says “Equal rights in the gospel gives no right to break this eternal law.” Reason 23 still says “Even in heaven certain groups will not be allowed to worship together.” The word “Miscegenation” still opens reasons 4, 15 and 25.⁷

So a reader who bought this Bible in 1990 owned a copy that still taught the old doctrine as the meaning of Acts 17:26. It still said that God wills the races to be kept apart forever, in this world and the next, only in words that were easier to read aloud.

1992: the note set in new type and rewritten

By 1992 the note had been reset and rewritten. It is still thirty reasons, still under the heading “30 reasons nations separated: (Acts 17:26),” and still at the head of the page. The sentences, though, are new, and several of the harshest have been taken out or turned around.

1 God wills all races to be as He made them. Any violation of God's original purpose is not consistent with His will (17:26; Rom. 9:19-24)
2 God made everything to reproduce “after his own kind” (Gen. 1:11-12, 21-25; 6:20; 7:14). Kind means type and color or all things would be alike. God wants variety in his creation of trees, plants, fish, animals, and mankind. God loves all nations and calls “good” the races he created Dake’s Annotated Reference Bible, 1992 printing, N.T. p. 159, reasons 1–2⁸

The rewriting reaches further down the list. “Miscegenation” survives only in reason 4, now defined as “the mixing of races, especially those of widely different type or color.” Reasons 15 and 25 say “Intermarriage” instead. Reason 19 has lost the words “and command” and the “Equal rights” sentence. Reason 23 is no longer about groups kept apart in heaven. It now reads “In heaven a specific group will have a new song that no man can learn but the 144,000 (Rev. 14:1-5).”⁹

The note was gentler, and some of its worst claims were gone. But its heading, its thirty-reason form and its first sentence still taught that God wills the races to remain as He made them, and it still filed that teaching under “one blood.”

“Separation in Scripture”

In the newer typeset edition the note beside Acts 17:26 is one line: “c See Separation in Scripture, p. 275.”¹⁰ Page 275 is a page of continued notes on Acts, and its running head ties it to the old book: “THE ACTS NOTES CONTINUED (158-159) 275.” The page number in parentheses is the page in the older setting, so this page holds what used to stand on pages 158 and 159. The new note opens like this.

This verse says God made “all nations of men” from “one blood”; it also speaks of “the bounds of their habitation.” In spite of a common ancestry, from Adam first and later Noah, it was God’s will for man to scatter over the earth, to “be fruitful, and multiply” (Gen. 1:28; 8:17; 9:1). Man’s failure to obey caused God to confuse his language (Gen. 11:1-9) and to physically separate the nations by dividing the earth into continents (Gen. 10:25). Both physically and spiritually, separation has been a consistent theme for God’s people. Dake’s Annotated Reference Bible, newer typeset edition, N.T. p. 275, “Separation in Scripture (17:26)”¹¹

That opening does something the old note never did. It quotes the first half of the verse, “one blood,” and grants a common ancestry. Then it moves the ground for separation from race to Babel, to the dividing of the earth, and to the line of the Messiah, which is the subject of its first section. Those are real changes, and they are better than what stood there before.

The second section, though, is headed “Separation in Israel,” and it is the old list. Item after item repeats an old reason, reworded and renumbered. The old reason 25 is item (9), “Intermarriage caused disunity among God’s people (Num. 12).” The old reason 15 is item (11), “Intermarriage caused a curse on Israel (Judg. 3:6-7; Num. 25:1-8).” The old reason 11 is item (7). The note runs on to page 276, and there the old reason 20 appears almost word for word.

16) Separation between Jews and all other nations is to remain in eternity (Isa. 2:2-4; Ez. 37; 47:13–48:35; Zech. 14:16-21; Mt. 19:28; Lk. 1:32-33; Rev. 7:1-8; 14:1-5)
17) Certain people in Israel were not to worship with others (Dt. 23:13; Ezra 10:8; Neh. 9:2; 10:28; 13:3) Dake’s Annotated Reference Bible, newer typeset edition, N.T. p. 276, “Separation in Scripture,” section 2, items 16–17¹²

After that comes “Miscellaneous separation,” with the ox and the ass, crossbred stock, mixed seed and mixed fabrics. Those are the old reasons 24 and 26 through 29. Last comes “Christian separation,” which is the old reason 30. The 1992 wording is the bridge between the two notes. Its reasons 13, 15, 17 through 20, 22, 25 and 30 reappear in “Separation in Scripture” almost word for word.¹³

What the newer note drops is just as plain. Old reason 1, that God wills all races to be as He made them, is gone. So is reason 2, that “Kind means type and color.” So is reason 4, the definition of mixing the races. Reason 21, that all nations will stay apart on earth forever, is gone, and so is reason 23, about heaven. The “Equal rights” sentence in reason 19 is gone too. Those were the reasons that spoke most openly about race, and removing them was right. But about twenty of the thirty reasons remain, in new words, under the same verse. So the list was not simply removed. It was cut down, renamed, moved two pages and reworded.

It was never one page

The original note sat at the center of a web of pointers, and the web was rewired along with it. The note on Exodus 33:16, where Moses says God’s presence sets Israel apart from every other people, shows how it was done. In the original wording note k reads this way.

This is one of many scriptures proving the will of God in the complete segregation of Israel from all other nations (v 1; Num. 23:9). See 30 reasons for segregation of races, p. 159 of N.T. Dake’s Annotated Reference Bible, 1979 Large Note Edition, O.T. p. 100, note k (Exodus 33:16)¹⁴

In the newer typeset edition the same note, on the same verse, reads this way.

This is one of many scriptures proving the will of God in the complete separation of Israel from all other nations (v 1; Num. 23:9). See Separation in Scripture, p. 275 of N.T. Dake’s Annotated Reference Bible, newer typeset edition, O.T. p. 159, note k (Exodus 33:16)¹⁵

One word changed, and the pointer moved. The claim about Israel is the same, and so is the reference to Numbers 23:9, a verse about Israel’s calling that an honest reader can do something with.¹⁶ The other pointers I can check were changed the same way. The notes in Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus and Joshua that once sent the reader to “30 reasons for segregation of races, p. 159 of N.T.” now send him to “Separation in Scripture, p. 275.”¹⁷

The index was rewired too. In the original printings the Cyclopedic Index has a headword “Segregation” with fifteen sub-entries, from “S. in Eastern cities” to “30 reasons for s., 159*.” Chapter 20 prints it in full. In the newer typeset edition that headword is a single line.

Segregation. See Separation Dake’s Annotated Reference Bible, newer typeset edition, Concordance and Cyclopedic Index, p. 124, the entry between “Seething” and “Segub”¹⁸

The old sub-entries moved under “Separation” with new page numbers. So “12 reasons God segregated Israel, 108” became “12 reasons God separated Israel, 194,” and the last line, “30 reasons for s., 159*,” became “S. in Scripture, 275*.”

The notes themselves show the same care, and its limits. On Genesis 24 the original note calls Abraham’s charge to his servant “the will of God for all distinct races.” The newer note reads, “Here we have Abraham’s definite command regarding the separation of his descendants. Such has been and always will be the will of God for all distinct nations.”¹⁹ The word changed, but the rule stayed. And in one place the old wording was missed altogether. In the newer edition’s list of “35 Purposes of the 2nd Advent,” under 2 Thessalonians, item 29 still reads “Re-locate and segregate the different races (Dt. 32:8; Acts 17:26),” exactly as the older setting printed it.²⁰

So the revision was careful, but it was not complete. It reached the main note, the pointers and the index. It did not reach every line that taught the same thing, and it did not change the idea that God wills the peoples of the earth to be kept apart.²¹

What the publisher said elsewhere

The publisher did not stay silent everywhere. In 2000 Charisma reported that the company had written to the pastor Fred Price, and it quoted the letter: “The company issued a letter of apology to Price saying in part, ‘We agree that racism has no place in the body of Christ, or anywhere else.’” The same article reported the publisher’s claim that the 1963 version “has since been replaced by a 1997 edition rewritten, according to its authors, to remove any racial overtones.”²²

I am glad that letter was written, and I take the sentence it contains at its word. The article does not give the letter’s date, and I have not seen the letter itself. It also does not say which of the stages above the 1997 edition was. My own 1997 printing will settle that once it is photographed.²³

What the Bible itself never said

The apology went to one pastor, and the report of it went to the readers of a magazine. The people who bought the Bible were told nothing in the Bible. On none of the pages that replaced the old note, and in no note of the newer edition that I have searched, is there a sentence telling the reader that an earlier note stood here, what it taught, or why it was changed.²⁴ A person who buys a newer copy cannot learn from the book that the thirty reasons ever existed. A person who inherited an older copy cannot learn from a newer one that they were withdrawn.

That silence matters because of what a study Bible is. Its whole use is to send the reader from a verse to a note, from a note to a list, and from a word to the index. In the original printings that machinery led readers to the thirty reasons. In the later ones it was turned to lead them somewhere else, and nothing in it records the turn. The teaching was taken out of sight without being taken back.

Scripture sets a different pattern for dealing with a wrong.

He who covers his sins will not prosper, But whoever confesses and forsakes them will have mercy. Proverbs 28:13 (NKJV)²⁵

The proverb asks for two things, confessing and forsaking. The later printings did a good deal of forsaking, page by page. What they never did was say, in the book where the teaching had been printed, that it was wrong. One short paragraph in the front of the Bible would have done it. It could have said that earlier printings carried a note teaching the segregation of the races, that the note was wrong, and that it had been withdrawn. Every pastor with an old copy would then have known what to tell his people, and every reader hurt by that page would have seen the wrong named where it was done.

Paul described his own ministry in words that fit here.

But we have renounced the hidden things of shame, not walking in craftiness nor handling the word of God deceitfully, but by manifestation of the truth commending ourselves to every man’s conscience in the sight of God. 2 Corinthians 4:2 (NKJV)²⁶

A study Bible handles the word of God for its readers. When its notes change on a question of right and wrong, the open way is to say so on the page.

They fixed it, so why not be grateful?

Some readers will say the publisher did the right thing in the end and deserves thanks, not criticism. I am grateful the racial reasons are gone, and I have said so. But a correction made in silence reaches only new buyers. Every copy printed before 1988 still says what it said, and so do the copies from 1990 and 1992. A word from the publisher inside the Bible would have spoken to the readers of those copies too. A changed page cannot, because the reader of an old copy never sees it.

Don’t publishers revise reference books all the time?

They do, and nobody expects a notice for a corrected reference or a redrawn map. But this was not upkeep. For decades a Bible had taught, as the meaning of Acts 17:26, that God commands the segregation of the races. Withdrawing that teaching was a reversal on a question of right and wrong. The size of a correction sets the duty to disclose it, and this one was large. The same notes still sent the reader to about twenty of the old reasons, which made the duty larger, because a reader of the newer note has no way to know that it was built from the old one.

You can’t prove anyone meant to hide it.

That is true, and I have not tried to. I do not know who made these decisions or why, and nothing in my sources says. What I have shown is what was printed and what was not. The changes are on the pages, and the explanation is missing from them. A reader of a later printing is left uninformed whatever anyone intended, so the case needs no motive. Paul’s word to the Ephesians is about deeds done out of sight and what happens when they are brought into the light.

And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather expose them. For it is shameful even to speak of those things which are done by them in secret. But all things that are exposed are made manifest by the light, for whatever makes manifest is light. Ephesians 5:11–13 (NKJV)²⁷

The text that never changed

The change was right, and the silence about it inside the Bible was wrong. The publisher said the right thing about racism to a pastor and a magazine. It never said it to the readers of its own Bible, and it went on printing about twenty of the old reasons under the verse they had always been filed under.

There is good news in this for anyone who owns one of these Bibles, old or new. Through every stage of the note, the text of Acts 17 did not change. Every printing still says that God “has made from one blood every nation of men,” and that He set the times and boundaries of the nations so that they would seek Him and find Him. The notes were one man’s reading, edited by others after he died. The verse is God’s word, and it has said the same thing to every reader of every printing.

James joins confession to healing in the same breath.

Confess your trespasses to one another, and pray for one another, that you may be healed. James 5:16 (NKJV)²⁸

The way forward for a reader is the one Acts 17 itself gives. The Bereans received Paul’s word and searched the Scriptures daily to see whether it was so.²⁹ Read the notes as notes, in any printing, and carry them to the text. The God of one blood is not hard to find there. Chapter 23 follows Dake’s teaching outward into the churches, and Appendix C lays the printings side by side so you can check each stage for yourself.