THE?BIBLE may have sold billions – but it’s based on a cover up.

So says Petersfield poet and academic author Christopher Sparkes who has spent more than 25 years translating the New Testament.

In producing the first ever pure and grammatically accurate translation he had uncovered “the greatest literary scandal of all time”.

Christopher (65), of Torberry Drive, has painstakingly pored over the original Hebrew and Greek, discovering words and phrases that, he says, have never been translated correctly or understood.

Some of these are so serious, they affect the entire outlook of Christian teaching, including the gospel message at the heart of it.

Filament Publishing, which launched his The Eonian Books: Matthew to Revelation, and companion volume The Earth-Shaking Truth, has called his depth of scholarship and research “mind-blowing”.

There is no heaven or hell, we do not have a soul, and Jesus is not the creator, but just a man, are truths Christopher says he has unpicked from the original meanings and great themes of the prophets and apostles.

This had largely been gleaned from going through the texts, obsessively, for 16 hours most days, “using a jeweller’s microscopic accuracy”. “It’s all sunk in now and I am no longer shocked,” said Christopher, whose research has not rocked his strong faith. “I just feel excitement and delight that I?have uncovered the truth.”

He believes there have been deliberate falsifications – “a thousand blunders” – in translations over the centuries, to perpetrate the familiar myths.

“Verbs have been twisted to unhold what translators believe. Words have been falsified and this happens time and time again. They are putting in really what they want it to mean,” he explained.

He has used 135 lexicons and translations in his tiny home study cum art studio to carry out the work, and has enough material for a dozen more books.

Hear about his books at One Tree Books, Petersfield, on February 10, at 6pm.