Response to Southwest Radio Church on King James Controversy, Part 3 (Dr. Waite)

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Response to Southwestern on King James Controversy, Part 4 (Waite / Letus)

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diligent to present yourself approved to God, a worker who does not need to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.
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Alpha and Omega Ministries presents the Dividing Line radio broadcast. The Apostle Peter commanded all
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Christians to be ready to give a defense for the hope that is within us, yet to give this answer with gentleness and reverence.
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Your host is Dr. James White, director of Alpha and Omega Ministries and an elder at the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church.
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If you'd like to talk with Dr. White you can call now by dialing 602 -274 -1360. That's 602 -274 -1360.
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Or if you're out of the Metro Phoenix dialing area it's 1 -888 -550 -1360.
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That's 1 -888 -550 -1360. And now with today's topic here's
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James White. And welcome to the Dividing Line my name is James White. We continue this week with our response to the
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Southwest Radio Church's airing of a four -part series. We're looking at the sections that hosted
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Dr. D .A. Waite as the main person responding to my book, The King James Only Controversy.
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We'll be looking as well at the subject of their other responses to my book,
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The King James Only Controversy. And we have been providing a direct response. What I mean by that is we've been playing for you the actual comments made by Dr.
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Sparge Amino and by Dr. Waite and then responding to them. And I again point out we'd like to be able to have
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Dr. Waite on and we'd like to be able to cross -examine him and provide a response and ask him to provide specific documentation of his allegations of error.
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And we've invited Dr. Waite to be on but as of this date well there's just no willingness to do that.
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And so we provide this response. We continue to provide this response because people need to know what the real facts are about these particular issues.
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And so this week we continue with the second program that featured Dr. Waite.
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And here is the first section that program we'd like to respond to. Mr. Waite contends that proponents of the
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King James Bible are guilty of circular reasoning. Now if someone argues and compares a modern version with the
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King James Bible and says that quote this verse has been deleted or omitted in the modern version that we are guilty of circular reasoning.
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And I've had that objection pop up many times. What's your response to that? Now before Dr. Waite gets to his response
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I'd like to respond to that specifically. What did I mean in my book when I said that King James only advocates reason in a circle?
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I was referring to their use of such words such as altered, changed, deleted, and added.
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They take their text, the King James text or the Texas Receptus, they make that the standard and then they force you to compare everything to their standard.
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And of course the question is why should we accept that as the standard? My standard is what
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Paul or John or Peter wrote not what Desiderius Erasmus, a
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Roman Catholic priest working in the beginning of the 16th century thought they wrote.
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And so the circular reasoning comes out in the constant unwillingness in the part of King James only advocates to allow for their text to be tested on the same grounds that we should test any text whether it's the modern text or the
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King James. Both have to answer to the same standard and that is their reflection of the original text itself.
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That was the original assertion in my work of the circular reasoning that you hear on the part of King James only advocates.
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But notice how Dr. Waite responds. My response is this, as far as you may know, the possibility or the probability of the
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Texas Receptus, since it's a longer Greek text, adding things instead of the heretical text that we consider the
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Westcott and Hort B &L text deleting things, the probability that this could happen and this would be the case is just simply incredible.
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It would be almost the same probabilities of happening as if, as someone has aptly put it, if there was an explosion in a junkyard and the whole parts would come down as your mother's
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Cadillac, see? Impossible. Now such an assertion, I think, demonstrates why it is that Dr.
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Waite would not, in our debate, get into any kind of discussion of any specifics about the text.
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Because that kind of assertion shows absolutely no familiarity whatsoever with the practice of textual criticism and actually working with the textual variations in the text itself.
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There is no connection whatsoever between the explosion in the junkyard analogy, which is supposed to represent the probability of something as complex as DNA or life itself, the structures of a cell or something like that, resulting from random chance.
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The transcription of a manuscript is not random chance. And in point of fact, what we're talking about is how do scribes generally, as they're copying, make errors?
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What are the kind of errors that you and I make when we copy out of a book, even on a keyboard, even in a situation where we have plenty of light and we have a very nice environment in which to work, for example?
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What kind of errors do scribes make? And when scribes have more than one kind of manuscript before them, what do they do?
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Do they conflate the readings? Do they reject readings? What do they do? Now the fact that the idea of addition is the reality in regards to what happened with later manuscripts and not subtraction from the text is so easily demonstrated by anyone who's familiar with the history of the text.
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I mean, you can find so much evidence of a longer text the farther you go into history.
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In fact, that's why we can say we know we have the originals, because even if a reading didn't make any sense, it would be maintained in the text, which means the original readings would not be taken out.
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That's a very important point called the tenacity of the text. Let me give you just an example. There is a manuscript of the book of Revelation.
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Listen to this title. This is a later manuscript. This is
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Hoscars 236, Gregory 1775 is the number. Here is the title to the book of Revelation.
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Now the earliest manuscripts say Revelation. Here's the title of this book. The Revelation of the all -glorious
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Evangelist, bosom friend of Jesus, virgin, beloved to Christ, John the
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Theologian, son of Salome and Zebedee, but adopted son of Mary, the mother of God, and son of thunder.
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That's the title to the book of Revelation in one of these manuscripts. So you're telling me that a longer version of that is not possible?
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Well, obviously, anyone familiar with the text itself knows that that is not the case.
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But Dr. Waite then goes to talking about, well, a favorite King James Only passage, the longer ending of Mark, Mark chapter 16 verses 9 through 20.
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For instance, let's take Mark 16, 9 to 20. His argument would say that Ben -Alof, which are the only major texts that take away
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Mark 16, 9 to 20, the last twelve verses of Mark, he would say that Ben -Alof haven't taken it away, why the text was sent to his people, simply added it.
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But just think of the possibilities. Here's Mark 16, 9 to 20, 18 unshields have it.
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This is from Dean Burgan's last twelve verses of Mark. Over 600 cursive copies have it. Every known lectionary of the
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East has it. And then on top of that, you have 10 different early versions containing Mark 16, 9 to 20.
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And then you have quotations from 19 early church fathers, all of whom refer to or allude to Mark 16, 9 to 20.
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Now the question is, how, if this was added, could it be added all over the then known world and all these different centuries, different church fathers, some in the third century, some in the fourth, some in the fifth, how could it be added exactly the same way every place?
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How could these versions, how could these early translations have Mark 16, 9 to 20 with verse 9 and then 10 and then 11 and 12, all the words fitting into place?
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And that's an impossibility that nobody could conceive of. And that's not circular reasoning.
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That's just plain logic. Well, that sure sounds good, doesn't it? I mean,
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I can understand how someone hearing that would go, wow, that sounds like a full refutation.
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And that's why we want to get people to get in a situation where you can answer questions.
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Because you see, folks, this was supposed to be a response to my book, The King James Only Controversy, and yet nothing that I said about Mark 16, 9 to 20 was just addressed.
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In fact, those of you who've read the book know that that entire response has nothing to do with what
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I said in my book. Instead, what I pointed out in regards to Mark 16, 9 to 20 is that there's not just one ending, and Dr.
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Waite forgot to mention that. He forgot to mention the textual variations that exist within the longer ending that's there.
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In fact, there are three, maybe four different endings for the Gospel of Mark. And of course, the argument
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I made was that if the longer ending of Mark in Mark 16, 9 to 20 is original, there would be no reason to create other endings of the
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Gospel of Mark. Now, the other Gospels have that problem. So why was it that the real argument that is based upon the existence of multiple endings of the
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Gospel of Mark, why wasn't that mentioned? Well, folks, it's because all of the responses that I have seen to the
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King James Only Controversy have partaken of this kind of response that really isn't a response at all.
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It's just a reiteration of a statement of faith. We believe the
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King James Version of the Bible. Well, we know that, but we're trying to dialogue about it.
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We're trying to issue. And Dr. Waite's response, while sounding very good, when you cross -examine and say, well, wait a minute.
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What about this? What about that? It doesn't sound very good at all because nobody's saying that someone was coming along.
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The quote -unquote Textus Receptus people? The longer ending of Mark was written long before there was an
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English language alone. Anyone who would be called a Textus Receptus person? No, that doesn't make any sense whatsoever.
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So I'd like to ask Dr. Waite again, how about dealing with what I said about Mark 16, 9 through 20, rather than passing off what sounds like a good answer, but one that has nothing to do with what
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I said in the King James Only Controversy, as if it is a response? Let's get serious about this because that's an important textual variant.
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And there's very good reason for not considering it to be a part of what Mark himself wrote.
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And no one is doing any Christians any favors by dodging the issue and providing a response like Dr.
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Waite just provided there. Now, Dr. Spargimino falls directly into the trap of accepting this kind of argumentation.
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Well, that would mean that everybody had to take their texts and make the same kind of change. No, the change that is the construction of the intermediate ending of Mark, the longer ending of Mark, was very early on.
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And so those manuscripts copied from those manuscripts that contain the ending, contain it.
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There wasn't any kind of big conspiracy. But listen to what Dr. Spargimino says at this point.
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Like you pointed out about the Mark 16, 9 and following passage, for that to have happened back then, we would have to presuppose that they had email.
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Because there is such a parallel and it's so precise. So that is a tremendous response is what he said.
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Well, if you think it's a tremendous response to assert that kind of thing, that well, actually all these people had to make these emendations and changes and assert the longer ending and they all had to be the same, that's not the argumentation that anyone has put forward.
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So again, a person listening to this program goes, oh, what a response to the King James Only Book, when in reality the actual argument of the
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King James Only Book has not even yet been touched. Dr. Spargimino continues his demonstration that he really didn't look closely at what my book said and what the content of my charge of circular reasoning was when he says the following.
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The church has always taught that God has preserved his word. So to say that this verse has been omitted or that this verse has been deleted is not circular reasoning.
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It's simply reasoning that is based on the promise of the Lord Jesus Christ. Dr. Spargimino confuses the assertion that I made and that is to set up the
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King James as the standard and then say everything else is a change from that and an omission or addition so on so forth involves circular reasoning.
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Now he brings in the King James Only Theory of Preservation and says the church has always taught the preservation of scriptures.
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No one denies that, but he will not find the church teaching the preservation of the King James Version of the
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Bible. That's a completely different subject. So many different concepts here get sort of mishmashed together and and it's quite confusing to try to follow this attempted response to the
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King James Only controversy. Now Dr. Waite then steps back in and makes the following assertions.
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That 99 % of the manuscripts that we have today contain this and contain this, contain it, and just a small little handful, the old unshilled
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Aleph and A and B and C and D, especially B and Aleph, just a small little tiny fragmentary handful, knock out this verse and that verse and this verse.
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It's strange that churches, the thing about it is the churches knew what was true what was false and they never copied and recopied those false manuscripts.
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Now please note two things. Dr. Waite is very very enamored with Dean Burgon and in fact
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Dr. Waite's primary understanding of this entire field is based upon what Dean Burgon said more than 100 years ago.
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That's one of the reasons that those who do depend upon Dean Burgon generally make errors because they are not aware of the current state of textual studies and the current state of what manuscripts are available for our study today.
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Notice he just said just a couple of unshilled manuscripts, Aleph and B and so on and so forth. He never deals with the papyri manuscripts.
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He never deals with the the papyri that have been discovered since the days of Burgon and I know that Burgon would have had a different view had he had access to those papyri manuscripts.
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Burgon was a scholar and even though I disagree with him on many issues, it's interesting to note that Dean Burgon could not have been a member of the
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Dean Burgon Society that D .A. Waite is president of. That is the doctrinal standards the
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Dean Burgon Society would not allow Dean Burgon to be a member of the society named after him because he was not a
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Baptist. He was not a separatist in that sense. He was an Anglican and not only that but ask
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D .A. Waite since he won't seemingly talk to us. Ask D .A. Waite did
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Dean Burgon accept or reject the Kamiohanium of 1st
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John 5 7 and see what he has to say. I think that these are important issues and and so again he says well 99 % of these manuscripts contain this thing.
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Yes and 89 % of them were written after the year 1100 so they're all copies of each other.
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Why should manuscripts written a millennium later have more weight in telling us what the original text was than one that was written 200 years after that period of time.
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Again cross -examination interaction would allow these simple facts to come out and that's why we provide you with this kind of response.
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I like this statement that my quarters of Herman Hasker and his book Codex B and it's alive page 468 to 469.
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Here's his assessment of this Westcott and Hort Creek text. He says they're basing their accusations on an
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Egyptian revision that was current 200 to 450 AD and abandoned between 500 to 1881 merely revived in our day and stamped as genuine.
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Now again this quotation comes from a time period before the discovery of the papyri manuscripts that so clearly demonstrate that all of and B represent a primitive form of the text and so again you go back to individuals who are writing before the current state of facts you quote them as if they're still relevant in light of the situation today and it's interesting going back a little bit to what
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Dr. Spargiamino said and to what Dr. Waite has said that the church would not copy these manuscripts.
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The church, the church, the church. This is why the folks at Southwest Radio Church seemingly
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I guess think that Dr. Waite and Dr. Ledis are saying the same things when they are not.
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They are not saying the same things. When Dr. Ledis talks about the church he's talking about 17th century
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Protestant orthodoxy and he in essence is investing into the
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Protestant orthodoxy of a of a Francis Turretin or or the Orthodox Protestant writers the 17th century ability to in essence speak for the church and define the church's text.
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That is not what a separatist independent Baptist like D .A. Waite is saying.
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It's fascinating to hear these two programs knowing that the people they're interviewing are coming from completely different perspectives and the only reason they're both getting interviewed is because they're attacking one book.
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Fascinating thing to to see indeed and so again when we know something about the historical setting we know something about the manuscripts that are being discussed the assertions simply fall flat.
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Now remember what was just said well you know for for all these hundreds of years till 1881 which of course is when the
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Westcott and Hort text is published these this Egyptian text falls into disuse.
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Remember something in history about the Muslim invasion? Remember the
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Muslims coming across North Africa? You think that might have had some impact upon manuscript production?
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And isn't it interesting that the Textus Receptus is primarily Byzantine in character and it was the kingdom surrounding
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Byzantium that kept speaking Greek and held out against the Muslims until the middle of the 15th century.
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Might that be why that's where the most manuscripts come from? You see a little bit of history changes so much of the assertions that are made in this area.
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Now if you think it's unfair of me to say well Dr. Waite is dealing with hundred -year -old scholarship he's just following Burgon he's not even dealing with the modern state.
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Listen to these words and see if he deals with p66 p52 p75 p72 any of these modern manuscripts modern in the sense they've been discovered since the days of Burgon that demonstrate that Oliph and Bea Sinaiticus and Vaticanus do represent an early form the text.
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See what he says. See that was the argumentation back then against the
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Westcott and Hort text is it was based on only two manuscripts Oliph and Bea. That's what
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Burgon was saying that's no longer the case that's one of Dr. Waite's problems is he does not recognize the state of affairs today.
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He does not recognize that the UBS 4th Nestealon 27th is significantly different in many aspects from the
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Westcott and Hort text because the fact that Oliph and Bea no longer are the quote -unquote prince of the manuscripts they haven't been exalted they now are recognized as being extremely important and where their text type and I don't think
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Dr. Waite understands what a text type is their text type has been demonstrated to be primitive by the papyri manuscripts but they themselves are no longer the the the kings of the sea shall we say and you will find places where the papyri correct them or or so on and so forth so again it just simply demonstrates that Dr.
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Waite is not familiar with the modern state of the situation and going back to Dean Burgon isn't helping anyone today in that way.
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Now in this next section Dr. Sparge Amino left me somewhat amazed at how he responded.
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Dr. Waite was talking about how the viewpoint that I'm presenting is is spreading like wildfire amongst fundamentalists and Dr.
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Sparge Amino responds and says that the text of the
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Bible was corrupted early on. Now this is this is very important because in reality and I've said this in the
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King James only controversy the King James only position undercuts the true foundation for the defense of the
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Bible and for the defense of inerrancy and for the defense of the accuracy of the transmission of Scripture.
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The King James only position undercuts that and listen to what
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Dr. Sparge Amino says here not only does he say that there is early corruption of the text and of course he identifies that with all of them be
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I guess he'd also identify that with all the papyri manuscripts that come before that but listen to his use of the
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Apostle Paul here. You know the whole assumption when Mr. Waite and others of his school speak about the early manuscripts being the best or better they forget that corruptions enter the text at a very early date in fact even the
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Apostle Paul mentions those who corrupt the Word of God so if we take Vaticanus and Sinaiticus from what the third or fourth century say they're early well
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Paul said there were corruptions even before then. What an amazing assertion amazing on many counts but 2nd
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Corinthians 217 in the King James version of the Bible says for we are not as many which corrupt the
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Word of God but as of sincerity but as of God in the sight of God we speak in Christ now for those who don't speak
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King James English and translating the Greek phrase that translated corrupt even better here the
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NIV says unlike so many we do not peddle the Word of God for profit on the contrary in Christ we speak before God with sincerity like men sent from God and so the passage
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Paul is not talking about changing manuscript readings he's not talking about textual variation he's talking about those who peddle the
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Word of God trying to make a profit it is amazing to see the lengths that people will go to in attempting to substantiate this position when it simply has no foundation now
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Dr. Waite goes on to say well you know we have these other translations and other languages that are very very early and of course they always opt for the earliest dates for these translations
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Latin translations and like as they can and see they contain the mark 16 9 to 20 passage so therefore obviously it was just a deletion the part of those two manuscripts again ignoring any any evidence has been discovered since that period of time and ignoring the fact that the text type of all
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F &B has been demonstrated through the discovery of the papyri to predate the period of that going all the way back it's not just at the beginning of the 4th century longer but it goes even before that so again it would be very useful to those who listen to Dr.
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Waite to recognize that in essence he's sort of stuck in time the time of Dean Burgon and and that of course results in information just isn't accurate any longer now earlier in the review and I don't believe we played the section maybe we did and I didn't comment on it earlier in the review he made reference to an incident that took place back in April of this year up in Salt Lake City and this gives
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I think a little bit of an insight into how King James only advocates frequently operate I did a debate with a
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Roman Catholic and our CIA instructor at the Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Salt Lake City on the issue of justification and after this debate was over a man came up to me and he started asking questions about the
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King James only controversy now I just finished a debate with a Roman Catholic on justification
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I do not even have my book with me I have not been discussing King James only ism it's not even on my mind and yet this individual comes up to me and and does not identify himself as a
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King James only advocate doesn't say I'm a pastor of King James only church and I have problems with your book and in fact he to be quite honest with you he was dishonest with me in the way he represented himself but he wanted to discuss early church fathers and their citations of textual variance now
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I'm sitting here trying to put my books away there are people staying around who are asking questions about Roman Catholicism and they're all looking at this guy like what why did this have anything to do with what you're doing this evening well not only did that King James only pastor then go and write some silly review of our conversation there was anything but accurate if that King James only pastor would like to debate
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King James only ism maybe he should contact us honestly so we can actually deal with it out front and he can answer some of these questions that might be a good thing to do now dr.
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Waite refers this man is one of his friends and reports what his friends said took place after this debate notice how this comes up in the review now as far as the statement
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I meant earlier remember that he has a chart on the page 353 his book and the charts in flies and he was asked by my friend where'd he get the truck he didn't remember where he got the chart now remember
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I don't even have the book in front of me I'm debating a completely different subject well he didn't remember we got the chart
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I told him that I had gotten it primarily in fact it even says it's adapted from Dan Wallace and I told the individual that let's let's try a little bit of research when we're talking about stuff like this on a national program
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I think that would help out a whole lot well after we take the break at the bottom of the hour we are going to be coming back and we're getting close to being able to wrap up most of the things that dr.
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Waite had to say in his review but we'd like to know what you think once you get involved lines are open 602 -274 -1360 here locally or 1 -888 -550 -1360 if you're not in the
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Phoenix dialing area get online now we'll be taking calls again at the last quarter of the hour and so get in line now talking about the
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King James only controversy here on the dividing line Welcome back to the dividing line my name is
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James White we're responding to Dr. D .A. Waite's commentary on the
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Southwest Radio Church along with Dr. Sparge Amino responding to my book the
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King James only controversy now this next section I'm going to play it's a fairly lengthy section Dr. Waite is addressing the issue of text types and one of the problems in King James only material is that they confuse a manuscript that contains a reading that might agree for example with the later
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Byzantine text with a text that has a text type of the
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Byzantine family and the problem with this is a single reading does not a family make as it has been rightly said and to demonstrate that the
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Byzantine text type which basically underlies the King James version and again for those of you who are sticklers
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I'm well aware of the fact and in fact I believe it's one of the problems that Dr. Waite has that he just identifies the
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Byzantine majority TR King James is all one thing they are not there's all sorts of different TRs there's differences between the
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TR and the majority text all the rest of stuff I'm aware of that but the argument he's going to present and again it sounds real good if you don't have an opportunity to criticize it and to to interact with it is that well if you look at the early church fathers they use a
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Byzantine text type and this is a very common argument this is what his friend in Salt Lake had brought up and I'll tell you the same thing
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I said to dr. Waite's friend I said no one has done in -depth textual study on the early church fathers in the sense that he dr.
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Waite's gonna mention Mormon and Berg on and their studies of the citations found nearly church fathers well there's a real simple question here and that's this did they look at the early church fathers as being also having had their their writings having had to been transmitted over time to us today in other words is there a critical text of the early church fathers that can take into account the textual variations in their writings and the process that their writings went through and the answer that is no basically there's there's almost no textual work has been done in regards to the early church fathers texts
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I would refer those who are interested to dr. Gordon fees article the use the
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Greek fathers for New Testament textual criticism found in studies and documents the text of New Testament contemporary research that was published by Erdman's a few years ago for a bit of a rundown as to where we are currently in regards to getting a critical text of the patristic citations the citations the early church fathers gave so the point is there's they're referring to a source that we do not we haven't even had the opportunity yet to really look into the process through which the early church fathers writings came to us and it's quite obvious that there would have been many examples of the early church fathers writings being when they quoted a passage of scripture scribes later on that are copying these things down would then bring their citations in the line with the text they were familiar with so it's really a fairly surface -level argument but it's again it sounds really good when you present it in fact listen to how it comes out 400 years before and of those early church fathers he found out not only that there was a examples of Texas receptus type of reading schemes a type of readings when the early church fathers who died 480 or before but it was in the percentage of three to two in favor of the text receptors reading in other words sixty percent to forty percent and now dr.
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jack mormon has done another study a current study and he's even got a better percentage he took a total of 40 different works and for it in one scripture quotation from the church fathers he was an accurate student and his count made up that only 122 of these quotations were from the elephant b type of text but 279 were from the text receptors is a ratio is 70 % against 30 % even better than Dean Burgess as far as the early church quotations of the church fathers who lived 480 and before so this idea that there's no early readings that the text receptors is late is simply false now remember when you hear such confident statements again knowing that there's no one there's good to contradict him remember the debate that we played last week remember when specific
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TR readings were presented to dr. wait he had no reply he said well we don't want to look at particular passages we don't look at particular words why is that because the
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TR as the TR is not what these scholars are talking about they're saying well we can find early
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Byzantine readings well again a reading does not a text type make and all the other issues are brought up but again when he when he just melds together
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TR King James Byzantine majority whatever that is not a scholarly thing to do there is a differentiation must be made between each one now dr.
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wait's friend up in Salt Lake City did at least communicate with to him some of what I told him listen he says here and then you know what brother white says he says why you know in 1800s they couldn't research these church fathers they really didn't know how to do this right well
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Dean Burgess got a total of 16 folio volumes in the British Museum giving 86 ,000 quotations or allusions of the early church fathers to the scriptures and you mean they couldn't do it in 1800s if they couldn't do it and Dean Burgess couldn't do it how could
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Westcott North do it they lived in 1800s also 1881 so that's what mr. white reasons no dr.
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wait that's not how I reason at all and again you could have found out and been accurate if you had wanted to what
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I said to your friend was that no one even to this day has created a truly critical edition of the so to rely upon their text without knowing how we've arrived at that text is simply to rely upon something that cannot be relied upon in any scholarly or logical way and so to tell people this is how
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I reason when that's not how I reason well that's dishonest and dr. wait may feel that he's he has every reason to say what he's saying because he's protecting the
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King James Bible it's still dishonest and it's still wrong and I ask him to come on the program respond to these things do interchange with us if you're right then this information will be you'll be easy it'll be easy for you to refute what
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I'm saying if you're wrong that will be seen just as clearly now at this point dr.
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Sparge Amino steps in and again no critical interaction with what dr. wait said of course but then he starts to say well you know dr.
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white attacks us in his book he says we're Bible thumpers and things like that folks read the book one of the one of the biggest comments that has been made has been how fair I attempted to be with these individuals
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I differentiate between different kinds of King James only people I I bent over backwards to document what they were saying and you cannot find a single misrepresentation a single miscitation of da wait anywhere in my book and I cited him a number of times why can't these folks be as fair in reviewing my material as I was in theirs that's a question that certainly has caused me to do a lot of thing and listen to what dr.
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Sparge Amino says I'm glad you brought all this out because you know we who hold to our
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King James Bible position are actually attacked in the James White book as being ignorant and Bible thumpers and bound by tradition and being belligerent
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I never said da wait was belligerent to my book I said Gail Ripplinger is belligerent
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I said that Peter Ruckman is belligerent I quoted material from various individuals that demonstrate that that they have no problem whatsoever attacking the the personality of others but again every single one of those citations was completely in context anyone who reads
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Ruckman's materials knows that he is the very definition of belligerence but that sort of leading into what comes next now
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I want to quote a statement that Mr. White makes and I'm not just making this up he says quote the
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KJV only controversy feeds upon the ignorance among Christians regarding the origin transmission and translation of the
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Bible those who have taken the time to study this area are not likely candidates for induction into the
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KJV only camp close quotes now Dr. White you and I have taken the time to study this area and yet we have done a great deal of research but we don't agree with him so he creates the impression that those who hold to our position are all ignoramuses and certainly by the vast amount of knowledge and the statistics that you have quoted and the reading of the church fathers and looking at the lectionaries and so forth that is certainly an erroneous conclusion but I know so many people they say well
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Mr. White's position is academically credible our position is not now of course that is a misrepresentation well
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I'll let the listener who has listened to the past number of weeks of review and listen to the facts as they've been presented decide for themselves there is very little representation of King James only ism in scholarship and I use the term scholarship there of conservative non -naturalistic non -materialistic scholarship scholarship that believes that the
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Bible is the Word of God that it's inspired of God and yet there's very very little
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King James only ism in that it is a tradition it's a tradition that cannot stand up to examination and it cannot stand up to cross examination and as such it is not scholarly and what we have heard from Dr.
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Spargiamino and Dr. Waite is not scholarly up to this point at all to present things that are simply inaccurate knowing that what you're saying could be easily challenged by the other side is not scholarship now this point
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Dr. Waite and Dr. Spargiamino say something that I want you to hear because if they believe what they're saying then it shouldn't be too long until we're doing programs here where they're live on the air and we can interact because this is what they had to say it's not ignorance that leads us to the
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King James Bible position it's truth that's what it is it's truth that is an excellent analogy well if it's truth truth can be examined truth can undergo cross -examination and still remain truth and that's why we should get together and discuss these things both sides live being able to discuss them back and forth because that's when truth really shines now finally
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Dr. Waite makes an accusation that I've made a serious error in lumping him together with Peter Ruckman he quotes one section of page 91 where I said if you have already been exposed to the writings of Peter Samuel Gibb D .A.
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Waite or J .J. Ray you are already aware of the tactics and strategies employed in presenting the KJV only position well here again is a wonderful way of misrepresenting your opponent he ignores the fact that the beginning of the book
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I specifically differentiate between various groups of King James only people and I specifically in my criticisms differentiate between Peter Ruckman and Gail Ripplinger and anybody else so again
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I don't understand why he would say what we're about to repeat him saying when anybody can go out and get the book and find out for themselves that I did differentiate listen what he says in his book on chapter 5 page 91 mr.
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White talks about the King James only camp and I am very disturbed about this
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I was told that this was coming out even before the publisher published it I wrote to the publisher I said would you please distinguish the differences between these men that he lists he says if you have actually been exposed
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I'm quoting now to the writings of Peter Ruckman Samuel Gip D .A.
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Waite or J .J. Ray you are already aware of the tactics and strategies employed in presenting the
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KJV only position end of quote lapping us together is that there's no difference no distinction and you and I both know a tremendous distinguish between my position and that of dr.
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Ruckman in fact he's I'm an enemy as far as he's because I'm not even on the same side in fact he says
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I'm an apostate a heretic in his paper and to put us all together as if we're in the same war in the same battle of the same uniform I think is a very serious error on his part well
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I'll certainly allow anyone to read the book for themselves and determine whether that allegation and the one made immediately thereafter by dr.
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Sparge Amino of great intellectual dishonesty on my part is in fact true or false but I would put out to dr.
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Waite if you want to differentiate yourself from dr. Ruckman and you do by your behavior this series didn't help you any along those lines but you're not nearly like dr.
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Ruckman is I mean you do misrepresent me but Ruckman does it with insults and you do not one thing you might want to think about if you want to differentiate yourself from dr.
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Ruckman then why don't you tell us whether you agree with berg on that the Kami Ohanian first John 5 7 shouldn't be there why don't you deal with some of these passages and tell us whether you believe the
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King James is perfect in every reading because if you do believe that then what is your difference with Ruckman as far as a real position goes functionally that's what we'd all like to know 602 -274 -1361 -888 -550 -1360 after this break we go to your phone calls we'll be right back and welcome back to the dividing line we are taking your phone calls well we would if there was nobody wants to talk to me today about the
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King James only controversy well I understand that especially today many of the issues that we were addressing or maybe possibly a little bit on the technical side
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I understand that but we do a lot of our programs with an eye to the future and I to archiving these programs making them available and I can tell you something when you are for example a
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Christian who was raised maybe reading the New American Standard Bible and you first encounter the writings of da wait or of Peter Ruckman or of Gail Rippling er or whatever of the various brands and groups there are out there and I know dr.
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weight doesn't like to be called King James only the same breath with Peter Ruckman and there's no doubt that the two of them don't get along very well but their fundamental assertion is everything but the
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King James version of the Bible is a satanic deception and they may present it in a different way but the the conclusions the same if you're just encountering that information it can be extremely troubling
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I cannot tell you how many people I've had who've contacted me that were just about to burn their
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Bible and and go get a King James version of the Bible which they admitted they couldn't even understand they they couldn't understand that they didn't understand its meter they didn't understand its phraseology or its meaning but they were going to go for it because they read this very very poor information and in that situation let me tell you something running across these programs right across the
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King James only controversy is very important for those folks and so we do this program as a ministry and we address these subjects because we want to help people to understand the
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Christian faith and to respond to attacks upon it and to respond to those those people who would in some way shape or form cause confusion and so as we're dealing with this area next week for example we'll be finishing up looking at dr.
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weights program we'll be looking for the about the first 15 minutes or so the program at dr.
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Sparge amino and dr. weight discussing desiderius Erasmus and we're gonna listen as dr.
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weight tells us that Erasmus is text wasn't used by the King James translators even though that's not the case and we're also going to be told that Erasmus was not a strong Catholic and the proof of that is he was buried in a
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Protestant churchyard yes indeed and coming up next week on the dividing line you like that Rachel Rich is really looking forward to that one but he's gonna be counting the days until we get to that but then after that we're gonna be looking at the first two programs that were aired and those are the programs that featured dr.
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Theodore P Letus and he was introduced as a true textual critic and that puts him far ahead of James White that's how he was introduced and it will be fascinating to listen to his comments because he doesn't get specific on almost any passage because his theory doesn't allow you to be very specific but the fascinating thing is the better debate the better debate would not be between myself and da waiter between myself and Theodore Letus the best debate they'll be fascinating to hear would be between Theodore Letus and da wait because da wait is the head of the
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Dean Burgon Society and I hold in my hand a book by Theodore P Letus from 1992 called the revival of the ecclesiastical text and the claims of the
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Anabaptist and in here you have a multi -page attack on the Dean Burgon Society and the positions of da wait
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I just think it's fascinating that the the Dean Burgon Society in the beginning of its statement of faith talks about a belief and in the inerrancy in Scripture inerrancy of Scripture and yet here
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Theodore P Letus in his book talks about the doctrine of inerrancy as an error as something that we should not believe in it was something that Warfield made up and and where is the authority of Scripture it's found in the copies not in the originals and all the rest is fun stuff and the great debate would be very the best one would be to listen to dr.
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Wade and dr. Letus debate with each other but interestingly enough the Southwest radio folks had them both on to attack the
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King James only controversy and the reason for that is that the book has made a tremendous impact upon that movement and that movement isn't all homogenous in any way shape or form dr.
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Letus presents the ecclesiastical text format the ecclesiastical text theory which is very very different than what dr.
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Waite is presenting and yet isn't it interesting that they don't bring those issues out when they talk about my book on the air and so that's going to be next week now just for your information you know sometimes
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I've mentioned the in the responses that I've provided to DA Waite and I mentioned if you listen to the debate section last week we played about 20 minutes of the debate that dr.
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Waite and I did back in 1994 which by the way was before the King James only controversy came out
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I was working on the book at that time you may recall that in that debate
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I specifically asked dr. Waite about second
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Timothy 219 and in second Timothy 219 the King James version of the
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Bible talks about the name of Christ and all other translations talk about the name of the
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Lord this is a quotation from the Old Testament and so it makes sense it would be the name the
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Lord not the name of Christ when you're quoting from the Old Testament and here the textus receptus stands out against all the other
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Greek manuscripts against all Greek manuscripts not other Greek manuscripts the textus receptus is a version it is based upon Greek manuscripts just as the
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Nessie Allen 27th edition of the UBS 4th edition are there are other passages you might want to write down that I could have asked dr.
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Waite about and I would have gotten the exact same type of understanding a same type of response but for example at Ephesians chapter 1 verse 18 the textus receptus reads the eyes of your understanding whereas the
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Greek manuscripts say the eyes of your heart now is your heart and your understanding the exact same thing and if they are not the exact same thing then why does the
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TR have that reading in Ephesians 3 9 the New American Standard Bible says and to bring to light what is the administration of the mystery which for ages has been hidden in God who created all things and yet if you look at the very same passage in the
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King James Version it says and to make all men see what is the fellowship of the mystery which from the beginning of the world hath been hidden God who created all things by Christ Jesus so one says fellowship that's what the
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King James says but all the Greek manuscripts refer to the administration of the ministry now the
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Greek term that appears there oikonomia that's in all the Greek manuscripts but probably in in a simple process of mistranscription the textus receptus has koinonia instead and they look somewhat alike the words look somewhat alike but again for Christians for 1 ,500 years approximately from whenever time the book of Ephesians was written had seen one thing and then in the
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TR all of a sudden it's changed to something else those are important issues those are questions that need to be addressed and Christian scholars aren't confused about it but King James only advocates do cause confusion because of their positions so next week we finish up with da wait and then we move on from there and we're
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I've sent letters to dr. Wade I've sent letters to dr. Sparge amino I've sent emails to dr.
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lead us we'll keep trying folks we'll keep trying to give them the opportunity to respond because that's only fair right well we think that it is but so far haven't gotten any takers there might be a reason for that folks
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I think that there is my name is James why you've been talking about the King James only controversy more information on this our website www .aomin
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.org we'll be back again next week here on the dividing line continuing with our response thanks for listening and God bless the dividing line has been brought to you by alpha and omega ministries if you'd like to contact us call us at 602 -973 -0318 or write us at P .O.
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Box 37106 Phoenix Arizona 85069 you can also find us on the world wide web at aomin .org
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that's a o m i n dot o r g where you'll find a complete listing of James White's books tapes debates and tracks join us again next