King James Onlyists Burn the NIV in Ignorance

King James Onlyism and the Burning of NIV Bibles

This is a video response to a video that was posted by Stephen Anderson, the pastor of the Faithful Word Baptist Church in Tempe, Arizona. Mr. Anderson has made himself quite famous of late by preaching a sermon on why he hates Barack Obama and going on television and telling folks that he hopes that God will strike Barack Obama with brain cancer like he did Teddy Kennedy and that he should do so today.

People wonder why or how someone who calls himself a pastor could come up with this particular kind of thinking. And I've pointed out that it's not too difficult to answer that question because when you look at the website of the Faithful Word Baptist Church, you discover that the very first statement they make is that they are a King James only church.

And King James only -ism demonstrates a fundamental lack of grasping of facts, ability to think critically, and maintaining a position in the face of every kind of logical argument that would be placed against your position.

As I looked at the YouTube channel that Stephen Anderson has put together, I ran across this video of burning Bibles on evidently a backyard grill. It's sort of hard to tell, the video is not very good, but on a backyard barbecue grill, burning NIV Bibles because the NIV is a lie.

This is a very common claim of King James only advocates, but it also provides us an excellent opportunity of documenting again, how completely erroneous the position really is. So what we're going to do is I'm going to play the entirety of the video.

So you can see just how this video communicates the kind of persona that it has, and you can see how the arguments are laid out and how that's interspersed with pictures of burning NIV Bibles. And then I want to go back through the specific graphics that the video provides and explain why and how all of the argumentation, every bit of the argumentation, it's completely fallacious, it's wrong and easily refuted and could have been easily refuted if they had taken the time to even give serious consideration to what they were saying.

But King James only advocates don't do that. They don't give serious consideration. They hear something, they respond emotionally, they do not respond intellectually, and so that's how they preach and how they behave as well in other areas.

Acts 19 and the Misuse of Burning Books

So here's the video, and then we'll go back and look at each of the claims made by the video and refute them one by one. Now let's start taking a look at the claims that this video makes. It began by a quotation of Acts chapter 19, and people bringing books together to burn them as a foundation for the burning of the NIV.

However, in the context of Acts chapter 19, these were individuals who have come to Christ and they had initially been involved in witchcraft and the occult. And so they were bringing their books of incantations and spells and were burning them.

This has nothing to do with Bible translations whatsoever. The only Bible translation that would have been around in that day is called the Greek Septuagint version of the Old Testament, which, by the way, is the translation that the apostles themselves used when quoting the Old Testament.

They used a foreign language translation of the original text and referred to it as the Word of God, something that some King James only advocates. I don't know if the faithful Word Baptist Church would take this viewpoint, but some King James only advocates actually deny the Septuagint ever existed.

Revelation 22 and the Limits of Textual Application

But in reality, very clearly it did. ...of Revelation chapter 22, verses 18 through 19. This is a very commonly abused text by King James only advocates and others admittedly. The text is specifically about the book of Revelation.

That's the book of this prophecy, is the book of Revelation. And only by analogous argument can you extend it to the entire canon of the entire Bible. But besides that, surely it has nothing to do with the King James version of the Bible, which would not appear for another, at least 1 ,500 years after this time period, after John wrote the words of Revelation chapter 22 in a language that had not even yet come into existence.

How you extend Revelation chapter 22 to a 17th century Anglican translation of the Bible, well, that's anybody's guess. How can you do that? It's obviously irrational to do so. But the King James only functions on the idea that the King James Bible is the Word of God alone.

And so even though that turns the entire history of the Bible into mishmash, it of course makes the original context of these words irrelevant. That's what happens. That's what King James only advocates do because the system itself is not rational.

Luke 2:33, Luke 2:48, and the Problem of Joseph

Next, we have this graphic of the textual variant, and it is a textual variant in the manuscripts found at Luke chapter two, verse 33. Now, is the King James only advocate being fair here? Surely not, for notice the reading of the King James version itself, only 15 verses later.

The King James reads, and when they saw him, they were amazed. And his mother said to him, son, why hast thou dealt with us, thus dealt with us? Behold, thy father and I have sought thee sorrowing, Luke 2, 48.

So here, the King James uses the term father here in the words of Mary herself, of Joseph. So if it's a lie at Luke 2, 33, as the graphic asserted, why isn't it a lie at Luke 2, 48? Likewise, in Luke 2, 41, the KJV speaks of Jesus' parents, including Joseph, together with Mary.

The fact is that a scribe, just as scrupulous and ignorant as Steven Anderson, centuries after the writing of Luke, removed father and put Joseph out of the very same misplaced concern and ignorance that we see here.

1 Corinthians 9:27 and the Meaning of Self-Discipline

Next, we have 1 Corinthians 9, 27 cited, and the assertion that the NIV, because of its translation, is teaching some kind of bad thing about beating yourself up, this particular text does not involve a variation in the underlying Greek text itself.

The King James version's rendering, I keep under my body, is not even close to an accurate rendering. It doesn't even actually make much sense when you think about it. The Greek term is hoopopiodzo, which means to strike in the face, to give a black eye.

A second meaning is to wear someone down. Finally, the third meaning used here is to subdue, discipline, punish, treat roughly, or torment. Ironically, the NIV's rendering here is significantly more literal than the King James is.

And very often we hear King James advocates saying, oh, you need to have a literal translation. But here, the King James does not literally translate the phrase in a way that's understandable in the English language, it just basically skips past it without actually dealing with what it's specifically saying.

Paul is saying that he subdues his body. Now, the NIV is not my favorite translation, and this isn't my favorite translation at this point either. But it's still a much better attempt to deal with the actual original language than the King James provided.

Isaiah 14:12, Lucifer, and the Morning Star

Next, we have one of the favorite arguments of King James only advocates, and one that really demonstrates the traditional nature of this perspective. Isaiah chapter 14, verse 12 in the King James version speaks of Lucifer.

That term came into the King James through the Latin Vulgate, which was translated by Jerome around the year 400. And he's the one who inserted this term Lucifer into the text. The Hebrew word, halel, means shining one, hence morning star or star of the morning.

Those who immediately object that Jesus is the bright and morning star elsewhere in the New Testament, in a book written 750 years or more later, have a major problem with something called context. There is no connection whatsoever between Isaiah 14 and the description of Jesus as the bright and morning star.

So that even if this text in Isaiah is about Satan, and that is a very debatable point, there is no logical or rational reason to connect the two on the basis of sound exegesis. Next, we have Acts 8 .37, which was inserted into the Greek text of the New Testament from the Latin Vulgate by Desiderius Erasmus at the beginning of the 16th century.

The verse is not found in the majority of Greek manuscripts, and none before the 6th century. So in reality, if the King James only advocate was being consistent, or was even trying to be consistent, they would turn to this text, show the textual evidence, quote Revelation chapter 22, verses 18 through 19, then squirt lighter fluid on the King James version and light it up.

Well, of course they won't do that, because consistency of thought and truthfulness is nowhere near the top of the list of their priorities. Of course, 99 of the King James only advocates have no knowledge of the actual facts concerning the text of the New Testament, so they can hardly be faulted for anything other than acting out upon gross ignorance, which is what that video was all about, burning perfectly good translations of the Bible based upon tradition and gross ignorance.

John 5:4 and the Question of Later Additions

Finally, we have a reference to John chapter 5, verse 4. It was hard to see that, but I've used this as an illustration many times. I will tell people, I'll say, hey, you don't think that there's differences between translations?

Well, anybody have an NIV here? Could you read me John chapter 5, verse 4 for me? And it is entertaining at times to see the look on the face. And now if they'll look down at the bottom of the page, the reference is found at the bottom of the page in very small font.

But yes, it goes from 5 .3 to 5 .5, and there is a good reason why it does. John chapter 5, verse 4 is a later addition to the text of the Gospel of John. All the earliest manuscripts do not contain this particular text.

And in all probability, this was a marginal note, maybe an explanatory note. Someone wrote it having heard a sermon. It gave an explanation as to why the sick people were there at the pool of while they were waiting for the waters to be troubled.

And someone else copying that manuscript, maybe not having access to the original writer, being conservative, which is a good thing. They see this and they go, well, is that supposed to be in the text or not?

And thankfully, early Christian scribes are very conservative. So they preserve whatever was there, which included putting things in that should not have been there, which is what happened with John chapter 5, verse 4.

The question then again is, what is our primary purpose in studying the Bible? Do we want to know what was written under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit of God? Or do we want to know what scribes said long afterwards?

I want to know what John wrote, not what a scribe thought John should have written long after John actually wrote. And if we would simply apply those standards consistently, we would come up with the modern translations that we have, the good modern translations we have.

Not all modern translations are good, of course, but you see the King James Only Advocate does not make that application. The King James Only Advocate does not apply the same standards, the King James, that he applies to any other translation of the Bible.

And as a result, engages in outrageous behavior. As we have seen in this video, the burning of perfectly good translations of the Bible based upon what? Sheer ignorance. Nothing more than sheer ignorance.

The sad thing is many of these people are proud of the ignorance that is theirs on these issues. This is not something that reflects well upon the Christian church or upon people who truly do believe that the Bible is the word of God as I do.

We can look at all the facts and continue to believe that the Bible is the word of God, but it does not help anyone when we engage in this kind of foolish behavior based upon tradition, based upon not doing our homework.

I hope that those who have searched for Mr. Anderson's videos and have seen things like this, we'll find this one as well. And as a result, we'll recognize that there are Christians who take seriously their faith, who do their homework and who do not act out in ignorance as the people of this particular group do and those who present King James onlyism do on a regular basis.

Hope this has been helpful to you. Thanks for watching.