June 8, 2022 Show with Dr. Mark Ward on “King James Only-ism & Confessional Bibliology: Comparison & Contrast (& the Dangers of Both)” (Part 2)

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It is our hope that this goal will be accomplished over the next two hours and we hope to hear from you, the listener, with your own questions.

And now, here's your host, Chris Arnzen. Good afternoon,

Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, Lake City, Florida, and the rest of humanity living on the planet

Earth who are listening via live streaming at ironsharpensironradio .com.

This is Chris Arnzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Wednesday on this eighth day of June 2022.

For those of you who missed last Wednesday's interview on June 1st with Dr.

Mark Ward, who is our guest again today, he earned his B .A.

at Bob Jones University and his Ph .D. at Bob Jones Seminary. I urge you to listen to that program after you listen to this live broadcast today.

It will help to make sense of a lot of what we are going to be discussing today. I had such a fascinating discussion last week with Dr.

Ward on King James Onlyism and Confessional Bibliology, comparison and contrast and the dangers of both, that I knew

I had to have him back for a part two, especially since the first interview was dominated by King James Onlyism and we really want to cut to the core and focus on Confessional Bibliology today.

But Dr. Ward is the author of multiple books, including

Authorized, The Use and Misuse of the King James Bible, and also a faculty member at Reform Baptist Seminary, and it's my honor and privilege to welcome you back for part two of our discussion.

Dr. Mark Ward. It is my honor and privilege. I'm going to take the honor and privilege from you and keep it for myself.

Well, that is a joy to me to hear.

And tell our listeners again, especially for the sake of those who have not heard part one yet of our discussion, tell our listeners about Reform Baptist Seminary.

Yeah. I have taught for Reform Baptist Seminary, you know, kind of as a minor adjunct over the years, over more than a decade, and I've really, really enjoyed getting to know the kind of ministry that they do there.

The main way that I've gotten to know it is not actually through teaching, but through grading many, many, now dozens, hundreds of papers from a course that I helped teach on hermeneutics.

I assigned three projects, and it's a delight to see. Often it's men in, you know, quote -unquote, a second career, men who are working a full -time job, but, you know, training for ministry.

And their zeal and love for the Bible, their willingness as an adult, as adult men, and there are women, too, who take my classes, their willingness to learn is just humbling.

I think, you know, different schools serve different populaces, and if you, especially if you are, you know, already in a father and husband, and you have a job, but you want to study for ministry,

I've really enjoyed the structure at Reformed Baptist Seminary. Well, if anybody wants more details on Reformed Baptist Seminary, go to rbseminary .org,

rbseminary .org. Well, if you could at least summarize or do a recap in a summary fashion of what we discussed last week, which would primarily be on the similarities and differences between King James -onlyism and confessional bibliology, and then we will spend most of our time, and hopefully most of our questions will be on confessional bibliology, comparison and contrast, and the dangers of both.

So, if you will, just to give us a recap, give us a summary of the similarities and differences of King James -onlyism and confessional bibliology, and how they even rose to be, especially the latter.

Yeah. So, let me start with the differences, then I'll move on to the similarities. The differences that I'm eager to acknowledge, you know, for one thing, the confessional bibliologists are all

Reformed, because they're going off of the Westminster Confession. That's the confession they're confessing, and they're using that phrase, whether Westminster or London Baptist, describing the

Bible in Confession 1 .8, you know, kept pure in all ages.

That's the way the Confession describes the Bible text, the Hebrew and Greek. Now, whether they're interpreting this correctly or not, they interpret it to say that we have always had, in all ages, a pure line of copies of the

Hebrew Bible and of the Greek New Testament. The Greek New Testament tends to get a great deal more of the focus than the

Masoretic text of the Hebrew Bible. That's pretty much an entirely separate issue. It's the same with King James -onlyism, actually.

But confessional bibliology, I said last time, to its credit, doesn't camp out only on the

Confession. So, I am not technically myself confessional right now. Like, I was ordained according to a moderately edited for good

English and a little bit, you know, for theology, London Baptist Confession, but I'm not in a confessional denomination.

I respect confessionalism, and I would be willing to be confessional, it's just not where I am right now. I care about what the

Bible says, and the best confessional folks do, too. And, again, to their credit, all the leaders in confessional bibliology are making a biblical argument, you know, much more often than they're making a confessional argument.

That's where they get their name. That is the difference with King James -onlyism, because King James -onlyism is largely independent fundamental

Baptist, and they are not only proudly anti -Calvinist, but proudly anti -confessional, most typically.

Not everybody, there are exceptions. That's a major difference. Another major difference is that I feel that when, excuse me, when

I talk to confessional bibliologists versus King James -onlyists, confessional bibliologists do a much better job keeping the text and translation issues distinct.

Frankly, they are much more likely to have, the leaders are in confessional bibliology, much more likely to have training in Hebrew, and especially

Greek, than leaders in King James -onlyism. Education is just not valued in the same way.

In fact, wouldn't you say that many, I'm sorry to interrupt you, but wouldn't you say that in many cases, perhaps the majority of cases, the most ardent of King James -onlyists don't even think it's a way to spend your valuable time to learn the original

Hebrew and Greek. They have no use for it. And I'm saying, in most cases, the most ardent of King James -onlyists.

Right. So technically, that's an extreme position within King James -onlyism.

That's Ruckmanism. We don't really need the Hebrew and Greek because God inspired the King James. But functionally, that is the way most independent fundamental

Baptist King James -onlyists operate. There are certainly exceptions, but in general, they don't tend to emphasize learning of Greek and Hebrew.

I've called around the different, you know, independent fundamental Baptist King James -only colleges and schools, and very few of them require any

Hebrew, and the ones that require Greek frequently give very little. Now, I really want to say there are exceptions and folks in that world who can have a discussion on this.

That is a generalizable, you know, distinction between confessional bibliology and the

IFP King James -only world. To me, those are among the most significant. I think when you actually get down to the way lay people, especially in pastors, argue over this topic of the

Bible's text and translation, it's difficult to distinguish King James -onlyism from confessional bibliology.

They're appealing to the same proof texts, like Psalm 12, 6, and 7. The words of the Lord are pure words, you know, purified in a furnace of earth.

Thou shalt keep them, O Lord, thou shalt preserve them from this generation forever. Matthew 5, 18, you know, not a jot or a tittle will pass from the law until all is fulfilled.

Forever, O Lord, thy word is settled in heaven. You know, every word, man shall not live by bread alone, but every word that comes out of the mouth of the

Lord. Those proof texts get used in IFP King James -onlyism and in confessional bibliology.

And although I'm super eager to acknowledge exceptions to what

I'm about to say, another massive similarity is the tone and the spirit. So when

I first encountered confessional bibliology, actually after Authorized came out, I think I had heard of it, but it just wasn't on my radar.

I started hearing from these guys, and they're telling me, oh, we're very, very different from the

IFP King James -onlyists, you know, don't lump us in with them. And initially, I accepted that, and I felt bad, like, oh, you know,

I need to make sure that I'm really scrupulously honest in my description of these brothers. So let me find out, you know, what they believe.

So I entered their Facebook group and was talking with them for a while. Peter Gurry of Phoenix Seminary and the

Text and Canon Institute was in there with me for a while. And very shortly, I came to see and to feel, frankly, that the tone and spirit of IFP King James -onlyism that you see online is exactly the same as confessional bibliology.

And in fact, I've actually had more dirtiness aimed at me from the lay and pastoral level in confessional bibliology than I have from the

King James -only world. So let me name some exceptions here. Robert Truelove, who's a leader in confessional bibliology, he never treated me that way.

He was gracious to me. We disagreed, but we could have a conversation. I've come to respect a man named

Christian McShackery, who's a leader in confessional bibliology. Jeff Riddle, certainly, who's probably the top leader.

And Peter Van Cleet, Jr. I'm just naming off some of the major names. They have not operated in that kind of just bitter, nasty, personal, ad hominem way.

And I very much appreciate it. But, broadly speaking, that's a similarity between King James -onlyism and confessional bibliology.

I'll just give one more, and then I'm talking too long, and I'll let you ask your next question. But another similarity is that even though confessional bibliology does tend to keep text and translation distinct better than King James -onlyism,

I have to say there are tons of exceptions to that. And lots of people with whom I tried to have a conversation about translation, and they changed the subject to text.

In my book, Authorized, I have two spreads where I argue that I shouldn't have to talk about textual criticism because I actually don't mind if someone uses the text as receptive.

Yes, sure, I prefer they use the critical text. I have my reasons for that. But if they use the New King James or Modern English version that use the same base text as the

King James version, then I'm satisfied with that because what's not clear in Scripture is exactly how we adjudicate the differences among manuscripts of the

Greek New Testament. What is clear is that edification requires intelligibility.

1 Corinthians 14 teaches that whatever text you're going to use, you need to translate it into English that people can actually understand, contemporary

English, our English. And when I try to have that conversation in King James -onlyism, they won't do it.

They simply refuse. They change the subject to textual criticism, often without realizing it. In confessional bibliology, and I'll end with this, they change the subject.

I think they are realizing it better, but they will not stay on topic and talk about translation with me.

Those are the similarities, the differences, and then the similarities. Well, I'm going to announce our email address.

If you'd like to join us on the air with a question for Dr. Mark Ward, submit it to chrisarnson at gmail .com.

Give us your first name at least, your city and state, and your country of residence if you live outside the

USA. We are hoping to get more questions on confessional bibliology from our fellow

Reformed brethren, but we will accept questions on the

King James -only issue as well. Well, please, for the average

Christian, because although I have theologians and scholars and seminary presidents and seminary faculties among those listening to my broadcast every day, most of our listeners are just your average, ordinary

Christians who are making important decisions in life. They may be faced with either remaining in a church or leaving a church that has endorsed confessional bibliology, or they may be just looking for a church after becoming

Reformed, and they're faced with options, whether it's a church that uses a modern translation from the pulpit, and the pew bibles or NASB or some other modern translation, or a congregation that is strictly a confessional bibliology advocating church, there's going to be obviously serious decisions to make that may affect how they learn and grow in the faith.

And so I'd like you to lay out the primary reasons why this issue of confessional bibliology has become a concern of yours, and I know that your concern is echoed by quite a number of other folks, like Dr.

James R. White of Alpha and Omega Ministries, and others who have been using modern translations that are based on older manuscripts for decades, and they're being considered to be less than scholarly, less than knowledgeable, and even a danger to the church, because in the minds of those in the confessional bibliology movement, a tainted scripture is being presented in the sermons and writings of those who are not in their movement.

So what are the main reasons why this should be an issue of major concern, and how you believe that it could very well be dangerous?

I will answer that question by telling a little story to start with. I was a camp counselor at a

Christian camp in the fundamentalist world that kind of served King James -only churches and non -King

James -only churches. It was sort of on the border of those two slivers of the church, and we used the

King James because that was the least objectionable choice to both sides, and if we had used something else, the

King James -only churches just wouldn't have sent anyone. So I walked into the cabin on the very first day.

I hadn't even met my junior high campers yet. I had, you know, like sixth graders and seventh graders that week, and now

I have one of those at home, and I understand a little better.

But I walked into a fight, and here are these two boys. I still remember one of their names 20 years later, half my life ago, and I heard one of the boys say,

That ain't no Bible! You should burn that! But that is exactly the way he talks.

I do accents, and that's accurate. This other boy, I'm just going to give his name.

I don't know where he lives or if he's a believer now, but his name was Daniel Quintana, so he was

Hispanic. And what it turned out to be was, of course, the boy with the southern accent was telling the other boy,

Daniel, that, you know, your NIV is not a Bible. You should just burn that. And, of course, you know, he didn't take that well.

He was rather indignant at being told that his Bible isn't a Bible, that it ought to be burned. And, you know, we can all chuckle at that.

And, of course, the level of discourse in confessional bibliology is much higher. But when it actually gets to the laypeople, it often amounts to the same thing.

And what if Daniel Quintana, who, as it turned out, both boys were what we called bus kids.

Their parents didn't go to those churches that had sent them to this camp. They went to these churches on the bus.

You know, they were picked up, and then they were brought to the camp as an evangelistic endeavor, you know, which I support. But it really troubled me that this boy who was

King James only, a sixth grader, I've come to find out later, he did not know the Gospel. He wasn't a

Christian, and yet he knew, you've got to burn this Bible. That is emblematic for me of the divisiveness of this issue.

Now, let me, again, be clear. I'm not saying everybody in confessional bibliology or King James -only -ism knows no more than a sixth -grade bus kid about the debate.

That's obviously not true. But when it gets to the lay level, what are lay

Christians supposed to do with arguments that really, to examine them fairly, you know,

Proverbs 18 .13, I think it is, says, whoever answers a matter before he hears it is a folly and shame to him.

How are you supposed to evaluate arguments that are made about the Greek New Testament and Hebrew Bible when you cannot read those languages?

You're stuck in a corner. And then, actually, your choice is really, whom do I trust?

You cannot evaluate the arguments ultimately, not fairly, if you can't look at the evidence for yourself.

So it ends up then being extremely divisive to be going around telling other

Christians on the internet or wherever, you can't really trust your Bible. It's corrupt. It's actually undermining the doctrines that you say you believe.

You know, we had all these arguments about COVID, and I don't really want to bring them up, but, you know, an example, and I won't take sides here, you know, when people were arguing about Macs, people had very strong feelings on either side, and I just instinctively stepped back and said, how am

I supposed to know? You know, how? Like, what is the method by which I can gain knowledge here?

And it required a lot of work for me, which I was just too busy to do. So setting aside that touchy topic, back to the

Bible, I've done the work now on text and translation. I feel very firm in my view, and I believe that I know the areas where, you know,

I could be wrong, but the areas where I am reasonably certain I'm right are also numerous.

It's really difficult, I've found, to explain to people who can't read Hebrew and Greek all the ins and outs of the debate here.

And so that's why it ends up being so divisive. I want to say something real quick to the scenario you set up.

I just want to be really clear and say, I don't ever say, if you're in a King James -only church, leave it.

If your pastor gets into confessional bibliology, get out of there. I think there are way more factors to consider.

I think Reformed soteriology is more important than this debate. I think your pastor's tone and the way he treats other

Christians who disagree is probably as important as what view he takes.

And I have met some folks who prefer the Texas Receptus, who won't divide over it, who view it not with the same lens as I typically see online.

And I can have a lot of fellowship with them, and I can absolutely imagine going to a church where the pastor held any of these views, because I'm up in Alaska, I don't have any other options, yeah, this isn't ideal, but it's more important for me to obey

Christ and obey Hebrews 10, don't forsake the assembling of yourselves, than it is for me to find a church that fits in every way my doctrine.

But if you have a pastor who's abrasive about this, who is manifesting the works of the flesh, including divisiveness, contention, and strife over this issue, that is a grave concern that I think you ought to take to him individually.

And if you won't listen, I think you ought to take it to the elders. And if they won't listen, I can't imagine someone leaving, because this is sectarian, this is divisive, and it's ultimately untrue.

And this seems to be rooted, and being far, far, infinitely far more of an expert on this issue than I am,

I'm not an expert at all on this issue, but it seems to be rooted in a desire, and perhaps the desire is a very noble one, but a misguided one, that we need to know that we have an inerrant

Bible. We cannot have doubt placed in the minds of our congregations and in the minds of the lost that we are evangelizing about the authenticity and inerrancy of the

Scripture, and those from the confessional bibliology camp seem to share with their

King James -only cousins that only their views will preserve and convey the idea that we can trust the translation of the

Bible in our hands as being inerrant. Is that really where this is coming from? Yeah, and I think charity demands that we look for the most noble motivation among especially our

Christian brothers, even non -Christians, we have to start there if we can, and so I do acknowledge, yeah,

I'm an inerrantist, I like to say I'm an industrial strength inerrantist, and I recognize it's awkward and difficult for me to stand before my church as I have done in Sunday school, and as I did when

I was discipling a newer believer, and have to say that there are differences among the manuscripts that have come down to it.

I mean, that's initially kind of scary, and many believers over the centuries, going back through John Owen and to other major figures that we respect today, regarded it as damaging to the faith to acknowledge to lay people that there are these differences.

But nonetheless, they persist, right? And something has to be done with them.

And it's not just the King James -only cousins with whom the confessional bibliologists share a view, that I would put it like this, inspiration demands perfect preservation.

They also share that presupposition with atheist, former evangelical textual critic

Bart Ehrman, and they just come to different conclusions. Bart Ehrman figured that, and I don't have the quote in front of me, but if people will check out my

YouTube channel, in the month of July I'm going to start to release seven episodes put together by my Textual Confidence Collective friends, who will give this quote.

Ehrman thought, if God really inspired the Bible, then he would make certain to preserve perfect copies for us.

And clearly he didn't do so, because we can't tell which copies are exactly perfect, so he must not have inspired the

Bible. Praise the Lord, our CB friends don't do that. They still maintain their belief in the

Bible and in the gospel, they are my brothers and sisters in Christ. But they take the same presupposition.

If God inspired the Bible, he must have preserved it perfectly for us. The leading confessional bibliologist,

Jeff Riddle, really the top guy in that world, the most influential, the most responsible and careful, the most well -credentialed and published in this area.

He was just interviewed by my friend Wayne Green on YouTube. It came out yesterday, and I listened very carefully.

I want to represent him accurately. And he was asked, OK, but then what about the differences among Textus Receptus editions, which is my question, too, that I've been pushing toward them for several years now, and I really feel

I just haven't gotten an answer. And in his answer, he said something that I think is ultimately very divisive.

He said that if we lack certainty about any jot or tittle, in the Greek New Testament is what he was talking about, but I believe he would apply this to the

Hebrew Bible as well, then we can't have certainty about any of it. And I'm accustomed to using that argument for inerrancy, and I still use that argument.

It's a slippery slope. But in order for that argument to work in the area of text, you have to not only have a perfect text, every jot and tittle, no more, none less, and all in the right order, and you have to tell us why we should trust in that one and that one alone.

And if you listen to that interview, my mouth is just hanging open. He just didn't do it.

He wouldn't say, this is the perfect one, every jot and tittle. And he simply refused to answer the question, okay, then which text is receptive and why?

And although Jeff Riddle is a gifted man, and I'm told by a reliable source who teaches preaching at Bob Jones, my alma mater, that Jeff is an excellent preacher, and in this

I rejoice, and I'm confident he's speaking truth Sunday after Sunday, my heart is utterly grieved at the division that he is responsible for.

This is the sin that I charge my brother in Christ with, and I'm so grieved to have to say it.

He's bringing division by introducing or continuing a sectarian viewpoint, and then refusing to answer what

I regard to be the very simplest question. Okay, you say we have a perfect Greek New Testament, and if we don't have a perfect copy of it, then we can't trust any of it, which undermines the

Bible I carry to church and that my pastor preaches from, and it's very divisive. And unless it's true, if it's true, then we need to get on board with him.

But then he can't and won't produce answers to the question, okay, which text is receptive and perfect and why?

And I and my friends who have some training in this area are frankly, I said this the last time, very frustrated that we can't get answers to this question.

I lost the thread a little bit, but you were asking about views that they share with their

King James Only cousins, and that's it. The presupposition that inspiration demands perfect preservation.

Let me give a concrete example, and then I'll stop talking. We have to know then, here's two manuscripts, and this is real life.

This is actually true. You've got manuscripts that say the wise men came and found baby

Jesus, and we have manuscripts that say the wise men came and saw baby Jesus. There's no difference to the overall meaning, whichever one you choose.

But people like my brother, Dr. Riddle, are saying, we have to know with 100 % certainty or we can't know anything.

We can't be confident about anything in our Bibles. And I think that is simply not true. That doesn't reflect the world that God gave us, and it is divisive.

Well, we're going to our first break right now. If anybody has a question, please send it to ChrisArnzen at gmail .com,

C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com. As always, give us your first name at least, your city and state of residence, and your country of residence if you live outside the

USA. Please only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter, such as you are a member of a church teaching confessional bibliology, and you don't want to identify your disagreement with your own pastor or your own congregation, or perhaps even a pastor in a congregation, and your fellow elders are in disagreement with you over this.

Well, obviously, these are issues that may compel you to remain anonymous. But other than those kinds of things, please, if it's a general question, give us your first name at least, your city and state, and your country of residence.

Don't go away. We'll be right back after these messages. I'm Dr.

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Welcome back. If you just tuned us in, our guest today is Dr. Mark Ward. He is on the faculty at Reformed Baptist Seminary and we are discussing

Part 2 of a topic we began last Wednesday on June 1st,

King James Onlyism and Confessional Bibliology, Comparison and Contrast and the

Dangers of Both. And today we are focusing more upon Confessional Bibliology since the majority of our time last week was spent discussing

King James Onlyism. And let's see here, we have an anonymous listener and the anonymous listener says,

It seems to me, as an observer, that the Confessional Bibliology advocates are putting far too much emphasis and giving far too much credit as to their understanding of God's providence and why he has historically worked throughout the ages.

They almost appear to have an infallible understanding of the providence that has occurred throughout history in regard to the mighty and powerful use that God has made of the

Textus Receptus and how for centuries, many multiple and countless thousands have been led to Christ through it.

They seem to be drawing conclusions by that fact that cannot be supported in the

Scripture or could be defended as being an infallible assessment.

Am I anywhere near the right ballpark? Yeah, this anonymous commenter

I think is exactly right and that's one of the reasons this is such a dispute, right, that it's one thing to have to argue about what the

Bible means and in a way we're familiar with that, but things become, I would generally say, more difficult and complex when we have to argue about what history means.

I mean, indeed, if you want to talk about preservation, all of the extant manuscripts, that means all of the still existing manuscripts of the

Greek New Testament and of the Hebrew Bible, all of them were providentially preserved by God. What does that mean?

All forms of King James -onlyism, including Confessional Bibliology, tend to argue that we've got to have a perfect text first and then they go looking for it, and then they also find on their way passages of Scripture which their minds indicate that, yes, we will have a perfect text, but nobody can draw a line, even if Matthew 5 .18,

I think I talked about this last week, even if Matthew 5 .18 is a promise of perfect preservation, and I think that is an interpretation that can plausibly be derived from that passage.

It doesn't tell us which of the many different editions of the

Greek New Testament or the Hebrew Bible is the perfect one. Now, let me be really quick to say to everybody out there, especially if you don't read

Hebrew and Greek, the differences are incredibly minor. We have an incredibly well -preserved text, but to say this one is the perfect one, you'd like to have something a little more substantive than, well, that's my read of the history, this is the one

God has used the most. If that's the principle, well, then what about the

Dutch translation of the Bible that God used extensively in Holland, which uses a slightly different Texas Receptus edition?

What about God's apparent use of the older text in the earlier history of the

Church? It just mires you in an incredibly difficult and, I would say, ultimately impossible set of historical questions.

We just haven't been given sufficient guidance by God. If, indeed, we're supposed to be looking for the perfect text,

He hasn't told us how to find it. And that's where a lot of the frustration comes in this debate.

I think your commenter there is accurate. Thank you,

Anonymous. And if you provide your full name off the air, of course, which will not be divulged on the air, and your full mailing address, we have a surprise for you.

Lexham Press has provided a limited number of free copies of Authorize!

The Use and Misuse of the King James Bible, and that will be shipped out to you, compliments of our friends at Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service, cvbbs .com,

and also compliments of Lexham Press. We thank you for that generosity, Lexham, and we look forward to interviewing more of your authors.

Let's see here. We have Susan Margaret in Dauphin County, Pennsylvania, who asks,

I've heard the argument that you cannot claim biblical inerrancy without physically possessing the original autographs of the

Bible. How do you challenge and refute that notion that seems to be at the core of a lot of this?

First, I ask, okay, so I base my life on the Bible. Where does the Bible tell me this?

Even the Bible itself covers such a massive history. Did Jesus have access to the original autographs?

The very pieces of papyrus or parchment or whatever it was that Moses wrote on 1 ,500 years prior?

That seems rather doubtful. We don't know that he didn't, but we have no evidence that he did.

I have a couple thoughts. That's first. I want to base my life on the Bible, and if that's a little bit circular, well, read

John Frame's writings and he'll explain that. That's probably not the discussion for now. A second is think how your friend would feel if for some reason he sent a message to you and it had to be relayed by somebody else and you said, oh,

I can't be absolutely confident that that's what my friend said, so I'm not going to listen to what you said.

No, God uses means. God uses imperfect means to share the gospel. I am a sinner.

I sin every day. I have to repent every day. That's the whole

Christian life is one of repentance, and yet I preach the gospel.

Does that undercut my preaching of the gospel? When I give the gospel, I don't give it perfectly.

I could say it better. I could be more affecting and probably more accurate in little places here where I made a little mistake.

Does that undercut the truth of the gospel that I preach? Another answer that I'd give, it is initially scary to be told that there are differences among Greek New Testament manuscripts and even manuscripts of the

Hebrew Bible in addition to the Greek New Testament, in addition to the Hebrew Bible. You start to feel like, well, this thing that I've based my life on is unstable.

But that's before you actually go and look at the differences. Now, for centuries, those differences have been pretty much locked up in Hebrew and Greek, and the ones in the

Old Testament still mostly are. But for the New Testament, which is where most of this debate occurs,

I've actually, together with friends, put together a site called the

KJV Parallel Bible. It's totally free, kjvparallelbible .org,

and we're actually having an editor go through it and make minor corrections right now, paid by Faithlife, because it's going to go into lockout

Bible software. But it's going to remain free on my website that I own, kjvparallelbible .org,

and you can actually go see, chapter after chapter, what are the actual differences in English between the critical text that's used by most modern

Bible translations all around the world, not just English, but French and German and Spanish and Russian and Urdu and Japanese, but the differences between the critical text and the main edition of the

Texas Receptive that's used by King James Only, also in the confessional bibliology world.

And when you actually see not just the differences, but the overwhelming number of similarities, verse after verse after verse, and not infrequently entire chapters that are exactly the same, suddenly it's not so scary.

And then when you actually look at the differences and see how incredibly minor the vast majority of them are,

I'm just going to pull up a random page, Colossians 4. The differences on this page don't start until verse 8, "...whom

I have sent unto you for the same purpose that ye might know your estate." And the difference here is, in the critical text, "...whom

I have sent unto you for the same purpose that ye might know our estate, and comfort your heart."

This is a frequent difference among Greek New Testament manuscripts, that the pronouns, it's either you or it's us.

And does it change the overall meaning of the text? It's incredibly minor. Or the next one, it calls

Jesus Christ Jesus versus Christ. What's the difference there?

These differences aren't scary when you actually look at them. And so I would encourage people who are alarmed at all to go and look at kjbparallelbible .org

And I would say it's not a problem at all that we don't have the autograph. Are you going to say, Jesus maybe died for my sins and maybe he's the divine

Son of God eternally co -equal with the Father, but I'm going to toss all of that out because I don't know whether Colossians 4 .18

ends with the word Amen or not. That's the kind of difference we're usually talking about in the

Greek New Testament edition. And somebody needs to work through that. We have textual critics who do. A decision has to be made.

What are you going to do in translation? But I'm not going to overthrow my faith because of differences that don't make a difference.

I'll give one more illustration. I said that was my last answer, but it didn't occur to me. Dirk Jankins of Tyndall House.

Is that okay? Can I go on? Oh yeah. About one more minute. And we can always pick up where we left off after the midway break as well.

I can give this in 30 seconds. Dirk Jankins of Tyndall House, Cambridge Evangelical Study Center.

He's a faithful godly man himself. He's a New Testament textual critic. He's written for Crossway. He put out the Tyndall House Greek New Testament, which is an

Evangelical critical text of the Greek New Testament. He compares it to a picture with pixels, a digital picture.

You can have a picture of somebody, and you can take out individual pixels and change them a little bit, and the overall picture is still totally recognizable, even clear.

That is the situation that we have in the Greek New Testament. We don't have some Greek New Testament editions that say Jesus wasn't

God and some that say you've got to work hard for your salvation and Jesus will do the rest. No.

The same gospel, the same Jesus is preached in every single edition of the Greek New Testament. All right.

We are going now to our midway break, and please be patient with us because, as always, the midway break is longer than the other breaks.

By the way, before I go to the break, I'd like to tell Dr. Ward, if he didn't realize this already,

I forwarded to you an email from a listener that is quite long. You might want to look it over during the station break so you can see what this listener has written in advance, since it is so lengthy.

I would like to use that as a time to give a caveat or a warning to our listeners.

Please do not preach to us. Please do not give us long tomes. I will not read them.

I'm going to let this one slide since I didn't give a warning before, and since it is coming from an opponent of Dr.

Ward, I wanted to give the appearance of fairness as much as I can, so I will this one time allow this entire series of comments and questions to be read.

But please give, for all of the others in the audience who may have something to say, whether pro or con, please keep your questions brief.

Don't use this as an opportunity to preach and teach. And also, since this is a longer station break, please use this time wisely.

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Mark Ward. That is chrisarnson at gmail .com, chrisarnson at gmail .com.

Give us your first name at least, city and state and country of residence. Just out of curiosity, Mark, I don't know if you heard me before the break, but did you find that email that I forwarded to you earlier from a listener that was very lengthy?

Yes, I did. Okay, well, I'll get to that in a minute. I'll get to that in a minute.

But first of all, I just want to have you clarify something that Susan Margaret asked before the midway break.

Everyone involved in this debate, both you and I, both

Dr. James R. White of Alpha and Omega Ministries, and those who are promoting either

King James -only -ism or confessional bibliology, all of us agree that we don't have the autographs, we don't have the original manuscripts from those disciples who were blessed by God in a very unique way in breathing out

His inerrant word through them onto paper. We don't have those.

The difference in this debate, though, isn't it how we respond to that and to be careful not to manufacture an artificial replacement for the original manuscripts and the autographs?

Yes, that's correct. Just yesterday in the interview that was released with Jeff Riddle, and once again

I'm trying to appeal to the most responsible, careful, accredited, educated representatives of the confessional bibliology position,

Jeff Riddle told my friend Wayne Green on his YouTube channel, and this is consistent with what Jeff has said elsewhere, that we effectively do have the autographs.

We don't have the physical pieces of paper that Moses and Jude and Matthew and Luke and Paul and Tertius wrote on, but we have, and I hope

I'm interpreting him correctly, we have a perfect representation of the autographs in the

Masoretic Text of the Hebrew Bible and in the Textus Receptus of the Greek New Testament. But they do acknowledge, yes, we don't have the actual pieces of paper that were originally sent from Paul to the church at Colossae.

Now how do they arrive at that conclusion, knowing Jerome's involvement in this,

Jerome and the Textus Receptus? You would think that there would be some red lights going off that cannot be a source, or those cannot be any kind of a source related to preserving a perfect and inerrant text.

Can you respond in that general area of what I'm asking? Sure. So Jerome was the famous translator of the

Latin Vulgate. He's not typically considered to have had any bearing on the form of the

Greek and Hebrew texts that have come down to us. He is, however, the ultimate source for a couple readings in the

King James Version that appear to our best light and to those of F. H. A. Scrivener, who, long story, but put together the

Greek New Testament edition that reflects the textual critical decisions of the King James translators in 1881.

This is really complex stuff, I'm sorry. It's unavoidably complex. It does appear to Scrivener and to contemporary scholars that the

King James translators use a couple little renderings from the Vulgate that don't appear in Greek manuscripts.

And actually, if you dig into these terribly arcane details with the relatively few

King James onlyists who have dug that far, they will say that, well, yes, okay,

God allowed some words to drop out of the Greek New Testament manuscript tradition. No, we don't have copies now still existing that contain those words, but the

Vulgate, the Latin Vulgate, preserved them faithfully, and God made sure that they got in the King James Version. And when someone gets to that level of special pleading, you know,

I practically don't know what to say. So, yeah, so many of these questions ultimately require incredible amounts of study and knowledge of detail.

I really doubt that the Lord would require every individual

Christian to have to make a decision as to what is the trustworthy form of the text when he hasn't either given them a command to learn

Hebrew and Greek, or most often given them the opportunity to do so. We have to be able to trust some other people, probably that we don't know personally, to copy the text accurately for us, first through the centuries.

Of course, we don't know them personally. And then to study hard Hebrew and Greek and translate the

Bible for us after making some of those textual critical decisions. So I'm urging people to come not to a place of radical distrust of the teachers that God has given to his church who have provided our major modern evangelical

Bible translations, any more than I'm telling them to distrust the King James translators, who I think did an excellent job.

I'm saying this is the situation God gave us. You're going to have to trust somebody. It's okay if you don't know all the ins and outs.

We do this all the time in other areas of our lives. We trust the people who put together the recipe for highway asphalt.

We drive on it. Maybe some other county is using a better recipe. We don't know.

We're going to drive on the road anyway. I'm telling people you can calm down and not have to make all these decisions.

You can trust the people that God has put over you, and that actually includes, if you are given a pastor who you trust and you've seen his governance, he preaches the word faithfully to you, he pastors you and shepherds you faithfully, and he prefers the

Greek New Testament underlying the King James Version. I actually really am okay with that on the level of preference.

I would say defer to him, and if he's insisting, though, on the exclusive use of the

King James, that's where I've got to take my open Bible to 1 Corinthians 14 and take it to heaven and say, but pastor,

I love you, I trust you, but I could read a Bible in my English, a Bible I can understand.

Can you recommend any Bible translation for me that's made on whatever Hebrew or Greek text you prefer?

I don't understand all that stuff, but can you make a recommendation to me of a Bible translation from those texts that's made into my

English that edifies me because I can understand it? That's what I encourage people to do.

Now, it seems that the, and correct me if I'm wrong, the confessional bibliologists and the

King James -only folks both believe that the

Textus Receptus, which is a far younger text, is a far younger text than the older manuscripts that the modern translations are based on.

It's kind of a confusing way of wording things. It just happens to be the fact that the more modern translations use the older manuscripts' evidence.

And it's always interesting to hear, especially from fundamentalists who believe, usually in every other area of learning in life, that older is better.

In this case, that's not the case with that. And I have heard that some of the apprehension or outright rejection of the older manuscripts is that they were intended to be burned.

These were flawed copies that were either accidentally or purposely mistranslated, errors in writing and so forth, and they were intended for destruction to protect the

Church, and somebody rescued them from the fireplace. And I've heard that this is a fictitious account of what actually happened, if you could pick up from there what you know about that.

I actually am not that much further along than you in this one here. I've also read that it's fictitious.

But here's the way I'd answer that. Let's talk again about whom should I trust when it comes to this debate.

Now, first off, there are many questions here that you can track down for yourself. And one of these days, I have been attempting to go read the writings of Konstantin von

Tischendorf, who was the one who discovered what you're talking about, Sinaiticus and the St. Catherine's Monastery. And Dr.

White says that they were lovingly preserved in velvet or something, that there was some obvious evidence that these were not put in a pile with kindling, that they were being lovingly preserved.

But anyway, continue. Yeah, I tend to trust Dr. White that he's done the necessary reading.

And there are so many questions like this to track down in this debate.

And I'm not telling anybody to not do their homework. But I'm questioning whether ultimately in a complex field like this one, you really have to do that homework, or whether you can use other factors to indicate whether or not you should trust the mainstream evangelical and Reformed Protestant view on these matters.

So you can dive into the internet rabbit hole, and you can find people on both sides saying this and that.

But I like to pull way out, like to the 10 ,000 -foot level, and say, okay, the people who are producing the major modern evangelical

English Bible translations, what are they like? Well, Doug Moo of the

NIV, and I'll cross a little line here, but it's still a modern translation, Vern Poitras of the

ESB, you know, they don't always see eye -to -eye on translation philosophy, but these major evangelical scholars,

I know Vern actually personally quite well, and I've gotten to interview Doug before, read their works.

Are they faithful to Scripture? Do they seem to know what they're talking about at every turn? Do they seem to care for the

Church and not just for the Academy? I think that if you will expose yourself to the people, the

Bible scholars that have produced the major modern evangelical English Bible translations, you'll find over and over again that they are feeding you really good stuff, and they're defending the faith in apologetics matters, in ways that are really effective, like Vern Poitras does.

I actually get emails that get sent to the framepoitras .org site, and I filter them for Vern and John.

John's retired. Vern takes a lot of personal emails and puts time into evangelizing people who are asking apologetics questions, comforting the faith of some who, a guy recently who was struggling with his faith and had questions for him.

This is a guy who really loves Christ's body. Now, are they perfect? Does that mean all their textual views are right?

No, but for most people, when you encounter this debate, you're going to quickly see that there are smart people on both sides.

It can be hard to wade through. I'm saying it's okay to not feel like you have to answer all the questions, but instead look at, what are these people producing?

And on the King James Only side, what are they producing? Look at the kind of tone, look at the kind of rhetoric that is used in all forms of King James Onlyism.

Not by everybody, there are exceptions, but by and large, I think I can observe, it's nasty, it's sin, it's coarse talk, it's divisive, it's frequently dismissive and ignorant.

I think it's okay to look at that level. If you want to get into specifics, sometimes

I'll know the answer, sometimes I won't. I myself am having to trust that certain other scholars who've proven their trustworthiness to me over and over when

I've read their commentaries over the years. You know, Doug Loo's careful work on Romans is just excellent. Doesn't mean he's always right, but in general on something arcane,

I feel I can trust him. I hope that doesn't sound like I'm skirting the answer, because actually what

I'm trying to do is to get people to recognize the way they have to end up answering those questions.

They still are going to have to end up trusting authority. We have a question from Andrew in Brooklyn, New York.

It is predominantly focused on King James -only -ism, but I think that there is a part of the question that would equally apply to confessional bibliologists.

First of all, he starts off by saying that he wants us to know, he believes the

Textus Receptus is the most reliable Greek text. He says, the two most infuriating aspects about the

King James -only movement is their four decades of smears against the

New King James Version, an excellent translation that exceeds the King James in many areas.

Think Titus 2, verse 13, and 2 Peter 1. And their unwillingness, this is the part that I think that applies to a degree to confessional bibliology, and their unwillingness to make a modern translation based off the same

Hebrew or American Greek text as the King James Version, because there are not to be found scholars with the level of godliness and classical education as were available in the days when the

King James was prepared. So do you have a response to that?

Yeah, that response really encourages me, because there is somebody who recognizes we can agree to disagree about, yes, this is an important matter, which edition of the

Greek New Testament should be used for Bible translation, but what's more important is, are we providing

God's Word for the plowboy, Tyndale's plowboy, in an

English that he can read, that he can access? And the King James is not entirely unintelligible.

You know, the VBS and bus kids and neighborhood kids that I ministered to for years in a not -so -nice part of town in Greenville, South Carolina, they could get some truth out of for God's beloved world that he gave his only begotten

Son, that whosoever believeth in him shall not perish but have eternal life. But I asked them over and over, hundreds, perhaps thousands of times,

I didn't count, over years, what does this mean? And over and over, they struggled at exactly the points where I would predict that they would struggle, the points that were due to the

King James archaism, the way King James English, you know, doesn't match the

English of our day. I am practically desperate to get my brothers in the

King James -only world, the ones who are the most responsible, the ones who know I don't believe that King James itself is inspired.

What I'm really concerned to do here is to promote the text that's receptive. Okay, great.

We can agree to disagree about that. We can have that more private, academic discussion, as long as you acknowledge that the

Bible is way more clear that edification requires intelligibility than it is that we've got to use a particular

Greek New Testament, you know, edition. So I really like that, and I think it's really healthy to be able to look at your own side.

You know, here's a guy who's promoted at TR, who trusted above others. Again, fine. It's really healthy to be able to look at your side and see its flaws, and this is absolutely one of those flaws.

I have it as a principle in my life. I'm always, always, always looking for the most responsible and influential proponents of any given position.

I will not be guilty of nut -picking if I can avoid it. God so helped me. And so I have looked and looked for, okay, if the

New King James is so terrible that, you know, nobody in the TR world, the Textus Receptus world, you know, will touch it, and I have met just a very few who will.

There are this tiny number. Then what are the problems? And Albert Hemd of the

Trinitarian Bible Society and Chuck Surrett of Ambassador Baptist Colleges, he's retired now, I believe, they gave the obviously most detailed critiques of the

New King James Version, and they had, obviously, among all the critiques I looked for, the most chops, you know, the most ability to read the

Hebrew and Greek, and yet I wrote lengthy reviews of their work.

I forced myself to go line by line through what they said to be able to say to people, I have looked at the very best critiques of the

New King James Version from the King James -only world. And to me, it's mene, mene, tekel, upar, sim.

They were weighed and found wanting. Over and over again, Albert Hemd of the Trinitarian Bible Society, which

I think is doing a lot of good work around the world from what I know. I don't know a ton about it. They're doing Bible translation work in other countries, which

I support. You know, in general, that's a great idea. Albert Hemd, over and over, was guilty of what

I can only call, I have to call it what it is, what 1 Peter 2 -1 calls it, malice.

He takes the decisions of the New King James translators and twists them into some kind of narrative of an agenda that they supposedly have to undermine the

Christian faith. And it amounts to a conspiracy theory. All these Bible scholars that teach in evangelical institutions and say they believe in Christ's deity are actually working to undermine it at place after place.

They say they believe in Orthodox doctrine, but no, look what they did here. And I'm thinking over and over again, brother, there's a lot easier explanation for this.

And if you would just go listen to what the New King James translators said in their multiple commentaries on some of the very books that they translated, you could give a charitable representation of why they made this decision.

After a while, it really does start to feel like whack -a -mole. You patiently, carefully answer one objection and without acknowledging that, yes, you're probably right, okay, that there is another side to this.

Another mole pops his head out and is saying something else about another passage. Ultimately, I cannot regard

Texas Receptive defense as merely about the TR. It is King James -onlyism.

I'm going to give another argument for that because I do not like to say that my opponents are telling lies.

I don't think they are. I think they're confused. They say what we really care about is the Texas Receptive, not necessarily the

King James. So you're saying this is an unconscious... It's an unconscious... You're saying it's an unconscious

King James -onlyism. Yeah. And then I ask, okay, so which

TR is the perfect one? And their answer is actually, and I put this in my paper that James White, you know,

I'm grateful he prays on social media, their answer to the which TR question is actually the

King James. Whatever the King James translators did, whatever textual critical choices they made when they looked at the different TR editions, those are the right ones.

And I just say, brothers, that is King James -onlyism. It's in a slightly different form.

I want to acknowledge that. But it really is the same thing. Yeah. So I agree with this commenter.

It's so sad to me that the folks who insist they prefer the TR won't give their trust to the new

King James that's been out for 40 years. And maybe, what if there were like 30 % of people who prefer the

TR that were using the new King James? Then I would think, okay, we've got an honest opinion here.

Some folks in the TR world prefer the King James. Some prefer the new King James. But if 99 .999 % of people who prefer the

TR who won't touch the new King James or modern English version in their institutional context, somehow

I just see that as King James -onlyism, not really Texas receptive defense.

So there appears to be, whether conscious or unconscious, there appears to be almost, one could say, and in some cases, clearly, it's not even almost.

It's way over the line of almost being certain. There is a superstitious, on the part of many, a superstitious attachment to antiquated

English, 17th -century English, which has really become an idol in this area.

And you don't see, as Andrew in Brooklyn was saying, you don't see a modern

English version coming out anywhere of a textus receptus -based

Bible. Even the new King James version is somewhat antiquated in its language.

And so, and of course, there could be the excuse of we don't want to lose the beauty of public domain where something is free, and if you're writing a book and you want to quote scripture verses, you don't have to pay anybody to do that.

You use the King James, and it's absolutely free. But have you heard of anybody with the Trinity, is it the

Trinitarian Bible Society that you just mentioned? Yes. Yeah, have they, because I think

I heard you correctly last time that they are translating in foreign languages Bibles based on the textus receptus, so why not a modern

English Bible? Right, actually, your commenter there from Brooklyn, I'm pretty sure he quoted from the

Trinitarian Bible Society and probably has read my post on this or seen my video on it, because they had an article in their own,

I think it's called the Quarterly Record, in which they answer questions from their own supporters of the Trinitarian Bible Society who are asking if you're willing to make translations of the

TR into other languages today, why not into English? And if you're willing to update prior translations in other languages,

Bulgarian or whatever, why not update the King James? And again, I'm sorry,

I tried to regard their responses as sincere and honest, but again,

I felt like I'm playing whack -a -mole, like nothing can satisfy them. There's just not enough godly and erudite people in the world today who could actually do this work, and our constituency wouldn't accept it.

And maybe both of those are true. Maybe. I don't think the first one is true.

I think there certainly are godly and erudite people who can handle translating the Bible into contemporary English. They do it in the modern

English version. But in a way, I just want to say that doesn't matter. Obey your

Lord. 1 Corinthians 14 says, edification requires intelligibility. You should not be insisting that other

Christians use a 400 -year -old Bible translation that contains dozens, if not hundreds, of dead words, words we no longer use, but for which we have modern equivalence.

My classic is bism versus broom. Hardly anybody knows what a bism is. We should use the word broom, because Paul said so.

And not only those, it contains false friends, words we don't know we don't know. And I'm up to 57 of these on my

YouTube channel, and I could go on for a long time. People send them to me all the time. This is the answer to the response

I always get, which is, well, you just need to not be lazy. You need to look up words in the dictionary. But what if you don't even know to look up the word, because you think you're understanding it?

I refer people again to my 50 False Friends series on YouTube. That is, to me, an insoluble objection.

And I just cannot get my brothers in any of the King James Only world to answer that question.

I've literally never heard an answer. How are people supposed to look up words that they don't realize they're misunderstanding?

We can debate about how many dead words and false friends have to stack up in a traditional

Bible translation before it's time to move on. I'm willing to have that debate, but nobody will have that debate with me.

They want to switch the discussion to text, and I keep saying, I'm sorry, my frustration is coming out with a friend who's on my side here.

I keep saying, I'm neutral on that question in my book, Authorized. You can use the

TR, fine. Just make a contemporary translation of it that uses words people can understand.

And I've been saying that for years, for now the four years that my book has been out.

And over and over again, that question and that case have simply been dismissed and replaced with, let's talk about textual criticism again.

So I don't know what else to do. We're at an impasse. I'm trying to have personal discussions with folks, and sometimes

I get somewhere, but in public, we're at an impasse. And now the Christian public have to look at the best case that both sides can make, and before the

Lord, pray about it, read their Bibles, and make a decision. All right, since you have in front of you the lengthy email that I forwarded to you from Michael in Pittsburgh, California, who also sent in a question or a bunch of comments last time,

I'll read this so our listeners hear the entirety of what he has to say, and then

I'll have you respond when we come back from the final break. The original writings of the apostles moved from Jerusalem to Syria just prior to the destruction of AD 70.

The church flooded Mesopotamia with the originals, including the Aramaic copy called

Peshitta. Then the persecution of Rome arose, but after it was stopped in 313

AD, the original writings were brought to Constantinople to be copied. These copies were widely published in the 1400s when the fall of the

Byzantine Empire occurred. The original writings were brought to Turin, Italy, where they were published by Erasmus.

The Peshitta from the 2nd century is a witness to the content of the

Textus Receptus today. God has used the text of the Textus Receptus to save millions of souls.

The Nestle -Allen UBS approach denies all of this, has not been afraid to attack and discredit the

Textus Receptus, and as a result, the New American Standard Bible has changed with almost every discovery of an ancient text.

Not believing God provided a single manuscript, the New American Standard is continually changing.

Moreover, as a result of its collection of verses being an eclectic text, it is now a Bible that was nowhere manifested in the history of the church.

Isn't this denial of God's work in the past displeasing to God?

Do you know who is on this UBS board making these decisions as to what to include or exclude?

How can anyone claim to be a Christian accepting these denials of the New American Standard Bible and not believing the power, providence, and faithfulness of God?

How can such scholarship claim to be superior not having the spirit of truth

Shouldn't teachers in the church affirm the faithfulness of God and the fear of God in not honoring his word?

Atheists do not honor the word and yet you and James White are supporting their approach and aren't these modern translations based on the

UBS sold because publishers have made them look like TR translations? In fact, this whole matter may not have arisen were it not for the attacks on the

Textus Receptus and King James version by James White. It's interesting how the listener is saying that those on the opposite side to him are doing all the attacking.

But we'll have you respond to that as best you can since you have that very long email in front of you.

And don't go away, folks. We're going to be right back after these messages from our sponsors.

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Please visit us at TruthLoveParent .com. Welcome back. If you could now,

Dr. Ward, as best as you can, respond to what our listener,

Michael in Pittsburgh, California, has asserted. Yeah, this is such a mixture of valid questions, misinformation, and confusion that it's hard to know where to start.

This is what conspiracy theories do. They try to snow you under with a bunch of detail on arcane historical things and to get you to distrust the views and the motives of the mainstream.

And sometimes they contain a kernel of truth, and I think a few kernels of truth are probably hiding in this email.

But let me answer in two big different ways. First, I'm urging all of your listeners,

Chris, don't answer this kind of talk directly the way I'm about to do.

Try to change the subject to what the Bible talks about clearly. Talk about 1 Corinthians 14, edification requires intelligibility.

Talk about dead words and false friends. Talk about the understanding that comes when you translate the

Bible into contemporary English. So I would not answer this, brother, on these matters if you were talking to me personally.

I want to shift to what God actually talks about rather than a bunch of arcane detail, again, that is full of disputable and, in cases, unknowable things.

Second, though, I'm willing, for the sake of your listeners, Chris, to answer a few specifics just to show them that my side, the mainstream

Orthodox evangelical side, has answers and we're not ignorant of the issues that he raises.

First, I would say, then, that what this grand conspiracy to destroy and discredit the true text, supposedly, that's what he's saying, what they actually produced was a

Greek New Testament text that preaches all the same truth, I mean, as the TR. Isn't that odd?

If Satan is behind the critical text, as I was told when I was in King James Elpheism, he really did a terrible job.

He didn't even touch the gospel, let alone any other cardinal doctrine. Or I should have said it the other way, he didn't touch a cardinal doctrine, let alone the gospel.

And when you actually read the ESV versus the King James, if you understand both, they're saying the same thing.

The minor differences do not change the overall picture. When you pick up a systematic theology, it puts scripture references in parentheses and it doesn't tell you which

Greek New Testament text to look them up in because it doesn't matter. They're saying the same thing.

Also, there's this long -term smear against textual critics for being non -evangelical.

And yes, there are non -evangelical textual critics. But first, evangelicals evaluate their work before they go into the evangelical

English Bible translation. And secondarily, a lot of the leading New Testament textual critics nowadays are evangelicals.

I know them personally. They are godly people who believe in inerrancy. I was just with them two weeks ago in Dallas for a conference.

Read the Evangelical Textual Criticism blog. That's inaccurate. And finally, maybe not finally, there is no the

TR, as this gentleman talks about. He says, as a result of the critical text collection of verses being an eclectic text, it is now a, quote,

Bible that was nowhere manifested in the history of the Church. That is exactly the case with Scrivener's 1881

Reconstruction of the Textual Critical Decisions of the King James Translators. That text that is considered perfect all throughout the different King James -only -isms never existed in the history of the world until 1881.

Um, he just called the ESV that I take to church and that I preach from, he called it a

Bible, in air quotes. That is the sixth grade bus kid all over again telling other people they should burn their

Bibles. I am offended by this. It is not true. It is divisive.

It is sin. No matter how sophisticated people talk in defense of the erudition and accuracy, you know, no matter how sophisticated the

Roman Catholics were in 1408 when they defended the Latin Vulgate against the English Bible that Wycliffe was producing, at the end of the day, you have to ask, can't

God speak in the language of the plow boy? King James -only views put so much effort into having

God's Word, which I value too, but I think their value is having

God's Word. I think my value is understanding God's Word, and I think if you're going to have to weigh the two, of course you want both, but why in the world are they so intent on retaining a 400 -year -old form of the text that people cannot fully understand anymore because it's not in our

English? One of the most baffling things about this whole debate is although most of my

Anglican friends who are Reformed, who adhere to the 39

Articles and so on, they are, most of them, Calvinistic, although they only use the

King James version, and a lot of it, I think, has to do with a sentimentalism, a pride, and I don't mean that necessarily in a sinful way, but a pride of something that has been produced by their denomination.

It's baffling that those who are outside of Anglicanism would tenaciously cling to this version of the

Scriptures, and especially when it is coming from the typical independent fundamentalist

Baptist who despise Anglicanism not only today, but in every century it existed, and many of those folks, if not most, don't even believe that they are a part of the

Protestant Reformation, meaning that the independent fundamentalist Baptists are not. What is this love affair by non -Anglicans with this

Anglican Bible? Well, it has intrinsically beautiful qualities.

That is true. I love the King James, too. I don't despise it. I always say, and this is true,

I love it more than when I began this work. But what is this? It's tradition.

And the Pharisees, Jesus criticized. He excoriated them for valuing their tradition over what

God actually said. He said, you make void the Word of God by your tradition. This is a perennial temptation to treat one form, one translation of the text, like the

Septuagint, like the Vulgate, now like the King James Version, like the Ge 'ez Bible in Ethiopia is actually treated the same way by people, most of your listeners probably have never heard of.

I didn't until a couple months ago when I talked to a Ge 'ez cleric. I'm not kidding. That's a perennial temptation for people to take a form of the text, translation that is traditional, that they've come to trust, and rightly so, and then to make that the new pope that overrules everything else.

Actually, that's what the Word says about Bible translation. It doesn't say a whole lot, but what it does say is now being made void by this tradition.

This is tradition against the Bible, and I know my opponents in this debate are not self -consciously thinking,

I'm going to value tradition over the Bible. That is what is happening. I am trying to make this clear to them, and I am calling them back to biblical orthodoxy.

Yes, tradition can be wonderful and beautiful until it is not recognized as being tradition.

And it's amazing also that Baptists, if anybody, would cling to the King James Version as the only

Bible, at least in the English language, and some of, obviously, any Bible, no matter where you live on the planet, when there were certain words that the

Anglican translators used that diminished Baptist distinctives.

I mean, I don't know too many fundamentalist Baptists who have a friend named Bishop Bob. There are a lot of other things in the

King James. Even the words for baptism, you never see immerse.

You could go on and on. Right. Do we have time for one more story, Chris? Yes, we do.

We only have time for one more, though. It's a perfect set -up. You just pitched me a softball.

I was talking on the phone to a young professor at Heartland Baptist Bible College, which is one of the leading

King James -only institutions in the U .S. And I was asking him— this is before Authorized came out—

I was asking him to read the book in manuscript and make any critiques that he wished. I told him,

I want to represent your side accurately. I want you to tell me if I'm not doing so. And he was very courteous.

He really was. But he also utterly refused to help me in any way because he saw that I was pushing back against this cherished doctrinal distinctive of his.

But he also wanted to persuade me, so he stuck around on the phone. I've told this story a couple times before. And he said, now,

I have to stress to you, I am not a Ruckmanite. I don't believe in the double -inspiration idea that the

King James itself is inspired. And I said, okay, I hear you and I believe you. So is there anything in the

King James that you would change or update or revise if you could? I mean, you don't have bishops, do you?

I made the same argument that you just made. And he said, with a shock in his voice, you can't change the

Word of God. Wow. And I said, brother, don't you see? That is

Ruckmanism. If you can't change one syllable, that's manifestly a bad translation that actually comes from, you know, the high church

Anglicanism of the day holding on to its distinctive. You can't even revise that, even though you yourself don't have bishops.

Then you're treating the King James as perfect. You're treating the translation as the Word of God. That is

Ruckmanism. I run into that over and over and over again. Because the view here is not just King James, only textual absolutism, my friends and I call it.

It's picking one form of the text and saying, this is the final and perfect form. Everything else is corrupt by comparison.

Well, we are out of time, and I want to make sure that the website for Reform Baptist Seminary is given.

rbseminary, I'm sorry, rbseminary .org, rbseminary .org. Please provide any other websites that you care to provide.

Dr. Ward. I would just love to send people again, yeah, to my YouTube channel. Just search for Mark Ward Plowboy, Mark Ward King James, whatever, and especially watch my

False Friends series. I put tons of hours of work into this. I think it's the most helpful way forward in this debate that I want to shift over to English and away from the difficulties of textual criticism.

That's where I send people. And the KJV Parallel Bible website that I mentioned in the interview. Well, thank you so much for being such a superb guest.

I look forward to your return to the show. I thank all of you who have listened, especially those who took the time to write.

Remember, all of those who submitted questions today are getting a free book by our guest, authorized, the use and misuse of the

King James Bible, if you care to provide your mailing address. And I want you all to always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far greater