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Bible, and this week we're looking at the subject of the King James Only Controversy. You may have never heard of the King James Only Controversy. If you haven't heard of it, then you're not from the South, because I was rather surprised a number of years ago to discover that there are entire churches that have split and continue today to split because of the subject of the King James Only Controversy.
We'll be looking at that subject today and examining the question, is the King James Version the only English translation that Christians should use? There are a large number of very sincere, believing Christians who actually believe that the King James Version is the only version you should use, and in fact, all other English translations are satanic misrepresentations and mistranslations of God's Word.
That's obviously an important subject, and we'll be looking at that today on The Dividing Line. There are a number of kinds of King James Only viewpoints that are represented in today's world that you may have encountered.
For example, there is a moderate viewpoint that would have as a representative, for example, Mr. Harry Sturtz. Mr. Sturtz defends the Byzantine textual tradition as being of equal value along with other text types.
He does not attack textual criticism or those people that involve themselves with textual criticism. He is one of the more moderate individuals, and I'd like to mention that last week we discussed the issue of where the Bible came from and things like that.
I had mentioned this week we'd look at New Testament textual criticism. Last evening at the offices of Alpha Omega Ministries, we did a seminar on the subject of New Testament textual criticism, and I realized earlier this week that it would be a subject that would be next to impossible to really present in a radio format because of the need to be able to examine documents, examine textual variants from Greek New Testaments, etc., etc.
So we decided to spend the next two weeks talking about the King James Only controversy, and to give you some background, I will need to remember to define certain terms. For example, in talking about the moderate viewpoint of Harry Sturtz, I just mentioned the Byzantine textual tradition.
Well, what is the Byzantine textual tradition? The Byzantine text is predominantly the majority text of the 5 ,000 manuscripts of the Greek New Testament that are in existence today. Maybe as high as 90 to 95 percent of those manuscripts exhibit a textual style, a textual flavor known as the Byzantine text.
The Byzantine text is the underlying text of what is known as the Textus Receptus, or also called the TR, which is the Greek text from which the King James Version was translated. So some of these individuals would defend the underlying Greek textual tradition, the Byzantine textual tradition, as being of equal value along with other text types, such as the Alexandrian text type or the Western or Caesarean text types.
This is terminology utilized by individuals who work with the Greek text of the New Testament. Another group of people you have are Textus Receptus defenders. These individuals defend the TR, the Textus Receptus, the underlying Greek text of the King James Version, as either the best text or they say that the Textus Receptus is completely inspired by God.
These may or may not feel that the actual English rendering of the King James Version is the only true rendering, but these individuals, the Textus Receptus defenders, will defend the TR, the Textus Receptus, as either being the best text or some will go so far as to say that that particular English text, which was predominantly compiled by Roman Catholic priests by Neodesiderius Erasmus, is inspired by God.
Then you have the King James Version defenders themselves. These defend the actual English translation of the King James Version as being specially inspired by God so that it is inerrant in the English translation.
All of these would also fall into the above category of Textus Receptus defenders as well. Most of these would question the sincerity and even the salvation of anyone who disagrees with them, because these individuals feel that the actual English translation, the translation that was published in 1611, that the translation itself was inspired by God and inerrant.
Then you have those that I have decided to call the traditional defenders, and these individuals simply like the King James Version better than any other version, and that's fine with me. I was raised on the King James Version.
Most of my memory verses still come out replete with these and thous, and I have no problem if someone just simply is more comfortable with the King James Version. That's fine with me. Then you have cultic defenders.
This would include, for example, the Mormon Church and others that say the King James Version is the only true version. As you may know, the Mormon Church will use only the King James Version and not other translations, except for Joseph Smith's translation, which someday may even take over from the King James, who knows.
But you do have some cultic defenders. Who are some of these individuals? You may not be familiar with them. One of the most best-known of the King James defenders, who passed away just a couple of months ago, I'm sorry to say, was a man by the name of David Otis Fuller.
He was the director of the Witch Bible Society and the author of the book, Which Bible?, along with the book, True or False. This gentleman was one of the better-known individuals, and as I understand, died about two months ago at the age of about 84.
Edward F. Hills is the author of the book, The King James Version Defended. Jasper J. Ray wrote a book entitled, God Only Wrote One Bible, which I agree with. I don't agree with what he says about it.
Peter S. Ruckman is well-known. He's the founder of the Pensacola Bible Institute and the author of The Christian's Handbook of Manuscript Evidence, another book called Problem Text, and a third book called The Bible Babble.
Yes, I said that correctly, The Bible Babble. Another gentleman is a gentleman by the name of Norman Ward. He is the author of a book entitled, Perfected or Perverted?, and another called, Famine in the Land, and those will be the two books we will be examining today and using as a representative viewpoint.
Then you have Jack Chick, Alberto Rivera, and Barry Burton. Jack Chick, you may be familiar with from his cartoon-type tracks and cartoon books that you will find in certain Christian bookstores. Alberto Rivera is a supposedly former Roman Catholic priest, and Barry Burton is a writer with Jack Chick.
They wrote, for example, a cartoon book entitled, Sabotage, that presents the King James only viewpoint and labels anyone who uses any other Bible than the King James Version as a member of the Alexandrian cult, and that booklet contains many, many errors in it.
Barry Burton wrote a book called, Let's Weigh the Evidence, which is undoubtedly the worst of all the books I've seen on this subject, with the most errors per capita of any book I've ever seen. These gentlemen are quite vehement to the point of being rabid concerning this issue.
Then you have someone such as Zane C. Hodges, who is the editor of the Greek New Testament according to the majority text, and I am a little bit careful to call him a King James only person because he doesn't fall into quite the same categories as the gentleman I've just mentioned.
Now these men, though undoubtedly honest for the most part, do not in any way represent the majority opinion of Christian scholarship today, and in many cases they attack the character and honesty of anyone who disagrees with them, and I'll provide examples of that today.
So as we begin to approach this issue, I'd like to present some preliminary thoughts. First of all, are translations inspired? Now you need to realize, as we mentioned last week, that when you open up the King James Version, or the New American Standard, or the New International Version, or any other version of the Bible that you may have, today's English version, and all these others, what you are reading is a translation of Greek and Hebrew texts, and that's all they are.
They are translations done sometimes by one individual, if you have, for example, the Moffat translation or something like this, or done normally by an entire group of scholars, such as the King James Version was done by a number of men, as was the NIV, NASB, etc., and etc.
Now these are simply translations. They are not themselves what was originally written in the Bible in their original languages. Paul did not talk in English. He did not say, God forbid. He said, may Genoa talk, and in fact, English itself did not even exist at that time.
So the question is, does inspiration, for example, in Paul's writings, when he says the scriptures are God-breathed, they are inspired, does inspiration extend to the subject of translations and versions?
Or maybe we could put it another way, why are there so many different versions? Well, of course, you understand that there's more than one way of translating Greek into English, and depending on the particular individual that you're using as your translator, things will come out a little bit differently.
I have a good example of this in the German language. The Germans have a saying that goes, Morgenstunden hat golden Munden. Now you and I don't probably know what that means unless you've taken German, but Morgenstunden hat golden Munden, if it was translated directly and literally into English, would be, morning hours have gold in their mouths.
That doesn't mean a whole lot to you and I, because we don't speak that way, and we've never heard of morning hours have gold in their mouths. That is a very literal translation that really doesn't get to the meaning of the phrase, because we have a phrase in English that is the the idiomatic equivalent of Morgenstunden hat golden Munden, and if we were to translate the meaning of that phrase, we would probably use the English phrase, the early bird catches the worm.
Now, both would be accurate translations. One's literal and goes to the literal meaning, even though it doesn't make much sense to us as we put it into English. The other goes for the meaning itself and sacrifices literality.
All Bible translations do the same thing to some extent or another. The King James Version and the New American Standard Bible, for example, would be very literal translations, sometimes even to the point of being somewhat unclear in what they're attempting to say.
But then you have freer translations, such as maybe the New International Version, where the NIV probably would not translate Morgenstunden hat golden Munden as morning hours have gold in their mouths.
It would probably say the early bird catches the worm. Another good example to be found in the Gospels is where Jesus says, literally he says, let these things sink deeply into your ears. Now, for an English-speaking person, that doesn't make a whole lot of sense.
I mean, we understand it, but the NIV, for example, translates the same passage, listen carefully to this. Now, it doesn't literally say, listen carefully to this, but that's what it means. And so you have an entire spectrum of versions, of translations, and each version will fall somewhere along the line, either more literal or less literal than some other translation.
So that's why we have so many versions around. Someone else might ask, what about the Eighth Article of Faith, the LDS Church? The Mormon Church says that the Bible is the Word of God as far as it is translated correctly, and I accept that portion of the Eighth Article of Faith as far as is understood correctly, which basically means I, for example, do not accept the Jehovah's Witnesses Bible, the New World Translation, as an accurate copy of the Word of God because it's not.
It is purposefully and maliciously mistranslated. So as far as that's concerned, I accept that. However, Mormons don't understand the Eighth Article of Faith in that context. They think that what the Eighth Article of Faith says is false, that entire books have been deleted or lost or doctrines changed, etc., etc., which simply is not true.
So there is a difference between translation and transmission. The Mormon Church is normally referring the Eighth Article of Faith to transmission instead of translation. Not even the King James Version translators themselves claimed infallibility, even though the King James Version defenders almost make it sound like they did.
Indeed, the translators themselves said this, and I am quoting from the preface to the King James Version, where the translators said, quote, "...some peradventure would have no variety of senses to be set in the margin, lest the authority of the Scriptures for deciding of controversies by that show uncertainly, should somewhat be shaken.
But we hold their judgment not to be sound in this point. Now in such a case does not a marginal reading do well to admonish the reader to seek further and not to conclude or dogmatize upon this or that preemptorily?
For as it is a fault of incredulity to doubt of those things that are evident, so to determine of such things as the Spirit of God hath left even the judgment of the judicious questionable can be no less than presumption.
Therefore hath St. Augustine said that variety of translations is profitable for the finding out of the sense of the Scriptures. So diversity of signification and sense in the margin where the text is not clear must needs be a good yes is necessary we are persuaded.".
So here the translators said, well, there could be some times when we're not exactly sure how to translate something in English, so we'll provide you with alternate translations as well. Many of the King James only people attack any type of notes that would give you an alternate translation found in the text of Scripture.
The next preliminary thought would be that divine inspiration is promised only for the original Scriptures, not their translators or copyists. God never promised to inspire monks sitting in monasteries making a copy of a manuscript of the New Testament a thousand years later.
He also never promised to inspire translators. Believe me, I have asked God to inspire my translations on many a Greek text, a Greek test, and so far he never came through for those. I still got things wrong.
I didn't get 100s on my Greek translations while taking Greek, and the Bible nowhere promises this type of translation infallibility for individuals who are translating the Bible. Translators are humans and copyists are humans, and they can make errors.
Inspiration is for that which was originally written by the Apostles and Prophets themselves. Another preliminary thought is that it can be proven that the King James Version itself contains mistranslations of the Greek text.
For example, in Titus 2 .13, the King James Bible, and I'm reading from the original 1611, which is still available today, it doesn't look much like the King James Version you have, but Titus 2 .13 says, "...looking for that blessed hope and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Savior Jesus Christ.".
Now, this is an example of something that we've discussed, I think, before we've talked about the deity of Christ, and that is something known as Granville Sharpe's Rule. Granville Sharpe's Rule basically tells us that both the words God and Savior in Titus 2 .13 refer to the one person, Jesus Christ.
Now, the King James Version sort of cuts the phrase in half, making it look like we're talking about the appearing of the great God, and then a separate personage, our Savior, Jesus Christ. But that's not correct.
If you look at a modern translation, you'll notice that it will translate, "...looking for the appearing of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ, applying both God and Savior to the Lord Jesus Christ.".
This is the same situation as found in 2 Peter 1 .1, where in both places the King James Version misses a very clear reference to the deity of Christ. Now, I do not believe in any way, shape, or form that the King James Version translators were attempting to deny the deity of Christ.
That's obviously not the case. They just simply didn't know about the Rule, and I would never accuse them of having attempted to deny the deity of Christ. Yet, every single King James Version -only writer will attack modern translations, saying that these translations attempt to deny the deity of Christ, when it is the modern translations, for example, that correctly translate Titus 2 .13 and 2 Peter 1 .1.
Finally, if the King James was verbally inspired, it isn't anymore, since it has been edited and updated numerous times since 1611. In fact, if you will go out and pick up the 1611 King James Version, you will find that it is very different than the King James Version that you have today.
You couldn't make out most of the words. I mean, Jesus is spelled differently than you'd be expected to, and Son is spelled S-O-N-N-E, and things are very different. In the 1611 original edition of the King James Version, it has been edited and updated many, many times, older spellings removed, etc., etc.
So, if the King James-only people are going to attempt to claim that the King James Version itself was verbally inspired, they better be carrying around the old 1611, and not a modern edition of the King James Version.
Now, to demonstrate what it is the King James-only people are saying, I have chosen two books that form a representative viewpoint. Both are by a gentleman by the name of Norman Ward. One is entitled Famine in the Land, and the other is entitled Perfected or Perverted.
Now, why did I pick these books? Well, they're both published by the late David Otis Fuller's Witch Bible Society, the best known of the King James Version -only groups. These books are representative of the majority of the King James Version -only people.
Famine in the Land is fairly short, it's only 55 pages, and lends itself to a fairly quick reading. And the other book, Perfected or Perverted, is even shorter, it's only 30 pages long, and so we will be able to utilize these to basically bring forward the King James-only position, and then be able to comment on it.
Now, the first book, Famine in the Land, is entitled Famine in the Land, A Shocking Exposé of the Modern Versions of the Bible, by Norman Ward, compiled by a concerned layman. And Mr. Ward, I believe, is a fine Christian man, I do not doubt his sincerity, though I doubt his scholarship and his accuracy in the extreme, as we shall see today.
But this claims to be a shocking expose of the modern versions of the Bible. The book is comprised of nine chapters, entitled Famine in the Land, which is the introduction, two chapters on the supposed preservation of the scripture, in his understanding, called The Bible Tells Me So, and the Importance of Divine Preservation.
Then he has some passages where he draws pictures of, draws a picture of the two views, supposedly, his view, and then the view of those that would oppose the King James only position. Then he talks about the mechanics of preservation, gives some preliminary considerations, the work of Satan, and here he attributes to non -King James Version -only scholars, demonic activity and demonic forces.
Then he talks about the majority tradition, two textual traditions, where he identifies the majority text versus the Alexandrian text. He talks about the Alexandrian tradition, and he paints all non-Byzantine texts as being corrupt, which is untrue, as we shall see.
And then he has a short conclusion. What I'm going to do is present to you his information, and then point out the many errors that would be found in this book. And this is not just in Mr. Ward's books, but they are in many other books as well.
In almost all the King James-only books, you will find these kinds of errors. And unfortunately, many people, many honest Christian individuals, aren't aware of these errors, aren't aware of these problems.
I know that even locally here, I've spoken with people where they have King James Version -only people in their congregations, and these individuals are not aware of the fact that the material that they are reading is in actuality false, or is faulty in its accuracy.
So on the very first page, Mr. Ward says, quote, if we compare these modern versions to the authorized version, King James Version, we note several disturbing differences. We discover that the modern versions change the words of God in as many as 70 ,000 places, unquote.
This is a common claim by the King James-only people, that the Bible has been changed in the modern versions. But you need to recognize that this is circular argumentation. Here, Mr. Ward makes the King James Version the standard, and then accuses the other versions of changes because they're not identical to the King James Version.
Well, obviously, if they're identical, they wouldn't be able to print it. On what basis does he use the word change? Why could not someone utilize, for example, the Bishop's Bible, which was published in 1568, over 40 years before the King James Version, and then accuse the King James Version of changes?
The question is not, are all these Bibles identical to the King James Version? The question is, is the King James Version and its underlying Greek and Hebrew texts as accurate as those texts utilized by modern translations?
So this accusation of changing the Word of God in 70 ,000 places just simply is untrue, and it requires the acceptance of circular logic. On the same page, Mr. Ward says, quote, while the authorized version exalts our Savior, the modern versions attack his deity, his virgin birth, his blood atonement, and his miracles, unquote.
Now, this is a very sweeping generalization, attacking all modern versions, and it's completely false on a number of accounts. First of all, no solid documentation or evidence is brought forward in this book, or in the other book by Mr. Ward, or in other King James Version -only books, to support such a charge.
An examination of other books by men of this viewpoint proves that few of them have ever struggled with a textual variant on their own. In fact, in talking to Mr. Ward this week, I discovered that Mr. Ward does not even own a critical edition of the Greek New Testament.
Second, this charge assumes that all other scholars who would dare disagree with the King James Version -only people are not Christian and wish to attack Christ. We'll look at more on that later. Third, I would challenge anyone to demonstrate on the basis of either text or translation that such translations as the New American Standard Bible or the New International Version demonstrate a doctrinal bias against Orthodox Christianity.
It just simply isn't true. Normally, what these people are referring to is the fact that the Byzantine textual tradition, upon which the King James Version is based, is a rather fulsome text. In other words, it is the largest of the texts with the longest readings.
In this, for example, scribes were very, very want to, if they ran across, for example, in a passage of Scripture that said, Jesus. Well, they'd like to make that Jesus Christ. If they ran across the phrase Jesus Christ, they'd want to put Lord in front of it, Lord Jesus Christ.
And it kept expanding and expanding these titles. Well, the modern translations that are based upon an earlier text will sometimes, from the King James Version -only viewpoint, delete the word Lord or the word Christ and they'll just say Lord Jesus instead of Lord Jesus Christ.
And they take this to be some type of an attack upon the deity of Christ or something like that, which is completely irrational. If these modern translations want to attack the deity of Christ, they'd remove all references to the deity of Christ, which they obviously do not.
And so this attack upon all modern translations simply is not true. On page 2, Mr. Ward says, quote,. Obviously then, these dozens of versions cannot all be the Word of God, exhibiting as they do such differences and contradictions, unquote.
Here, Mr. Ward mistakes translations for the Word of God. The Word of God was written in Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek. It was not written in English, as I mentioned earlier. So he's, again, mistaking the difference between translation of the Word of God and the actual Word of God itself as it was in the original writings by the Apostles and Prophets themselves.
A translation is the Word of God as far as it accurately represents the original. It is not an either-or situation. You cannot sit there and say, well, if we don't all have the exact same translation, then we don't know what the Word of God is.
That makes no sense whatsoever. On pages 2 and 3, and 26 to 28, we read, quote,. The reader must understand, however, that few of these men have the honesty or the intestinal fortitude to give that simple or direct an answer.
He's referring here to scholars who are not, from his perspective, the King James only. They would be marked as being apostate and have to leave their pulpits, classrooms, and ivory towers and look for an honest line of work.
This is their excuse to sin. The antics of these poor fellows would be quite amusing were it not for the seriousness of the issue. Here we have the apostate scholar running around like a cockroach caught in a Chinese fire drill, trying to recover a text that was never lost in the first place.
Now the reason for all this double-dealing is because the apostate scholar or educator or pastor absolutely refuses to accept the fact that the perfect, inerrant, and infallible words of God have been perfectly preserved in a book that is available to anybody in any shopping center in the country.
Such a book would obviously free the Bible believer from a dependence upon the apostate's wisdom, scholarship, and godliness, and worst of all, the book would sit in judgment of the apostate rather than the apostate sitting in judgment of the book, unquote.
In fact, on pages 26 to 28, Mr. Ward uses the term apostate to describe those who would disagree with him a total of 11 times and uses the term huckster once. Now this is a truly sad aspect of the debate.
The King James Only people have made acceptance of their position a tenet of belief and on that basis feel justified in attacking the moral character, the Christian faith, the honesty, intelligence, and motives of anyone and everyone who expresses an opposing viewpoint.
In doing so, they cut themselves off from historic Christianity and even those who make up the basis of their own group. For example, if all who have taken the opposing viewpoint are apostates and against the Lord Jesus, then all the great conservative scholars last century were not Christians.
For example, Benjamin Breckinridge Warfield, the author of the book, Inspiration and Authority of the Bible, would not be a Christian. Dr. Machen, Dr. Hodge, even a man the King James Version Only people have claimed as their own, Dr. Robert Dick Wilson, all accepted modern textual theory.
The greatest Greek scholar America ever produced, Dr. A .T. Robertson, wrote an introduction to textual criticism that followed the modern theories that Ward here identifies as sinful, apostate, and satanic.
Now it is true that we must not worship scholarship itself. At the same time, we must not relegate our brains and our great Christian scholars to the scrap heap. So it is rather sad that the King James Version Only individuals are so willing to attack others.
And what was even more sad is this week in talking to Mr. Ward, who again I would want to emphasize is a kind individual and who is undoubtedly sincere, what was even more sad is my discovery that Mr. Ward probably cannot even read Greek, does not even own a critical edition of the Greek New Testament, and therefore could not possibly be making judgment calls on these issues because of his own expertise, but is obviously simply accepting the words of others and on that basis attacking the individuals who have translated, for example, the New American Standard Bible of the NIV, men who are good Christian individuals who love the Lord Jesus Christ, who love the Bible and believe in inerrancy, but they believe in the classic definition of inerrancy that refers only to the originals themselves and not to some copyist many years down the road.
On page four Mr. Ward says, quote, what we do have is a body of manuscript evidence comprising some 5 ,000 pieces. 95 of this evidence supports the Greek text, received text, that underlies the authorized version, the KJV.
The modern versions, however, are based on a variety of Greek texts such as Westcott and Hort's, Nestle's, and the Bible Society's, but are supported by only 5 of the evidence, unquote. Here and in numerous other places in this book we see a common example of the oversimplification and, as a result, the misrepresentation of the facts.
Ward here says that the modern texts are supported by only 5 of the textual evidence, while his majority text has 95%. Actually, the modern texts, such as the United Bible Society text or the Nestle Alon text, have the support of 100 of the textual data because they take into consideration all textual families rather than just one, such as majority text does.
The modern texts are not simply warmed over Alexandrian texts. Such a claim is either made out of complete ignorance or out of willful misrepresentation. Let's hope it is the former. On page 5 we read, quote, the last thing these men, that is the apostate scholars, want is for you to believe that you actually do have the Word of God because they make their living trying to convince Christians that God lied to them about divine preservation, unquote.
Ward here claims, rather obliquely I might add, that anyone holding to modern textual theory does not believe in the Word of God. What we can't believe in, Mr. Ward, is that the King James translators were infallible, or the scribes who copied the manuscripts upon which the King James Version is based were an errant, or that Desiderius Erasmus, the Roman Catholic priest who compiled the basis of the Textus Receptus, was divinely led in determining which readings he placed in his text.
Just because I don't accept those above items as being a part of my Christian faith does not exclude me from the kingdom of God. In fact, Jesus never said thou shalt accept the Textus Receptus as infallible and be born again to enter into the kingdom of God.
He didn't say that. It's rather sad that someone would claim that this is somehow, by reading the New American Standard Bible, I don't believe in the Bible. That simply does not make any sense. On page 8, Mr. Ward says, quote, God has promised to preserve his Word and what he has promised he is able also to perform, unquote.
Well, I agree, but the issue of preservation has been the bat that the King James Version only people have used to bash modern textual theory over the head and claim that anyone who disagrees with them is lost.
But does the Bible really claim that scribes will be divinely guided in their copying? No, it doesn't. The simple fact that there are not two manuscripts of the New Testament in the whole world that read exactly alike destroys the King James Version argument.
Even the ten or so manuscripts that Erasmus consulted in creating his New Testament contained many variant readings among them and hence Erasmus had to utilize some kind of textual critical process to come up with this text.
I'd rather accept the textual critical process of scholars who believe in the Word of God than just simply one individual, Erasmus, who sort of made things up as he went along. Also, the Textus Receptus itself disagrees with the majority text in hundreds of places.
How can the King James Version defender explain this? Finally, I see the very fact of the existence of textual variation, textual traditions, etc. as God's divine plan of preservation. You see, if all we had was just one text, that's all we had, then there would be a danger that somewhere along the line someone had gathered up all the manuscripts and changed them and deleted a teaching of scripture.
You see, that could never have happened. As soon as the originals themselves were written, copies of them were sent all across the known world and copies of those copies were made and then copies of the copies of the copies were made and so on and so forth.
The very fact that we have text from Egypt and from North Africa and from Spain and from Italy and from Antioch and all across the Mediterranean and Europe and North Africa and Palestine etc. etc. is the very way that God has used to keep the New Testament from being radically altered and changed by those who might wish to radically alter or change it.
This position taken by the King James Version only people simply does not jive with the promises of preservation that God has made. He did promise to preserve his word and we have no doubt whatsoever that the original writings are available to us today.
None at all. In fact, if Mr. Ward would be familiar with the modern textual critical theory and modern textual critical writers such as Dr. Aland, he very clearly says in his book that came out about 1982 called The Text of the New Testament that the question of textual criticism is not trying to come up with the original text.
We have the original text. The question of textual criticism is determining exactly what that is from the variant readings that we have. But the original is not lost. It's not disappeared. It hasn't gone anywhere.
Our job when we engage in textual criticism is determining which of the variant readings the manuscripts give to us is the original one and that can be done and done successfully. Now, on page 31, Mr. Ward tells us that the Alexandrian text is corrupt, that it represents a qualitatively different viewpoint of Jesus Christ, and that Bible-believing scholars have demonstrated the inferiority of these manuscripts.
Intimate, of course, that anyone who disagrees is not a Bible believer. Not one of these statements has any factual backing whatsoever. If we are justified in looking at every textual variant and assigning to it some theological significance, why can we not look at John chapter 14 verse 14 where the King James Version, because of its underlying text, does not have a reference to prayer to Christ and hence an example of his deity and say that the King James Version somehow denies the deity of Christ?
If the King James only people can do that, why can't we? I wouldn't do that because the King James Version translators obviously had no intention of doing that, but the King James Version only people won't give us the same benefit of the doubt.
Why can't I look at first John 3 .1 where modern translations talk about, see what greater love has been given to us that we should be called the children of God and we are. The King James Version doesn't have that phrase and we are.
Does that mean the King James Version was attempted to deny the doctrine of adoption? Obviously not. I would never, never say that, but the King James Version only people say that when they attack other versions.
Do these variations in the text of the King James Version prove some theological bias or desire on the King James Version's part to attack central doctrines? They do not. The passages the King James Version only people refer to as attacking Christ are normally examples of harmonization or conflation as I mentioned earlier, not intentional changing on the part of the Alexandrian tradition.
For example, in his mother. Modern texts talk about his mother and his father. Now these individuals attempt to say that because the modern translations use the term father in reference to Joseph, that somehow the modern translations are denying the virgin birth.
This of course is ridiculous on many bases, but the most obvious one to me is the fact that in the King James Version itself in Luke 2 48, there the King James Version uses the term father of Joseph. Only 15 verses after Luke 2 33.
This type of inconsistency and even just looking all the text itself is unfortunately a part of the hallmark of the King James Version only camp. We're going to look at next the second book by Mr. Ward entitled Perfected or Perverted.
In the shorter book entitled Perfected or Perverted by Mr. Ward, he says on page 6 quote, the underlying Greek text of the AV 1611 is called the Textus Receptus or the Received Text. It is also called the Majority Text because 95 of all manuscript evidence supports this text unquote.
Now in actuality the TR's name came from an advertisement by the Elsevier brothers in 1624, which was 13 years after the publication of the King James Version. The TR is not the Majority Text. In fact, not only does the TR differ from the Majority Text in over 400 places, but there are 12 words in the TR that cannot be found in any Greek text whatsoever.
The TR is basically the same text as published by Desiderius Erasmus in 1522. It was the third edition of Erasmus's text that became the basis of the TR. Now that text was based on only 10 manuscripts available to Erasmus at that time.
Four of those texts came from England, five from Basel, Switzerland, and one manuscript of Revelation was borrowed from Erasmus's friend Johannes Reuchlin. Now Reuchlin's text was the oldest used by Erasmus and was one of the better ones that he had, yet it came from only as early as the 10th or 12th century and was distrusted by Erasmus even at that.
So the oldest text that he had access to he didn't really use much. He desired to use the great Codex Vaticanus, and of course Vaticanus comes in for great disparage and attack from the King James Only people, but Vaticanus was not available to him at the time.
In actuality, the text rested on not more than six minuscule manuscripts, predominantly from the 12th century. It is well known, of course, that Reuchlin's text, the only one of Revelation that Erasmus had available to him, did not contain the last few verses.
That page had basically fallen out, and this forced Erasmus, hurried as he was to complete the project, to translate from the Latin Vulgate into Greek to provide the closing verses. The resulting errors are to us today rather amusing, but they are no end of difficulties for the TR defender.
Some of the words Erasmus even made up, and they remain today in the Textus Receptus despite the fact that they have no manuscript support whatsoever, and indeed they're not even real Greek words. Also missing from the first two editions of Erasmus' Greek text was the famous Comma Johannium, 1 John 5 7.
When people objected to its absence in the first two versions of Erasmus' Greek New Testament, Erasmus wrote to his friend Bombasius in Rome and asked him to consult the Vatican manuscript. Upon hearing that this passage was absent in Vaticanus, Erasmus rather rashly promised that if it could be found in only one Greek manuscript, he would include it in the next edition of his Greek New Testament.
One was quickly written up for the occasion, and Erasmus was forced to include it despite his protests in the third edition, which eventually became the basis of the Textus Receptus. So that is how 1 John 5 7, as it's found in the King James Version, ended up there.
Now on page 7 of Perfected or Perverted, Mr. Ward says, quote, this line of text is written on vellum in classical Greek, referring to the Alexandrian text. Remember the New Testament was written on papyrus in Koine Greek, unquote.
In reality, Mr. Ward was an error at this point and has admitted such to me in the phone conversation we had this week. Actually, all New Testament manuscripts are written in Koine Greek, which means common Greek.
What confused Mr. Ward was the fact that the Alexandrian manuscript tradition contains more Atticisms than the other. Atticisms would be forms of the language that would be sort of like the classical Greek that was used in Greece.
The earliest New Testament manuscripts, such as p52, p66, and most especially p75, are in reality all Alexandrian in text, and of course they're all written on papyri, even though Mr. Ward said that they are written on only vellum.
On page 8, when talking about the Alexandrian text, Mr. Ward says, quote, the story of this corrupt line starts with a man named Origen, unquote. This too is completely false. Indeed, as seen before, papyri manuscript p75 probably predates Origen's rise to prominence in Alexandria, yet it contains an Alexandrian text.
So in other words, we have manuscripts in the New Testament that contain the Alexandrian text that were written before Origen was born. How could he possibly be the father of the Alexandrian text when we have texts that were written before the man was born that are Alexandrian?
Truly unbelievable. In fact, in Famine and Lanum, page 46, Mr. Ward follows the rather amazing error of Peter Ruckman in saying that the Septuagint translation of the Old Testament, the Greek translation of the Old Testament, was actually written by Origen.
This is truly amazing because of the fact that the Septuagint is continuously quoted by Paul the Apostle, who lived a hundred years and more, obviously more than a hundred years before Origen did. Scholars tell us that the Septuagint was translated 250 years before Christ.
Even Jesus quoted from the Septuagint. So obviously Origen didn't write it. On page 10 of Perfected or Perverted, in big capital letters, I'd like to advise you, we read, quote, every Bible published today except for the AV 1611 is based on the work of Westcott and Hort, unquote.
Westcott and Hort come in for unbelievable vilification by the King James Only people, even though, to be perfectly honest with you, I don't think that Mr. Ward and most other King James Only people have ever read anything that was written by Westcott and Hort.
This is simply not true. Modern texts are not slavish reproductions. The Westcott and Hort text of 1881, they are much more eclectic and give much more weight to other readings than the readings given by the Westcott and Hort tradition and text.
This kind of statement shows how little the field is known by the King James Version Only writers. On page 11, for example, of Perfected or Perverted, here we find a terribly unfair and equally inaccurate statement that has no other purpose than to attack Westcott and Hort.
Let me read it to you. From the book it says Westcott and Hort's textual theory can be viewed by the Bible believing Christian as resting on two ungodly assumptions. One, that sometime around the 4th century AD, Jesus Christ failed in his promise to preserve his words and the true text was lost.
And two, that Westcott and Hort could recover this text by applying a man-made theory to the Word of God. This simply is not true. Westcott and Hort never said that the original readings were lost in the 4th century or anything like it.
This is a rather sad statement and I don't understand the reasons why King James Version Only people have to attack Westcott and Hort and to attack their sincerity or anything else. Normally I think it's because of a lack of solid data to back themselves up.
On page 13 of Perfected or Perverted, here Mr. Ward cites two Greek scholars, Dr. Caldwell and Dr. Aland, as having demonstrated that the genealogical method as such has no application to New Testament textual criticism.
This one truly amazed me because given that the cited Aland is the same Aland who is the editor of the Nestle-Aland text as the basis of the NIV and the NAS, it's obvious that Mr. Ward is somewhat confused concerning his Greek scholars.
Dr. Caldwell never rejected that. Dr. Aland never rejects that. They do not reject the modern theory that just simply is historically sound. When people would translate or copy a manuscript, obviously they were copying a manuscript that someone else had copied.
The recognition of this is what is known as the genealogical method. Without going into a lot of detail on that, this just simply is the logical way of viewing how manuscripts came about. The modern textual theories also recognize that there is such a thing as history.
For example, the people who support the majority text, that is, well you've got let's say 5 ,000 manuscripts and you've got a variant reading say at Oh John 118. These people would say what you do is you count up the number of texts that read one way and count up the number of texts read another way and whoever has the most texts wins.
In other words, you don't weigh texts, you count them. If you have 4 ,500 to read one way and only 500 to read another way, well the people with 4 ,500 wins. That sounds logical when at first you think about it.
But when you think about it a little bit longer, you find out that doesn't make any sense at all. Why? Well, because about 90 -95 of those texts come from one particular area, the area around Byzantium.
That's why they're called Byzantine texts. Well, why is it that most of the texts have a Byzantine reading? Well, think about history. By the 4th century, most places except that area were no longer reading or using Greek.
They were using other languages. So obviously the number of texts produced in other areas would drop off. And then remember what happened about the year 700? Remember the Muslims taking over most of the known world and wiping out most Greek-speaking areas except for the area around Byzantium?
Byzantium withstood the Muslim attack until the 1400s. And so from the time of the writing of the New Testament until 1400 years, in one area you have people continuing to use Greek manuscripts. Is it any wonder that the particular text that was popular in that area comprises the majority of our manuscripts?
Well, it's no wonder at all when you actually think about it. And so obviously you cannot simply count manuscripts and say, well, this means this must be original reading because most manuscripts have it.
No, it just means that was the reading in the Byzantine area where they continued to write Greek manuscripts. That's all that really means. But anyhow, on page 14 of the book, Perspective of the Perverted, Mr. Ward says, quote, Codex Sinaiticus was discovered, quite appropriately, in a trash basket at the Monastery of St. Catherine on Mount Sinai in 1859, unquote.
The great Sinaiticus manuscript, of course, is not found in a trash basket. It was in a monk's closet wrapped in a red cloth and was something that was very important to that individual. So again, this is simply a matter of factual error contained in the writings of the King James Only people.
On page 15, Mr. Ward says, quote,. Beyond this, we find that their scholarship was dishonest, unquote, in reference to Prescott and Hort. Given Mr. Ward's numerous errors so far and more to come, it would be best for him to not attack others.
Now, picking up next week, we're going to look at some more of these statements, these claims made by the King James Only people. Then we're going to look at some other specific claims made in a more general way and open it up to you with your questions and your concerns about this issue.
I realize that sometimes we have to address some semi-technical issues when we talk about this subject, but you may just not realize how important this subject really is. There are entire churches in the southern part of the United States that have split over this issue.
Now, something that causes churches to split is rather important to me, because a lot of this is found in Bible-believing churches, churches where Jesus is proclaimed. In fact, I'm sad to say it, many of the people involved in the King James Only controversy are individuals from my own denominational background, that being Baptists.
And it's a sad thing for me to admit that my Baptist brethren could be so ignorant of the history of the New Testament text and where the New Testament text came from, and be so gullible as to accept what other individuals say as being gospel truth without looking it up themselves, that they could fall into things like this.
But many Baptist churches in the southern part of the United States have split, because people have gotten hold of this kind of information, and have then started accusing others who use the New American Standard, the NIV, of being members of the Alexandrian cult, etc., which is just simply ridiculous.
It makes no sense whatsoever. If you are going to be a Christian in today's world, may I suggest that you be an informed one, that you know what it is you believe, why you believe it, where the Bible came from.
That's why we're addressing these issues. That's why we're taking up these challenges. The majority of people involved in the King James Only camp are sincere, honest Christians that love Jesus, but they're just ignorant.
They're ignorant of the facts, and based on their ignorance, they're attacking some of the greatest Christian scholars alive today. Now, when I'm not using either the Hebrew or Greek text, I use the NIV.
For some reason, the NIV comes in for a lot of attacks by the King James Only people. One of the things I did when I got the NIV is I wrote to the translators. I wrote to the translators, and in the back of my NIV, I have a shrunk-down photocopy of the letter I got in return.
It's dated February 19, 1987, and it says, enclosed are two booklets containing the names of the NIV translators and editors, as well as other information about the NIV. In 1966, at the very beginning of the translation process, the Committee on Bible Translation adopted the following statement, quote, in harmony with the expressed objective of the program of the translation, it seems desirable that each person engaged in the work of translation should be clearly on record as to his beliefs.
Everyone is to subscribe the following doctrinal statement, or to a similar statement expressing an equally high view of Scripture, quote, the Bible alone and the Bible in its entirety is the Word of God written and is therefore inerrant in the autograph, unquote.
So what that means is what the NIV translators are saying is, they believe in inerrancy. Now, that's not a very popular position to take in our world today, but they believe in inerrancy, the same thing to be said of the New American Standard Bible translators.
And the fact that the King James Only people can identify these people as being satanic or satanically inspired is a sad thing indeed. I think last week we looked at the King James Only controversy, we looked at a number of the prominent authors, and then we began looking at some specific writings of one of the King James Only authors, Mr. Norman Ward.
The reason we chose Mr. Ward's books were because they are fairly straightforward, and I feel very representative of the mainstream of the King James Only writing. They are not quite as wild and far out as some of the material from Jack Chick or Barry Burton.
They don't contain the rather nasty cartoons that portray individuals such as myself as being hairy beasts hiding behind masks and having devils climbing out of my ears and things like this. But they are rather straightforward in saying that anyone who would espouse the position that I do is in fact an apostate and a hater of the Word of God and demonically inspired, etc., etc.
So it's somewhere in the middle, you might say, of the King James Only writing. We began looking at a number of the errors found in Mr. Ward's material. Errors that I might add are predominantly to be blamed upon Mr. Ward's reliance upon other writers such as Peter Ruckman or David Orris Fuller or some of these others who unfortunately have produced a great deal of material that just simply from a factual and historical level is very faulty.
And so though Mr. Ward might be able to say that these other individuals were the source of this information and he trusted them, if he's going to print it and put his name on it, I guess he takes responsibility for it as well.
We began looking at and documenting from two of his books, one, Famine and the Land, and the other called Perfected or Perverted, these various errors and mistakes that are common to King James Only material.
We had finished looking at the booklet Famine and the Land and had begun looking at the second booklet entitled Perfected or Perverted and had sort of gotten about halfway through it, had about four or five more points to address on that.
Then we were going to look at some basic claims that were not directly addressed by looking at Mr. Ward's material. And then hopefully I'll get done with that fairly quickly and we'll be able to open the phones to your questions.
If you have a question concerning the text of the New Testament, if there's a passage in your Bible that you see a footnote on in your translation that you're wondering, why is there a footnote here? What does this mean?
I do have a critical edition of the Greek New Testament with me today. But getting back to what Mr. Ward says in his book, Perfected or Perverted, on page 14 of this booklet he says, speaking of Westcott and Hort, which we had finished off with last week in that they were attacking the scholarship and veracity of Westcott and Hort, on page 14 he says, quote, in other places where they, that is Westcott and Hort, could not find any manuscript evidence to contradict the Textus Receptus, they simply invented their own reading.
Where do they do this? One of the many places is James 5 .16, where they changed faults to sins. Why did they do this? Because the Westcott and Hort text is a Roman Catholic text, unquote. Now the James 5 .16 is talking about confessing one's faults to one another or one's sins to one another, and of course you can see why he accuses Westcott and Hort text of being a Roman Catholic text, because they changed faults to sins.
Well, they didn't change faults to sins, of course. Here Mr. Ward claims that there is no manuscript evidence to support what Westcott and Hort did. That's unfortunate. Mr. Ward did not consult a critical text in the New Testament.
In fact, I do not believe he owns one. The reading of sins, which Westcott and Hort have, is the reading of Sinaiticus, Vaticanus, Alexandrinus, Psi, P, 048338161463012417392495, and many others. And so obviously, when he says there is no manuscript evidence, he's simply wrong.
This type of thing continues on on page 15. He says, quote, in Luke 23 .42, the reading in every known piece of manuscript evidence, and that is in italics and hence is emphasized, is, quote, and he said to Jesus, Lord, remember me when you come into your kingdom, is the passage that he's quoting.
The Westcott and Hort either felt that Lord was beyond your understanding, or else they didn't like the idea of his being Lord of your life, unquote. Again, the simple facts are missed by Mr. Ward. P75, which is one of the earliest manuscripts of the Gospel of Luke, does not say what they say it says.
Neither does Vaticanus, or El, or the Sahitic version, or the Boheric, or Sinaiticus, or others. Remember, it was Mr. Ward who said that every known piece of manuscript evidence said that. But that's not the case.
Not every known piece of manuscript evidence says that at all. This kind of purely simple mistake really does not bode well for either Ward's scholarship, or those upon whom he is dependent for his information.
On page 18, here Mr. Ward does something that really doesn't have anything to do with underlying text, but in fact has to do with translation. And this is an issue that we have addressed, and we've talked about the deity of Christ.
In John 118, you find the word monogamies in the Greek language, which, as we discussed when we talked about the oneness teachings, etc., etc., I pointed out is best translated, unique. In fact, the NIV translates John 118 and uses the term, the one and only God.
Instead of using the term unique, they use one and only. The NAS, I think, says one and only as well, or that are unique, as I recall, one of two. But be that as it may, the point is this. Mr. Ward here attacks the NIV and says that the NIV translation does not even translate it at all.
And then he gives us some Greek information here now. Mr. Ward does not read Greek, so he's obviously drawing this from someone else. He says that the word begotten is a translation of the Greek word monogamies.
It comes from two Greek words, monos and gonaos. Monos means alone or only. Gonaos means begotten or begat, but the NIV does not translate this at all. Again, Mr. Ward's scholarship is about 400 years behind the times.
Monogamies does not come from monos and gonaos. It comes from monos and genos. Genos means kind or type. So monogamies means one of a kind or unique, not only begotten one. So there is obviously a problem here with Mr. Ward's scholarship.
And in fact, it's the NIV that does the best job in bringing out the meaning of that word in John 1 .18. And in fact, it's vital to understand that when dealing with the theology of John 1 .18. On page 19, Mr. Ward lists about 60 places where supposedly the NIV changes, and that is his terminology, not mine, the Bible in an attempt to attack the duty of Christ.
And this is rather intriguing because when I spoke with Mr. Ward, he indicated that one of the things that got him into studying this subject was encounters with Jehovah's Witnesses, in which the discussion of the duty of Christ would come up.
Well, that's the same thing with me. One of the first times I started noticing the inferiority of the textual tradition upon which the King James Version was based, and the translation thereof, was because of my dealing with the classical text and scripture that prove the deity of Christ.
And I mentioned one last week, where in Titus 2 .13, the King James Version misses a syntactical rule of Greek grammar known as Granville Sharpe's rule, where actually the NAS and the NIV are correct in translating Titus 2 .13 as our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ.
The King James Version doesn't translate it that way, and you don't have a direct description of deity to Christ in Titus 2 .13 or in 2 Peter 1 .1. It was also directly relevant to Jehovah's Witnesses.
When I discovered John 14 .14, which in your modern translations would say, basically has a reference of prayer to Christ. If you ask me anything in my name, I will do it. It's the King James Version and the New World Translation of Jehovah's Witnesses that deletes that saying, me, if you ask me anything.
It just simply says, if you ask anything in my name, I will do it. Now, obviously, the King James Version translators were not attempting to deny prayer to Christ and the duty of Christ or anything like that.
Of course, the King James Version wouldn't give us the same freedom. But that is what brought me into the subject and noticing these issues was my encounter with Jehovah's Witnesses. Here on page 19, the best, in my opinion, and I've done a lot of study on this issue, the best modern version, Christologically speaking.
In other words, the version that does the absolute best in translating the major references to the deity of Christ in both the Old and New Testaments is the NIV. And yet this is the one that Mr. Ward chooses to attack for attacking the deity of Christ, which is simply, is completely untrue.
Mr. Ward writes, quote, in not a single one of these instances is there manuscript evidence to warrant this denial, unquote. That is the supposed change. All of them that he has are simply conflations or expansions where you had, it said Lord Jesus, the King James Version has Lord Jesus Christ.
The NIV doesn't have Christ there because that was an expansion, it was an addition at a later time. And they've gone back to the earlier text, which obviously should always be our desire is to have the earliest text, the text closest to the originals.
But here by listing these, he attempts to say that the NIV is somehow attacking the deity of Christ and in doing so says there is not a single bit of manuscript evidence to warrant this denial. Or is this true?
No, it is not true as normal. The last citation of Mr. Ward's Revelation 1217, where he says the NIV, quote, deletes, unquote, the word Christ. The NIV and all the modern versions, because the underlying text simply says Jesus and the King James Version says Jesus Christ.
Now, does the NIV have textual warrants to do this? Mr. Ward says it doesn't. But the fact again is that the vast majority, the vast majority of texts, and I'm not just talking about Alexandrian text or Western, but including the Byzantine manuscript tradition, the vast majority of texts do not contain the word at that point.
So obviously Mr. Ward has not done his homework in attempting to say these things and in the process attacks the NIV translation from a position of complete error. The last thing we'll look at in Mr. Ward's book is on page 20 where he discusses the translation of 1 Timothy 3 .16, which is an important text.
It talks about, in the King James Version, it says God was manifest in the flesh. The NAS, NIV, and others have he who was manifest in the flesh. Now, in our textual criticism seminar, those tapes are available, by the way, if you're interested in the subject of textual criticism.
We have the textual criticism seminar on tape now. It's one tape, 90 minutes long, with a booklet and examples that go along with it that's available from Alpha and Omega Ministries, but we discuss this particular verse during the seminar and point out that the difference between he who and God was, in unsealed texts, nothing more than one line difference, one small line difference.
And I admit there is strong evidence for the reading of God. It's actually pretty well split down the middle between the two readings. But the point is not that. The point is, and Mr. Ward says the quote, of some 254 manuscripts that contain 1 Timothy 3 .16, 252 read God was manifest in the flesh.
The weight of evidence, 252 against 2, supports the reading of the AV 1611, or King James Version, unquote. Again, is this true? Can you trust Mr. Ward's scholarship and his facts? No. Again, it's an error.
The word he who, which in Greek is hos, is read by Sinaiticus, Alexandrinus, C .G. 33, 365, 442, 2127, Lectionary 599, Assyriac, Gothic, Ethiopic, and a number of church fathers. That sounds a whole lot more than two manuscripts to me.
So much for careful scholarship. This is all the more sad in light of Ward's seeming willingness to impugn the motivations of and attack his scholarship of the men who translate the MAV and NASB. Both groups of men were fine Christian scholars.
Both groups assert the full inerrancy of God's Word, yet Ward, himself completely ignorant of the scholarly issues involved, can say, quote, we have gone to some length in listing these examples in order to prove that the modern Bibles are Christ-denying perversions of the Word of God, unquote.
Well, they are not. The evidence is clear that they are not, and hopefully you will not be taken in by this type of false information. There are some other specific claims of the King James Only people that I would like to address quickly.
Many of the King James Only people will attempt to assert, and these are some of the more moderate individuals, that the Byzantine text, and let me explain again that the Byzantine text is the underlying text of the Textus Receptus, which is the text of the King James Version in the New Testament, is quite early.
That is, it is one of the earliest of the manuscript traditions. Yes, certain readings of the Byzantine text are quite early, but definitely not the entire textual tradition. The common claim is made that, for example, the Peshitta Version, which contains some Byzantine readings in the Gospels, dates from the 2nd century.
Such a viewpoint can no longer be maintained against scholarly evidence. Another is that the Old Latin Version originated in the 2nd century, and that this fact somehow supports the Byzantine textual tradition, since, according to the King James Only people, the Old Latin contains Byzantine readings.
While it must be admitted that the Old Latin does indeed contain Byzantine readings, this alone does not tell the whole story. None of the Byzantine readings are found only in the Byzantine tradition.
They are also found in the Western tradition. Hence, the origin of those readings is not necessarily from the Byzantine tradition. Early Church Fathers also provide evidence that, while we must look at each individual case on its own merit, as a general rule, the Fathers were unfamiliar with the Byzantine text.
Another claim, and this one just rolls me over, this lack of early evidence, those who admit that there is a lack of early evidence for the Byzantine text, is due to the manuscripts wearing out because they were copied so often.
This is honestly an excuse made by individuals to explain why there is no evidence of the Byzantine text in early form. Very popular argument, but where is the evidence of this? There is none. Absolutely pure speculation.
And, if it were so, what happened to all those copies that were made in the process of wearing them out? I mean, if these are the ones that are being copied the most, why don't we have copies of them left?
Because there would be the most copies of them around. Anyways, when you've got to search for stuff, you've got to search for stuff. Another common claim, the King James is the bestseller. That is evidence of God's approval.
And, if one of the modern versions outsells the King James version, what then? Is that evidence that God has removed his approval? Actually, in November of 1986, the King James was outsold by the NIV version, and I believe it has pretty much stayed that way since then.
Does that indicate that God has changed his approval? No longer. The King James has been replaced by the NIV because it is the biggest seller now, and so, therefore, it has God's approval. I don't think the bestseller list really has something to do with inspiration, but there are those people who say, hey, this has been the Bible that's been around the longest, and most people have been saved by reading out of it.
Well, English-speaking people, anyways. Some of these people forget that there are a lot of people in the world who don't speak English, but that means that's the one you should use. Well, anyways, in conclusion, the King James version has long been the main English translation of the Holy Scriptures.
It was, at its time, the most accurate translation available, and please do not get me wrong, since I have to deal with such extreme positions as those taken by Norman Ward or Peter Ruckman or David O. Stoller or Ray and Hill and all these other writers, I might sound like I am just terribly negative on the King James version.
I grew up on the KJV. I have no problem with the KJV as long as you understand what it is. It is exactly what its translator said it was, an imperfect translation. There is no perfect translation in English.
Nobody is going to claim an errancy for translators. The KJV translators never claimed an errancy for themselves. They admitted that they would make mistakes. That's why they wanted to give alternate renderings when they wouldn't be totally sure of how something should be translated.
The KJV, even given the textual differences of its underlying Greek text and New Testament, still is going to have the identical reading with these other translations, NAS, NIV, that have a more modern, up-to-date text that goes farther back to the original itself, that they are going to agree with one another 95 of the time easily.
And there is going to be no doctrinal difference whatsoever between the modern Greek text, such as the UBS text or the Nestle-Alon text, and the TR. There is no doctrinal difference. It just simply isn't.
So don't get me wrong. I am not out to stop everybody from using the King James version. If you happen to like these and vowels and things like that, that's fine with me. It took me a long time to convert from the King James version to the NAS, because I just wasn't used to something I could understand quite that clearly.
But yeah, as it may, even though the textus receptus is not as accurate as a modern eclectic text, the difference is minimal and absolutely no doctrine of faith rests upon any disputed passage. In fact, the TR itself is miraculous in its accuracy, given its textual history and the circumstances under which it was produced.
When you realize that it's basically the work of Erasmus, who was attempting to get out his earliest Greek text before somebody else did, and that it was, as he said, precipitated rather than edited, and contained numerous errors of innocence, even Erasmus admitted, given that as its background, starting off terribly on the wrong foot, it's still a miraculously accurate text for all of that.
However, it is completely unnecessary and indeed very damaging for certain elements within the Church to attack the work and results of many of the greatest Christian scholars of our day, and they will attack.
I just recently ordered some more King James-only material, so I have all of it in my library, and one of the things I was ordering was from a place in Florida, and one of the books I ordered was entitled, Satan's Masterpiece, the New American Standard Version.
Well, there is no such thing as a New American Standard Version, it's the New American Standard Bible. They continue to miscite that, but the New American Standard, the Bible open there on the table right in front of me, according to this, has this devil coming out from behind this Bible, and it's called Satan's Masterpiece.
This kind of attack, I even heard of some of the translators, the NAS, my parents went back to the South, well they didn't come from the South, I guess you can't go back to the South, but they went and visited some relatives in the South a number of years ago, and they were told a story while they were there of some of the NASB translators themselves, who were in churches where the pastors would get up, and these people were deacons, and they were leaders in the church, and the pastors would get up and absolutely blast the NASB as being the very work of Satan himself, and here are some of the translators sitting in the very front row, and obviously the person standing up there saying this wouldn't know a Greek letter if it hit him in the face, but they just know that these people are satanically inspired, etc., etc., and it's a sad, sad thing to see, and there were many church splits that resulted from this, and continue to result from this today.
The men who produce such works as the New American Standard Bible and the International Version, or such Greek texts as the Nestle-Alan text, the United Bible Society's text, were and are just as God-fearing and loyal to Christ as those who produced the KJV.
Indeed, the translators of the King James, based on their introduction to their readers, would have applauded the efforts of our modern textual critics. It is a shame that we must even address such issues as this one.
It is true that some versions, and I would say most notably the Revised Standard Version, display a disturbing liberal bias. However, it is wrong to attribute such a bias to all modern versions indiscriminately.
So I am not saying to simply close your eyes and believe whatever is told you from anybody. Check it out yourself, and when you do check it out yourself, you can discover, for example, that the Revised Standard Version, I think, has some very weak basis for some of the renderings that it gives.
But you don't throw the baby out with the bathwater and retreat into an anti-intellectual, anti-scholarly position that simply rejects all information that doesn't happen to agree with your favorite translation as being somehow unholy or satanic or demonic or something along those lines.
So, what does all that add up to? If you have the New American Standard Bible, the NIV, you have an excellent, excellent translation. If you're looking for, in my opinion, the best English translation from a literal viewpoint, it's the New American Standard Bible.
If you're looking for the best English translation that gets to the meaning and idiomatic phrases of Greek but is less literal, NIV, the International Version. Those two are going to set you on a very strong basis.
The underlying Greek texts are the best Greek texts that we have, the result of the greatest amount of scholarship that we have, and you can trust them and you can deal with them. Again, even then, the differences that you would find between the NAS and the King James Version would never, ever affect any cardinal doctrine of the Christian faith whatsoever.
And we've got one caller on line one, and let's talk to Bob in Tempe. Hello, Bob. Hi, Jim. How are you doing? Good. I'm one of those people that advocate.
The King James, as far as that's concerned. I would like to say that I think you were very negative in your approach, and I got the impression in listening to you the other day that anyone who believes the King James is ignorant and gullible, and I'd like to say that I don't.
Really agree that that's a good way to look at it. Well, now, wait a minute. When you say you believe in the King James, what I said was an individual who would say that the King James translation is the only translation an individual could use, and is, in fact, inerrant as a translation, that all the translations are demonically inspired, that that kind of a situation does, indeed, warrant the charge of ignorance of the historical issues.
But I wasn't saying that an individual who uses the King James version, such as my own father frequently does,.
Makes that individual ignorant. Well, would you say, then, that it's not inerrant? No,.
The Bible is inerrant, as it was written in Hebrew and Greek, but translations are not inerrant. Translators are not inspired to inerrancy. Well, the people that wrote the Bible, were they inerrant? Well, no, the Scriptures are inerrant, not the people themselves.
There are no errors in Scripture. Scripture is inspired, as described by Paul, as being theanoustos, that is, God breathed. Nowhere does it say that the men themselves were theanoustos. If you look at Paul's writing, he says all Scripture is inspired by God.
Not all writers of Scripture, but the Scriptures themselves, as they are written, are completely and totally.
Inerrant in the autograph. Yes. All right, so then, from that standpoint, if the person says that the people who wrote the Bible were human, but they were divinely inspired to give up the originals, and of course you don't have the originals, what way do you have to prove that.
Even the Greek texts that you have are inspired? Well, there's no one who could, on any type of factual basis anyways, I do know some atheists that do, but they don't know anything about the issue. There's no way that anyone who knows the field at all could question that what we have in our Greek texts today, or even if you would take the Textus Receptus, which you would consider to be better, is not an accurate reflection of that which was originally written.
There is no ancient book in existence anywhere that can boast even a tenth of the manuscript tradition and evidence that we have today. But of the entire New Testament text, 85 of the text exhibits absolutely no variation whatsoever.
Of that remaining 15%, 95 of that is so easily resolved that there is no question left. So you're left with approximately three-quarters of 1 of text where we have to apply a good deal of thought and consideration to the variant readings that we have, but let it also be pointed out, as I emphasize strongly in the Textual Criticism Seminar, that there is no question whatsoever that we have the original text.
No question at all. For example, I mentioned 1 Timothy 3 .16. There are two variant readings there. One is theos, one is hos. One of those two, beyond any question, is the original. Our job in dealing with textual criticism is to determine which of those two it is, but no matter what anyone could possibly say, one of those two is the original reading.
Dr. Aland, who comes in for a good deal of attack by the King James Only people, who is, in fact, the greatest New Testament textual critical scholar in the world today, the editor of both the UBS and Nestle Aland texts, points out very strongly in his book, The Text of the New Testament, that the main characteristic of the New Testament text is that it is tenacious.
Once a reading appears, it will stay there. Even if it makes no sense at all, it will stay there. Now, that means that the original is not going to disappear. The original is there. There is no question about that at all, and Dr. Aland would not take as conservative a view of inspiration and errancy as I would, yet he's the one who said it.
Well, but that doesn't.
Really augur for a thing that you have it. If you say, well, one side says this, and the other side says that, and we've got to make a distinction between which one says what. What do you mean.
What side? What do you mean when you say one side says something? What do you mean by that?
Well, let's look at, take Revelation 8 .13. Okay. What does your Bible read for who is.
Proclaiming the gospel in Revelation 8 .13? Well, now, read what the King James Version.
Says, so we can see what it says. The King James Version says that...
I have the 1611 KJV here, which would be quite different than yours, but we'll look at that.
Later. I have it also. And another angel, I'm sorry, 8 .13 says that, and I beheld and heard an angel flying through the midst of heaven, saying with a loud voice, woe, woe, woe to the inhabitants of the earth, I reason, the other voices.
Now, what does your New International.
NIV says? As I watched, I heard an eagle that was flying in midair call out in a loud voice, woe, woe, woe to the inhabitants of the earth, because the trumpet blast about to be sounded.
By the other three angels. Now, there is a difference between an eagle and an angel,.
Is there not? Oh, yes, most definitely. And it's interesting that the text that I have, the United Bible Society text, does not even list the variant, which would indicate that the textual evidence behind it is extremely poor.
Let me point out something to you. When Erasmus compiled his Greek New Testament. But the King James is not an Erasmus compilation. Oh, wait a minute. Wait, wait a minute, Bob. The Textus Receptus. The underlying text of the King James Version is, with very few changes, the third edition of Erasmus' text.
Okay, without hardly any changes whatsoever. In fact, the Book of Revelation is the poorest section of the Textus Receptus. Erasmus' scribe made numerous, numerous errors in the Book of Revelation in writing, and he would put words together, he would take other words apart, he would misspell words, etc., etc.
There are many words in the Textus Receptus in Revelation that are not found in any Greek manuscript in existence in the entire world. Well, I take exception there, but let me wait a minute. When you say you take exception, why?
Well, in the Episcopal Dedicatory, you're calling 47 scholars of the King James liars. No, no, no, no, no, no. Come on, Bob. Let's keep this.
On a scholarly level. They said, out of the original sacred tongues, together with comparing of our labors, both in our own and other languages, of many worthy men who went before us, there should be one more exact translation of the Holy Scripture.
Now, they're talking about.
Translation. They're not talking about text there. They do talk about the ancient languages. They talk about the ancient languages, but no one disagrees that the TR, as it exists, you can pick up a TR today, you can order a TR from various places and look at it, you can look at that, and you can compare it with what Erasmus wrote, and it's the same thing.
It's.
Based on Erasmus' text. It's not based on Erasmus' text. It may be close to the same.
Thing, but it's not based on Erasmus' text. Which text is it? Stephen's text of 1551, right? It could be any of those. No, no, no, no, no, no. There's no question whatsoever among scholars that the text of the TR is, in fact, Stephen's text, which is, in fact, Erasmus' third edition.
There's no question from anyone on that. And then 47 scholars are liars when they... What do you mean liars? What are they lying about? They said that they took them from the original tongues and... That was the TR.
And compared with many other...
Translations, like the Bishop's Bible, all those other translations.
No, no, no. Comparing many worthy men who went before us.
Well, so, that does not change the fact that the underlying Greek text is the Texas Receptus, that that's what they utilized, and when it says they translated out of the Greek and Hebrew,.
They did. It would have been very easy for them to say that.
They weren't lying about anything. They were using the text that was the common text at the time that they translated, and that was the Texas Receptus, which, of course, was not called the Texas Receptus at that time.
Right. It didn't become called that until 1624 when Yellsbear Brothers attempted to advertise it,.
And that's where the name came from. One other thing, I'll get off there, but you can see that there are some things that you're saying that are kind of... And you have said there's absolutely no proof for this or something else, and then you drop it from that standpoint, whereas you took this one guy and you have kind of submerged him, but I haven't heard you reply against Dean Bergen, for instance, in the last 12 verses of Mark 16.
Well, obviously, dealing with Mark 16, 9 -20 would take quite an amount of time that would be outside the realm of a brief discussion of the whole KJV-only controversy, but we have, for a number of years, offered a paper throughout the mega-ministries that deals with that very issue.
Mark 16, 9 -20, Scripture, not the evidence, and we'd be glad to send it to you. Is there a part of the Bible? Excuse me? Mark 16, 9 -20? No. You say it's not? No. Okay, then you're wrong. Okay, well, let's deal with facts and issues like I keep providing to you references and facts and things like that, and you keep saying, well, you're wrong.
That's fine, but let's deal with the issues. Let's not get into an emotional battle. Let's deal with the actual facts as they stand. That's right. And I can demonstrate and I can substantiate everything I said concerning Erasmus' text and Erasmus' work on that.
I have an entire paper on Desiderius Erasmus and his work that would reference everything that I just said, and I'd be glad to provide it to you and anybody else who would wish to question that material.
That'd be fine. And then you took monogamies just a little while ago, and you said that the best rendition of it was the one and only. Yes, uh-huh. In your New American Standard, John 3, 16 reads, For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten.
Yes, I'm well aware of that. The New American Standard maintains a number of the ASV readings upon which it is based, but that doesn't change the lexical meaning of monogamies. Well, then they were lying about that, weren't they?
They're not lying.
Why do you keep saying lying? Well, you're saying that one and only should not be only begotten.
As long as you understand what only begotten means, as long as you don't think that means that the sun all of a sudden came into existence at some point in time, monogamies, the issue is not how the NAS translates it.
The issue is, what does monogamies mean? Look it up in a modern lexical source that takes into consideration the papyri that were found back in the 1930s, the massive amount of information we have today, and you'll discover that modern information that has so much more background to it will demonstrate that monogamies means one-of-a-kind, unique.
Well, then these scholars weren't too awfully good in the New American Standard, were they?
No, it has nothing to do with that at all. Well, if you feel free to attack them on that basis, that's your business, but I just think.
You should be able to attack the King James.
I'm dealing with the facts, not the translators. When have I ever attacked the translators of the King James Version? One thing that I've said against them. Anywhere. You can't provide it. We've got another caller coming in, and I just hope that points something out to you there, Bob.
Yeah, you're very biased. No, I'm not very biased. I came from that perspective, and I looked at this thing from a very critical viewpoint. And to deal with this issue, I have had to look at the facts.
And I am looking at the facts. And I don't think that many of the people that... Well, I guess we lost Bob there, hung up on us. But we are looking at the factual issue as it is presented, and we're going with it from that direction.
Real quickly, we go to Scott Steele with Jess. Hi, Jess. Hello.
How are you doing? Yes, I have one quick question I wanted to ask. I keep several different translations in my home. In fact, I use the New Amplified New Testament.
Well, the Amplified, I don't know a lot about. I think it does utilize more of a modern textual tradition than the Textus Receptus. I've listened to people read from it, and man, though it does, I think, a fairly decent job in bringing out some of the nuances of the language, it seems awfully hard sometimes to follow because it does.
You know what I mean? I would never use it for public reading, for example. But as far as I would suggest to an individual who does not have the opportunity of learning the languages for themselves, having a number of translations around, such as the King James Version, which is frequently the most literal, and the NAS, and the NIV, and something like the Amplified Bible, you read four or five different translations of the same passage, and you are going to get a much better feel or sense of what those scholars are attempting to communicate than if you just use one translation.
That's exactly why I have several. Exactly. See, I think a lot of the King James-only people have a problem with the fact that we are English-speaking people, and Paul did not speak English, and he did not write in English, and he did not express himself in English, and English is sometimes good for representing what is found in, for example, the Greek language, but in actuality, Greek is much more expressive than English is.
I agree with you.
In fact, Dave Brown of our own ministry will frequently utilize the probably worst translation of the Bible in existence, the New World Translation of Jehovah's Witnesses, and even with the slaughter job they did on it, you can still present the Gospel from it.
Sure. And, you know, you can still do that, and so I have no problem with that. I would mention, since no one's really brought it up yet, but since you mentioned it, you've talked about translations. They're also paraphrases.
I have. The Living Bible, I sort of choke when I see people attempting to do a real study out of it, to be perfectly honest with you, because... It's good reading, though. Yeah, it's good reading if you want to just simply read something, but realize you're reading one man's thoughts, one man's paraphrase of what he feels the Scripture is saying.
I don't think if you really want to dig down into a passage and deal with what it says in the original languages, that you're going to want to deal with the Living Bible so much. But, yes, I would say that for an individual that is in that situation, the NAS is the best.
The NIV will sometimes give you a nuance that the NAS will not. The only reason I carry the NIV is because I also carry both the Greek and Hebrew texts, and if I want a literal translation, I can get that from the text itself, but sometimes I will not know the nuances that the NIV will bring out, so if I carry them all together, I'll be able to get a wider range of material when I'm separated from my library.
So that's the reason I carry it.
Yes. Okay. Appreciate your program. Okay, thank you very much, Jess. Bye-bye.