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

And to present yourself approved to God, a worker who does not need to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.

Alpha and Omega Ministries presents the Dividing Line radio broadcast. The Apostle Peter commanded all

Christians to be ready to give a defense for the hope that is within us. Yet to give this answer with gentleness and reverence.

Your host is Dr. James White, director of Alpha and Omega Ministries and an elder at the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church.

If you'd like to talk with Dr. White, you can call now by dialing 602 -274 -1360. That's 602 -274 -1360.

Or if you're out of the Metro Phoenix dialing area, it's 1 -888 -550 -1360.

That's 1 -888 -550 -1360. And now, with today's topic, here's

James White. Good afternoon and welcome to Dividing Line. My name is James White, and if you've been listening over the past number of weeks, you know that we have been providing a response to the

Southwest Radio Church's airing of a four -part series attacking my book,

The King James Only Controversy. The first programs I heard were hosted by Larry Sparge and his guest was

Dr. D .A. Waite. And then as I went to their website and started downloading things,

I discovered that, in point of fact, Dr. Waite's programs were the second two to be aired.

The first two to be aired were with Dr. Sparge and Dr. Theodore Liedis.

And so today, we're going to finish up responding to Dr. Waite and then transition into responding to the two programs with Dr.

Theodore Liedis. And I hope that you'll find this to be very useful information to you. I know that sometimes issues of text, sometimes issues of translation, some people might say, ah, you shouldn't talk about that type of thing.

But if we don't talk about it, who's going to? That's part of what we do with Alpha and Omega Ministries and Dividing Line.

We deal with issues that need to be dealt with and that a lot of other folks are not even touching. So we continue with our study, our response, to the

Southwest Radio Church. And the first section we want to listen to is a statement made by Dr. Sparge, you know, about Desiderius Erasmus, the

Roman Catholic priest who originated the text type, the form of the text, known as the

Textus Receptus. Listen to what he says. Mr. Waite says, well, Erasmus was a

Catholic. And he's trying to argue that we're using a Catholic Bible. But of course, his text, the

Erasmian text, never became the official text of the Roman Catholic Church. And it never had the imprimatur of the

Roman Catholic Church. Isn't that correct? Now here is yet another example of where this particular review falls miserably short.

The reason that I brought up Desiderius Erasmus and the Roman Catholic controversy was to demonstrate the double standards that King James Only advocates, and especially

D. A. Waite, use. That is, the idea is, they look at, for example, someone like Wescott and Hort, and they say, oh,

Wescott and Hort believe terrible things. Terrible, terrible things. And so, obviously, since they were heretical, that means that the text that they touched, the text that they promoted, that must be heretical as well.

And so I turn that around, as you can with every King James Only argument, and say, all right, the text type that is used in the

King James Version New Testament is known as the Textus Receptus. And anyone who knows the history of this particular text knows that the

King James translators utilized a number of things. They utilized the five editions of Erasmus, and Edward F.

Hills mentions this in his book when he discusses this issue. They used Stephanus, and they used

Beza. And so, if that's the case, and of course Stephanus and Beza were drawing from Erasmus the whole time, and in fact, the very readings in the book of Revelation that Erasmus came up with that weren't in any

Greek manuscript are found in the King James Version as well. So they clearly were dependent upon Erasmus' work as it came to them through other sources and as they used it directly.

Since that's the case, and Erasmus was a Roman Catholic priest who wrote in defense of transubstantiation, then does it not follow, if we're consistent, if the arguments we use against others can't be turned upon ourselves, if we're consistent, does it not follow that the

TR should be rejected, because it is the work that came from a Roman Catholic priest?

That's why I brought it up. And, of course, Dr. Spargimino has completely missed my point. That's not what

I was saying. I was not saying that the King James Version is a Catholic Bible. What I'm saying is

Erasmus was a Roman Catholic priest, and therefore the arguments that they use are self -contradictory.

So again, the simple reading of the text would have cleared up this misconception, but it gets worse.

Listen to Dr. Waite's response. That's absolutely correct. And to say that he does, that our

King James Bible, Greek text, came from Erasmus, is absolutely and totally false.

He was 1516, and the King James Bible translators used the text of Visa, 5th edition, 1598, 82 years later.

Well, as I've already pointed out, Dr. Waite is simply avoiding the issue here.

There is no question, as I mentioned earlier, Dr. Edward F. Hills, who Theodore Ledis, who was their guest the preceding two days, promotes as a tremendous scholar.

We'll hear a little bit later on how they just promote Hills as just this tremendous in -depth scholar.

If Dr. Waite would read his book, then he would know that the King James translators used

Erasmus, used Stephanos, and used Visa. And, as I pointed out, it's obvious to anyone, the very strange readings in the last section of Revelation about Erasmus having to rush to get his first edition to print, where he, in essence, translated from the

Vulgate into Greek, and created a number of words that have never been seen in any

Greek manuscript before that, those readings are in the King James version of the

Bible, and they're in what's called the Texas Receptus today. So it's a factual matter, and again,

I would love to have Dr. Waite on, because I'd like to show these facts to him and say, could you please now answer for your assertion that James Waite is totally wrong here, in light of the facts.

And that's why, again, up to this point, we have received no response whatsoever from Dr.

Waite and from his ministry, though we keep trying. So, again, there's no question on this, but Dr.

Waite continued on. Now, this is what they like to do. They take the position that Erasmus is the source, first of all, the

Texas Receptus, which is false. The Texas Receptus, traditional text, started with the Apostolic Era, and all Erasmus did was put it in the press.

That's right, he didn't invent it. He didn't invent it. Now, if you think back to last week, or if you're listening via the internet, if you go back and listen to, actually it was the week before last, where we played a section from the debate that Dr.

Waite and I did, you will know that when I presented him with specifics of the

Texas Receptus, where it differs from the majority text, he had no idea what

I was talking about. He refused to engage those passages. He said, well, you know, we don't want to talk about specific verses.

Let's go talk about my specific verses. We don't want to talk about specific words. We want to go and talk about these other words that I want to talk about.

And in fact, when I pointed him to, as I recall, 2 Timothy 2 .19, where the

Texas Receptus has the word Christ, and the Greek manuscripts have the word Lord, it was evident he had never even seen this before.

And so we see over and over again that D. A. Waite confuses the majority text and the Texas Receptus.

There are over 1800 differences between the two. And so how are we to handle them?

I guess sweep them under the rug. Say, oh, no, no, no, no, no, no. The King James is only based upon Babeth.

It's not based upon anything that Erasmus did. So we don't have to worry about this. We don't have to even deal with these arguments.

Again, here's why both sides need to be on at the same time. Because when they're both on at the same time, the listener can hear whether Dr.

Waite can defend his assertions, or whether he can only make them when he has a Dr. Spargemino to go, yes, yes, you're exactly right, way to go, brother.

You see, that's why, for example, in scholarly journals, when you write an article for a scholarly journal, it has to go through what's called peer review.

There has to be this opportunity for someone to go, no, wait a minute, you've totally missed the boat here.

And King James only scholarship cannot survive peer review. And so that kind of review doesn't take place.

But he wasn't finished. Listen to this. And then to say that the King James Bible is based on the

Erasmus text rather than Basel, Visa's text, rather, there, 83 years later, is simply false.

Of course, the reason they do it, and we can understand that, they want to nail us down that Erasmus was a

Roman Catholic. And secondly, that he was a humanist. Well, he wasn't a humanist when we talk about secular humanism today.

All he meant was he was here for the humanities and humanitarian processes. It wasn't archaic humanism at all.

And as far as being a Catholic, did you know, Brother Spargemino, that this man, Erasmus, is buried in a

Protestant church cemetery? He's right there in Basel. We have a friend, Dr. Khoo.

Dr. Khoo, he's a Chinese Christian. I think he travels around. Maybe he was a South Korean Christian.

He travels around, speaks to people all over the country, to the Koreans. And he's from Basel.

And he showed me, in fact, he gave me photographs and pictures of Erasmus' grave. And so, as far as being a real strong Roman Catholic, except I realize he was

Roman Catholic, well, so was Martin Luther, a Roman Catholic. So what does that make him? In other words, he got out of the falsity, and it was

Erasmus that wanted the people to know the truth of the New Testament. And he translated it, put it in, compiled it in the

Greek text. That was against all the Romanist rules. He didn't touch anything but Latin in those days.

And so, far from being a real strong Roman Catholic, he was not. But the fact of the matter is, he didn't have anything to do with the

Greek text unless it came to his Bible anyway. It was Bezos' fifth edition, 82 years later. Wow.

Where do you start? We've already seen the error of the last thing you said, concerning Bezos' text being the only source they were using.

And why then would he even try to rehabilitate a Roman Catholic priest?

Erasmus was a priest. If he did not recognize the direct connection that exists between Erasmus and the

TR. But isn't it fascinating that here you have Dr. Spargemino and Dr.

Wade, and we're going to see here in just a few minutes when we start looking at the Theodore Ledis comments, that the assertion is made, we have the leading scholars in the field on this subject that are all saying that Mr.

White's book is so bad and that he doesn't know what he's talking about. And yet, if you're going to provide a response of a book, don't you think it would be good to respond to the actual book?

For example, I'm holding the King James Only controversy here in my hand, and on pages 84 and 85, there is all this material in endnotes, these are just endnotes, concerning Erasmus and Erasmus' work on the text, readings that ended up in the

King James Version of the Bible. And for example, I mentioned in footnote 27 on page 84, where he talks about, where I talked about, his writing,

Erasmus' writing of a book in defense of transubstantiation.

Now, why don't we deal with what I actually documented?

What kind of response does Dr. Wade give us? Well, he's buried in a Protestant cemetery.

Don't you think it would be scholarly to actually deal with Erasmus' own writings?

Rather than saying, well, he was buried in a Protestant cemetery. And then to say, well,

Martin Luther was a Catholic too. Well, he didn't stay that way, Dr. Wade. He was excommunicated by the

Catholic Church as a heretic. He denied transubstantiation, he denied the papacy, and why don't you deal,

Dr. Wade, with the fact that the first edition of what is called the Texas Receptus today was dedicated to Pope Leo X?

Why? Because it utterly and completely demonstrates the inconsistency, and in fact, yes, the hypocrisy of the

King James -only argumentation. So if we're going to say that I'm all wrong about something, folks, how about going to the text itself and demonstrating it?

It's amazing that people will actually accept this as having some type of validity and some type of meaningful data behind it, some type of argumentation to it, when in reality it does not.

Well, we've come to the end of our review of the programs with Dr. Spargimino and Dr.

Wade, and we have said over and over again that it would be so wonderful if we could get either gentleman or both gentlemen on the program to, again, play back the comments they've made, and then let me say, now gentlemen, right here on page so -and -so,

I said this. For example, Dr. Wade was just saying, well, Erasmus wasn't a humanist like we speak of humanists today.

I mentioned that in the book. I specifically defined what Erasmus was as a humanist in the book.

They don't mention that. We've wanted to have them on. It would be very good to have them on, but as I mentioned, that's something that we continue to hope will happen in the future, but so far we haven't gotten much of a positive response.

And so it's fascinating in light of that to listen to how the second program closed.

Listen to this. Don't just believe what I say. Don't just believe what Dr. Wade says, but listen to the arguments.

Study the materials that our announcer, Jerry Gilker, is going to tell you more about. You do the work.

We don't want to be the pope for you. We don't want to be your conscience, but we believe that we have a tremendously airtight case that is being misrepresented by the, quote, scholars today, and I think that Dr.

Wade and these two programs has really opened a lot of eyes. This has been just a real delight to me.

Dr. Wade, may the Lord bless you. Thank you. Well, there you have it. An airtight case.

Well, if it's an airtight case, then why can't we get anybody to come on the program?

Why can't we discuss these issues? Why can't we deal with the facts that I have presented in opposition to this allegedly airtight case?

Well, I'll leave that to you to determine for yourself. Now, as I mentioned, these are the last of the four programs.

We've now responded to the last two programs. I went back and downloaded the first two programs from the

Internet, and as I mentioned earlier, you could summarize the first two programs in the words,

James White is stupid, Theodore Ledis is brilliant, therefore believe what we have to say.

And if you think that is a little bit too harsh, then again, I would recommend to you right now, especially obviously if you're listening live, you can't do this, but jot this address down.

And if you're listening via the Internet, stop now and go and read the article that is on our website that contains the interaction between Theodore Ledis and myself in 1995.

It will provide you with the background that you need to have to understand what you're going to be listening to as we listen to some of Dr.

Ledis' comments. Now, go to the website, www .aomin .org, and you can either go to the

King James Only area, or it's just www .aomin .org slash tledis .html.

And that's spelled capital T, capital L, E -T -I -S dot html.

tledis .html. And there you will find a very lengthy, I think printed out, it's almost 100 pages, but you can skip past about the first third or so.

And even then on the screen, you can scroll through it fairly quickly. Read the interaction, especially between myself and Dr.

Ledis. Read it carefully enough to come to the understanding of what his viewpoint of King James Onlyism and Baptists really is, and the basis upon which he establishes the quote -unquote ecclesiastical text, because it is significantly different than the viewpoint that would be taken by D .A.

Waite. D .A. Waite and Theodore Ledis are not on the same page.

I can guarantee you that. And keeping that in mind will help you to evaluate the validity of the criticisms that are leveled against the

King James Only controversy. Now, there's a tremendous amount of history, and I don't know how much time

I really have to go into all of it, that really is quite interesting. After the encounter that is recorded on the web page,

I heard about Dr. Ledis going to the Pensacola Christian College and being involved in producing the videotapes that were distributed all over the

United States by PCC, and in those videotapes he attacked my book.

I did hear one tape, it was an audio tape, where Dr. Ledis said that my book, the

King James Only controversy, was nothing but a point -by -point refutation of Gale Ripplinger's New Age Bible versions.

Now, anyone who knows anything about either one of those books knows there's only two possible things that can be said about Dr.

Ledis standing before a group of people and saying that my book is nothing but a point -by -point response to Gale Ripplinger.

Either A, he's never read one or both of the books, and therefore is not acting like much of a scholar to talk about a subject he knows nothing about, or B, he's desperately dishonest.

One of the two, because anyone who knows both books, or either one of the two books, knows that simply isn't the case.

And so I was a little amazed by that kind of a commentary, and then something else happened.

Someone sent me a link to a URL from the Atlanta Bible College. Now, I knew what the

Atlanta Bible College was because I'd engaged in somewhat of an email debate with a professor at the

Atlanta Bible College because the folks at the Atlanta Bible College are anti -Trinitarian. They do not believe in the doctrine of the

Trinity. They deny the deity of Christ. And so I clicked on the link, and lo and behold, here at a recent conference at the

Atlanta Bible College is Theodore Ledis lecturing on some issue, as I recall, regarding some

English Unitarian or something. And I scratched my head, and I thought, well, what in the world would

Theodore Ledis be doing, who is a Lutheran, what would he be doing lecturing at an anti -Trinitarian

Bible College? And so I decided to find out, and so I dropped Dr.

Ledis a note in email, and I asked him, Dr. Ledis, in light of this

URL, and I gave him the URL, and I'd give it to you, because the

URL does change regularly, and so I asked him, Dr. Ledis, in light of this, can you affirm for me, please, your belief in the historic doctrine of the deity of Christ?

And I sent it. And it was the last time I ever got a response from Theodore Ledis.

And the response is, the response came back, Mr. White, you're an idiot, signed

T. Ledis. That was it. You're an idiot. That's all he said. So I responded back and said, that's quite possible, sir.

However, can you affirm your belief in the absolute deity of Christ? And of course he ignored my response.

Now, I don't know what Theodore Ledis believes about the deity of Christ, and it is not my intention to say that he denies it.

The simple fact of the matter is he lectured at an anti -Trinitarian Bible College. They featured him on their website, and if you're going to appear at a place like that, then maybe people should ask you what is your belief about issues like that.

But that's the last contact I've had with Theodore Ledis. He had contacted me before that, and he had asked me to remove the article from our webpage that showed the debate that took place between he and I, that showed him identifying

Baptists and Anabaptists and talking about King James -onlyism as cultism and all the rest of that stuff.

And I was moved. And I said, well, I'll tell you what, if you'd like to write something in some way, shape, or form that would maybe, you know,

I can tack it on at the end, it would say, you know, I don't want people to think that I believe this about King James -onlyism, or if you want to write something to somehow correct any misapprehension you feel that this lengthy email debate would give to them,

I'll be glad to add it. I think it's very useful. I think the information that was discussed is very useful, and we're going to keep it.

And then this other incident took place after that. Now I think it's absolutely fascinating to see, or to hear,

I guess I should say, Theodore Ledis on with Larry Spargimino, and then to hear Larry Spargimino interviewing

D .A. Waite, because of the fact that I know what Theodore Ledis believes about these individuals, and their theological beliefs.

And how do I know that? Well, not only from our debate, but I hold in my hand right now a little book published in 1992 by the

Institute for Reformation Biblical Studies, Fort Wayne, Indiana, Theodore P. Ledis' book,

The Revival of the Ecclesiastical Text and the Claims of the Anabaptists. Now what is almost humorous here is that this book rips into the

Dean -Burgon Society, it rips into fundamentalists, it rips into people who believe in the inerrancy of the autographs of Scripture.

And yet, the Dean -Burgon Society, of which Dr. D .A. Waite is president, in its very first statement, in its article of faith, refers to what?

A belief in the inerrancy of Scripture. And so you have, as I mentioned a few minutes ago, a completely different perspective being presented here.

And yet, as we listen to Dr. Ledis, he's really going to play that down. He's really going to play that down.

He is desperately attempting to get a foothold amongst the very people that in our debate he identifies as separatist fundamentalists with a tremendous amount of disdain.

And in his own writings has identified well, let me read you a section from the book.

This is Theodore Ledis' book. Page 40. And it goes through a number of things.

It quotes from a book, the Unauthorized Version, Truth and Fiction in the Bible. And I just pick up with Ledis saying, this eloquent and informed opinion cuts through much emotionalism and clears away so many of the sacred cows which both in Burgon's day prevented the semi -learned from grasping their arguments.

The untutored common folk within the Anglican Church knew intuitively that the Old English Bible provided them with a profound continuity with the past.

And the historians and textual critics free from the dogma of belief in inerrant autographs knew well enough that the ecclesiastically sanctioned editions might be the best we could ever hope for.

It is that massive consumer class in the middle whom the Bible publishers and armchair anthropologists so easily dazzle with their promise of keeping the

Bible relevant who could not and cannot understand the speech of Burgon and Hills. Burgon and Hills were, in the best sense of the word, conservative by temperament, which meant they were also responsible scholars.

They attempted to state their case as compellingly and with as much learning as their subject actually demanded.

They were both experts in their field. No one has ever doubted this, whether one accepted their judgments or not.

In the latter half of this century, however, particularly in the United States among the Anabaptist communities, what has emerged is a vulgar profanation of their effort.

End quote. Please notice that Dr. Ledis likes to refer to people as, to Baptists, as Anabaptists.

Throw us all into one lump. When Dr. Ledis wrote this book, he wasn't a doctor.

He hadn't received his doctorate yet. He received his doctorate, as you can see, by looking at our website debate during that period of time.

Now, for some reason, many of these folks don't like to consider my earned doctorate and don't want to call me doctor, but we don't take that personally.

We'll call them by their proper title even when they show disrespect for us. Now, right after this, what's going on?

I continue my quotation. A group of twice -separated fundamentalist Baptists formed a society some years back calling it the

Dean -Bergen Society. This was not a society in the usual sense of the word, a voluntary association of individuals for common ends, especially an organized group working together or periodically meeting because of common interests, beliefs, or professions.

The name would seem to imply in the same way that those who are members of the

Audubon Society share a common interest in bird -watching. If, however, in order to become a member of the

Audubon Society, one had also to agree to be a faithful member of and supporter of the Republican Party in the

United States or of the Tory Party in Great Britain, they would cease to be just a society interested in the common interests that not only could

Dean Bergen not be a committee member, but he could not even be a member in any way of this society.

That, nevertheless, uses his name. It is organized more like a local independent

Baptist church with which Bergen would never have been associated.

We'll continue looking at what Dr. Leedis had to say in a series of quotations from Theodore Leedis' book

The Revival of the Ecclesiastical Text and the Claims of the Anabaptists. And if you ask me, well, why are you doing this?

Again, I point out the fact that there is a tremendous inconsistency in the

Southwest Radio Church having Dr. Leedis on and then Dr. Waite on when

Dr. Leedis and Dr. Waite are coming from completely different perspectives. Their criticisms of my book aside from sharing the wonderful attribute of being nebulous and easily refuted come from very different perspectives.

And as a result, we're just simply pointing out that I guess as long as we all agree that James Waite's book is bad, it doesn't matter what else we believe.

It just goes after Dr. Waite's Dean Burgon Society. Dr. Waite is very big in the

Burgon Society, the president thereof. And notice, the last thing

I said was I was quoting Leedis saying that Burgon would never have been associated with a

Baptist church or with the Dean Burgon Society. And I continue reading from page 43. Burgon was organized to use his name in a society to which he could not be a member.

This is confounding in its own right, but it is the public platform of this organization claiming that it represents

Burgon's own views which is the real scandal. And then the next section entitled

Burgon against the Burgon Society, Leedis quotes a number of passages from Dean Burgon saying that Burgon would never be a

Waite. For example, anyone familiar with the debate that I did with Dr.

Waite knows how relevant this is. Quoting again from page 43. Within the pages of one recent collection of talks given by members of this organization, it was claimed contrary to Burgon's own opinion that, quote, the

King James Bible does not lag behind any of the recent translations because of its inferior textual basis.

It has a superior textual basis. We do not concur that the King James Bible is inferior in any way.

That's the end of the quote and I continue with Leedis. It says, Burgon certainly did. This statement does not reflect the position of John William Burgon.

He spent a great deal of time deflecting attempts by his critics to paint him as someone who is advocating the perfection of the textus receptus.

Again in reply to Bishop Ellicott, Burgon complained of unfair treatment in the following reply. Then he gives the quotation.

It reads, I should enter at once on an examination of your reply, but I am constrained at the outset to remonstrate with you on the exceeding unfairness of your entire method of procedure.

You labor to enlist vulgar prejudice against me, partly by insisting that I am for determining disputed readings by an appeal to the textus receptus, which according to you

I look upon as faultless, partly by exhibiting me in a disagreement with Lachman, Tischendorf, and Tregellas.

The irrelevancy of this latter contention, the groundlessness of the former, may not be passed over, end of quotation from Burgon.

And please notice he identifies the idea that he believes the textus receptus to be faultless as a groundless assertion.

Now we have heard Dr. Waite over and over again when faced with errors in the TR go back to well we believe in the

TR, we believe in the TR. Well which one is it? Is it going to be Dean Burgon's position or the president of the

Dean Burgon Society holding a very different view? On page 44 of the book

Dr. Leedis quotes Burgon saying once for all we request it may be clearly understood that we do not by any means claim perfection for the received text.

We entertain no extravagant notions on this subject again and again we shall have occasion to point out that the textus receptus needs correction.

Wouldn't it be wonderful to get Dr. Leedis and Dr. Waite together and discuss the areas where the textus receptus needs to be corrected?

I would in fact like to offer these two gentlemen the services of our radio program to come on together to discuss what areas they would like to suggest the textus receptus be corrected.

I have not found a single place where DA Waite will admit a single error in translation of the textus receptus let alone an error in the text of the textus receptus.

So that would be a very very interesting thing to do. Now there's much more in this book. There's so many other quotes that we could go through.

It's more of a paper than it is a book. It is fascinating to see the little woodcuts that are included in here.

The discussion of the Anabaptists and Dr. Leedis has a very low view of quote unquote fundamentalism as well.

Whatever that is it's sort of hard to determine exactly what that is. But let's just put it this way.

Dr. Leedis and Dr. Waite are not on the same page. Well with that established let's go to the actual response of Dr.

Leedis. And the first thing to understand right off the bat, Noah Hutchings came on and talked about how we're going to have three doctors.

Dr. Leedis, Dr. Sparge and Dr.

Sparge and Dr. Leedis and Dr.

Sparge and Dr. Leedis and Dr.

Sparge and Dr. Leedis and Dr. Sparge and Dr.

Leedis and Dr. and Dr. Sparge and Dr. Leedis and Dr. and Dr. Leedis and Dr. Sparge Sparge and Dr. and Dr. Sparge and Dr.

Sparge Sparge Sparge and Dr. and Dr. Sparge and Dr. Sparge and Dr. Sparge and Dr.

Sparge and Dr. Sparge and Dr.

Sparge and Dr. Sparge and Dr. since I'm dealing with a publisher and that publisher has specific goals in mind and a specific audience in mind, then

I am to be criticized for being focused upon dealing with King James -only -ism.

In fact, he's going to mention that I focus primarily upon just what he calls the fringe element. Well, in reality,

I'm focusing upon the people who are impacting the Church. Now, Dr.

Ledis may feel that his ecclesiastical text arguments are more important than these others, and I'm not going to dismiss the importance of his argumentation, but I didn't write the book about the ecclesiastical text argumentation that he presents.

I wrote the book about King James -only -ism, and so to criticize the book for being on a subject that, well, the book says it's going to be on and not addressing another subject, a different subject, seems to me to carry very little weight.

I could, of course, take his little paper here, the revival of the ecclesiastical text, and I could criticize on any number of bases saying, well, it doesn't address this, it doesn't address that, it doesn't use this source, that source, but I think he would say, wait a minute,

I only had one purpose in writing it. Yes, so let's be fair and deal with the book as it was written and the subject that it was actually addressing.

But he goes on. Now, he has a very tall order in front of him to make the claim that each one of these in his subtitle is made a blanket statement that, you know, or he is suggesting in his subtitle, that basically all the modern translations can be trusted.

Well, they keep flicking from one another. How can they all be trusted? Now, I'm almost tempted to believe that in reality there is discussion beforehand, because both

Dr. Wade and Dr. Leedis address the same issue, and I've already said it is a misrepresentation of my book to think for a moment that it is a blanket recommendation, a blanket defense of all modern translations.

That is to completely misunderstand my point. The point is, in responding to King James -only advocates who insist that the

King James is the only translation of youth, that there is no modern translation that can be utilized, to respond by saying, well, can you trust modern translations?

That doesn't mean that every modern translation is to be trusted. Obviously not the

Joseph Smith translation, the New World translation. I don't like the majority of European translations, etc.,

etc. So again, this is for the person who's read the book, you have to go, well, wait a minute, that obviously isn't what he intended, and yet Dr.

Leedis starts off his comments right along those lines. Now, the first assertion

Dr. Leedis makes, and it really is the foundational assertion for all of this, and will lead into an even more interesting one we'll hear in a second.

The first assertion he makes is, well, you know, I need to tell you something about the man James Wade. Now, Dr.

Leedis doesn't know me. He hasn't contacted me and actually found anything about me since 1995, and even then, if you look at the debate,

I don't think he had any idea what I had done then. I don't think he's aware of the fact that I work as a critical consultant on the

New American Standard Bible. I don't think he's aware of my teaching experience. I don't think he's aware of any of that stuff.

I don't think he knows anything about my schooling or any of that stuff, but he is a scholar, so scholars know all things, and so we start off with this kind of assertion.

Now, Mr. Wade has done none of this. He traffics in the very broadest of categories, and I think the main reason for this is he really doesn't have any technical training in the field, and he really is painting with an extremely broad brush, but having said that,

I do need to give some specifics on who he is and out of the context out of which his book arises.

Mr. Wade, as I said, has no technical training either as somebody who has a background in the anthropology of transcultural translation or in anthropological analysis of various subgroups and various techniques of translation.

He has no background in that whatsoever. Well, so much for seven years of Greek, a minor in the subject, undergraduate, three or four years graduate training, teaching in the field since 91.

I guess all that's just irrelevant. Of course, Dr. Leda Sprott doesn't know any about the things about that, but you know one thing

I'd never do is go on a national radio program and presume to talk about somebody else when

I don't know anything about them. I don't personally consider that the most scholarly thing in the world that you can do, and I would, you know, just suggest maybe

Dr. Leda might want to do a little bit of research in the future in regards to statements that he makes along these lines, but please realize that this fits in very perfectly with what they were attempting to do in the first two programs, and that is basically respond to the idea that, well look,

King James -onlyism is not scholarly. So we'll present Theodore Ledis as the great scholar who can say that James White, Mr.

White, is just someone who doesn't know anything about what he's talking about. And again, I can only point out with a little level of fascination the fact that they chose someone to present this who presents the ecclesiastical text view, which is not the view of Southwest Radio Church, and who in fact would say that the people they have had on, including

Gail Riplinger, are the very people that he identifies as being a part of a sect and cultists.

Unbelievable stuff. Well, if I'm not an expert, then what exactly am

I? Well, it's fascinating to discover what Dr. Ledis says about evangelical believers in the

United States, namely what I like to call the Christianity today status quo evangelical middle -class

Christianity. Some refer to this as a neo -evangelicalism, but he definitely is a representative of the status quo of the larger academic institutions within evangelical

Christianity within the United States. Now, there are a number of fascinating things in that statement when you think about it.

First of all, we're told that I'm a part of the Christianity today type of evangelicalism.

Anyone who has, for example, read the Potter's Freedom or the Forgotten Trinity or has listened to this program very long realizes that Dr.

Ledis has not read any of those books or listened to this program, either one. But what is more than that?

Did you notice what was said? Representative of the status quo. And then, even though I'm not a scholar,

I am representative of the scholarly institutions in the United States. Because, you see,

Dr. Ledis does know that what I say about this particular issue is supported by the vast majority of biblical scholarship.

He knows that. And he knows that, in point of fact, he himself is the one who's on the outside of that.

He is the one who is presenting a very minority viewpoint. So it is interesting to hear an admission that, while he wants to try to convince his listeners that I myself am not capable of even dealing with the issue, that at the same time, he admits, the viewpoint that I represent is, in fact, the viewpoint of the vast majority of Christian scholarship.

I guess, from his perspective, that simply means the vast majority of Christian scholarship and evangelical institutions in the

United States is deficient, and that he, and almost he alone, seems to represent the non -deficient view of scholarship.

What's worse is, it seems that the intimation is that, well, the reason

I'm doing this is, well, it's money. It's marketing. Now listen to what he says. So as a result, he is a spokesman for that community.

It's very important to understand that, because when you understand that, you understand why he has taken up this issue.

Why has he decided this is something he wants to address. It's because those who are addressing the genuine problem of literally hundreds of translations in the

English language plaguing the church, the reason he feels he wants to address that is because most of these translations are being marketed from the evangelical community.

Well, that's a fascinating assertion. Dr. Ledis has never asked me why

I wrote the book. He could have done so, but he didn't bother to do so. It has nothing to do with an alleged plague on the church, whatever in the world that might mean.

I wrote the book because the King James Only controversy has split churches.

It has caused missionaries to be brought back from the field. It has disrupted relationships.

It has caused no end of grief. King James Only controversy needs to be addressed.

Now, we've already noticed that Dr. Ledis has shifted the grounds, and he wants to criticize me for not addressing his favorite topics rather than the topics that I have, and in point of fact, in regards to people like Gail Riplinger and Peter Ruckman, he'd agree with what

I had to say, but he's not on a program that wants to hear that. He's on a program that wants to hear something else, and so we have this kind of assertion.

Well, that kind of thing, in regards to being a representative of evangelicalism, not only, as I've pointed out, shows a tremendous ignorance of who

I am and what I do, but it didn't last very long because we had to go right back to the Well, he's not an expert with these words.

Well, that would only be true if it had any basis in reality.

It does not. I have no networking connection with Zondervan and promoting

NIV. I didn't even start working on the NASB until after my book came out.

I wrote this book solely because I had studied King James Onlyism back in the 80s.

Since I have studied Greek and I've studied church history and I've studied apologetics, the three of them come together, and when

I heard Gail Riplinger on a radio program promoting her stuff and found out that there was a tremendous need for a book on this subject, the last book that had been done had been written in 1979, it all came together with my editor at Bethany House, and as I've said many times, it fell on me out of the sky.

I'm no apologist for some neo -evangelicalism. I just wrote a book called

The Potter's Freedom that presents the doctrines of Calvinism over against Norman Geisler, which has made me about as popular with a lot of people as Athlete's Foot.

Dr. Ledis has no idea what he's talking about. He hasn't done any research into me or what

I'm about. He may sound very scholarly when he speaks, but that's only because he's making it sound like he's very confident in his assertions, but there's no truth to them.

It's amazing to hear this kind of rhetoric and the confidence with which it is said is truly amazing.

And it also explains why not being a technician, not being an authority in the field, he nevertheless feels the necessity to address this issue, because he has to put at arm's length the reality of the controversy.

And his technique, his overall technique in his book, is to lump every irresponsible advocate of the

King James that has ever gone into print and treat them on an equal par with the genuine bona fide scholars who are trying to say something positive.

And now again, this is simply untrue. I did not simply lump everybody together.

I made specific differentiations between individuals. But isn't it interesting, isn't it interesting that Dr.

Ledis can speak of irresponsible defenders of the

King James Version of the Bible, but what's what's missing friends? He won't say who they are.

Why won't Dr. Ledis say who the irresponsible defenders of the King James Version of the Bible are?

Because one of them that he's publicly identified is Gail Ripplinger. Gail Ripplinger is the author of New Age Bible Versions, but she's also author of a book called

Which Bible is God's Word? And what is the book Which Bible is

God's Word? Well, it's questions asked by Noah Hutchings, the head of Southwest Radio Church of Gail Ripplinger.

Gail Ripplinger has been on Southwest Radio Church more than once, and Hearthstone Publishing even put out a book of her answers on the

Southwest Radio Church. So isn't it amazing that even though Dr. Ledis identifies

Gail Ripplinger as one of these irresponsible defenders of the King James Version of the Bible, he won't mention that when he's on the

Southwest Radio Church program. That's called hypocrisy, my friends.

Pure, simple, blatant hypocrisy. And could it possibly be, in light of the things that Dr.

Ledis said in the revival of the Ecclesiastical text and the claims of the Anabaptists 1992, about the

Dean Burgon society, that he might have to identify D. A. Waite as one of those individuals that he would find to be irresponsible in their defense of the

King James Version of the Bible? If that's the case, why is he on the program?

There seems to be a bit of a double standard involved here. Now, who are these irresponsible people?

Well, like I said, no names are named, but it is interesting, Dr. Ledis wants to make it appear that if you want to address the

King James Only issue, you need to know pretty much everything there is to know about every possible aspect of textual critical studies.

Now, notice what he's doing here. He's confusing dealing with King James Only -ism, which is what my book is about, which he would never say you have to know everything in the world about to respond to those who say the

King James Version of the Bible is perfect. He's confusing that with writing a response to, say, his own argumentation on the

Ecclesiastical text. This constant flipping back and forth and confusing the two makes it sound like he has a whole lot more to say than he does.

Listen to this list of things that he puts together to you. You have to know, or you shouldn't even address, the issue of the

King James Only controversy. There is some value to Mr. White's book in that he raises the issue and he does address those irresponsible advocates of the

King James Bible. And by irresponsible, I have to qualify this and explain it so folks don't misunderstand me.

It's absolutely imperative that people realize that textual criticism, the science of trying to make sense of the over 5 ,000

Greek manuscripts of the New Testament that we have in possession today, the science of trying to determine which one represents that form of the text that had the sanction of the early church, is an extremely,

Larry, an extremely demanding subject. You really do have to know Greek very well.

You have to know church history extraordinarily well. It would help if you knew Latin and Syriac and Coptic.

You really do have to have a commanding grasp of several disciplines within theological and historical studies.

And if you don't, you really have no business addressing this issue. Well, there is one little comment

I'd like to make about that beyond what I already said, and that is, did you notice one little phrase? The type of text identified by the early church.

We will discover as we get into more of Dr. Liedis' assertions that he believes that the early church made textual decisions, and as an ecclesiastical body chose between text types.

I do not believe that is the case at all, but that will be the assertion that Dr.

Liedis is making. Now, I know there are a lot of pamphlets, there are a lot of cassette tapes, there are a lot of booklets that are floating around, written by men who are more full of passion and heat than they are informed and full of light on the subject.

And these are the people that James White has made a decision to attack. Attack? Hmm. Anyone read anything by Peter Ruckman?

Has anyone read Dr. Waite's books where he attacks the New King James Version? Anyone who's read my book knows

I am defending the vast majority of believing

Christian scholarship against the attacks of King James Only advocates. And the ironic thing is,

Dr. Liedis, if he's consistent, would have to agree with the vast majority of what I said in response to those individuals.

So I didn't make a quote -unquote choice to attack these individuals. Since I was dealing with the

King James Only controversy, I have to deal with the assertions that are being made.

In my own book, the Ecclesiastical text, the chapter of my book, it's the longest chapter and the most heavily documented chapter, also attempts to put the spotlight on what

I consider to be irresponsible advocates of the King James Bible and the doctrine of providential preservation.

It's such a technically demanding subject that if you don't really know what you're talking about, what you do is you invite somebody who is even as ill -informed as yourself, such as James White, to write an entire book on the subject and then leave the impression that there is no merit to the subject.

It sounds like what Dr. Liedis is saying is because of King James Only advocates who don't take the position he does, they've opened up the door for an ill -informed person such as myself to write an entire book exposing their errors.

Well, isn't it interesting, A, those are the people I was dealing with because they're the ones that are making the impact.

Hardly anyone's ever heard of Dr. Theodore Liedis, but B, he hasn't documented yet where I'm ill -informed.

Have you noticed that? We've had a lot of assertions. We haven't had much in the way of proof.

Well, we'll continue next week with your indulgence with responding to Theodore P. Liedis on the

Southwest Radio Church radio program on the subject of the King James Only controversy. Thanks for being with us today on The Dividing Line.

This is a presentation of Alpha Omega Ministries.

You can contact us at 602 -973 -0318 or you can write us at PO Box 37106,

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.org. That's www .aomin .org. You can also find a complete listing of James White's books, tapes, debates, and tracks on our website.