Kent Hovind: Refuted Yet Again

Well, it is a cold and windy day here in Phoenix, Arizona. I'm trying to get some writing done, but before I can do that, I need to respond to a few comments made by Kent Hovind in a video that he posted today.

Eventually, there isn't going to be much reason to attempt to do this, I'll be perfectly honest with you, since Dr. Hovind admits in the video today, he has no idea what he's talking about. It's what Gail Riplinger told me, just whatever she tells me, I believe.

I mean, it is so sad. He hasn't even listened to the encounter between myself and Gail Riplinger. Despite that, he's willing to accuse an elder in a New Testament church of lying, which would be a violation of even what the King James says about two or three witnesses and elder and stuff.

But hey, you know, what can we say? But he hasn't even listened. Anything she says, he's just like, I believe all, Gail. No, I mean, the level of gullibility that Kent Hovind is illustrating here is shocking.

It is truly shocking, and he doesn't seem to realize that for people watching this, it impacts everything that he does. If he's so gullible in this area of scholarship that he can be taken in by someone like Gail Riplinger, especially on something like this, where the documentation, I have it all, she has nothing, he hasn't even bothered to listen to it, but he believes her anyways, what does that say about his use of all other sources that he utilizes?

Seems like he only sees or hears what he wants to see or hear. So let's take a look at what he had to say and then respond to it. I'm actually going to play a portion from the encounter with Gail Riplinger, because remember, his accusation was that Gail was on a radio program.

I simply called in and then edited out all her responses. Anyone who has listened, which he has not even taken the time and had the integrity to do, to the actual program knows that that is an absurd assertion, that what makes her look so foolish in the encounter is her responses, they're right there.

It's what she actually said, and I'm going to have to ask Dr. Hovind, I guess he believes in continuing revelation, because as we're going to hear, Gail Riplinger says that's what God gave her, God gave her acrostic algebra, we're going to play the acrostic algebra section.

And just ask Dr. Hovind, how on earth could I have edited this? I mean, he said, I wasn't even on the program, it's obvious, I'm in studio with the host and had just finished my five minute, I was given five minutes, she had been given two days, I was given five minutes to respond to her.

But this was the first point I brought up to her, how could I have edited this? How could I have put these incredibly foolish words in her mouth? I mean, it is just so laughably obvious, but Ken Hovind doesn't care.

He just thinks he can throw stuff out there and not check his facts, and it's just absolutely totally destructive of any meaningful credibility on his part. It's amazing. But you know what? I doubt he'll even watch this.

I doubt he'll even watch this, so I guess it's just a warning to everybody else. So here's what he had to say today.

Hovind's Accusation About the Riplinger Radio Encounter

One from James White. Oh, okay. I unfortunately took note of your recent comments accusing me of dishonesty in regards to the radio encounter I had with Mrs. Ripplinger in November of 1993. I wonder, sir, have you listened to the recordings of the encounter that have been posted literally for decades on the internet?

James, I have not, I'm sorry. Have you inquired of the host on the program whether the recordings are accurate? I don't know that, when I talked to Gail Ripplinger, what, about a couple months ago, we did a YouTube.

On her.

I don't know that she was referring to that recording. It might have been something else. You need to call her directly and talk to her.

And then he wants me to call Gail Ripplinger.

Wait a minute, wait a minute.

We had one encounter. There's only one encounter. It was painfully obvious that you were referring to that encounter because you talked about a radio program. We've been on one radio program together.

KRDS, November 1993, PS on the air, Pat Shaughnessy. Right here in Phoenix. I was in the studio, she was on the phone. There are cassette tapes of that encounter floating around in the audience out there.

Other people have posted the exact same material on YouTube from recordings on cassette tapes that have been out there for over 20 years. And now Gail Ripplinger is lying and saying that they were edited and you believe her and you haven't even bothered to take the time to listen?

I mean, this is a situation, 100 of the facts here, Kent Hovind here. It's just that you don't have anything. You have done zero homework. You've shown zero integrity whatsoever, sir. It's shocking.

It's amazing. But just to remind folks about what it was, well, let's move on. I'll play this a little bit later.

Gail Ripplinger, avpublications .com. Let's see. How do you work this dumb thing here? Okay, I'll get it. Just relax. Calm down. Here we go. Search. R-I-P-L. There we go. Call Gail Ripplinger. She does stuff on the King James Version primarily.

And you can talk to her. 276 -251 -1760.

Dr. Hovind, you made the accusation.

You said I was lying.

And now you're going to kick the ball to Gail Ripplinger? I have no interest in talking to Gail Ripplinger and she has no interest in talking to me, I assure you. Because, you see, what you don't seem to understand, because you haven't done any research, any reading, you're just simply bumbling through this stuff, is Mrs. Ripplinger will not debate anyone anymore because the last time she did it was November of 1993.

And when I wrote my book, The King James Only Controversy, which I don't get the feeling you've actually read, when I wrote the chapter about the worst of the King James Only movement, the cultic aspect of King James Onlyism, Peter Ruckman, Gail Ripplinger, when I wrote the material about her, I would fax it to AV Publications so that she would have it.

And I invited her to respond. I invited her to offer any corrections to what I was saying. Eventually what would happen is when I would hit send, the first page would come across.

And it would hang up.

She wouldn't even let me send it anymore. But it's interesting, once the book was finished, twice she contacted Bethany House Publishers and threatened to sue them if they published the book. You tell me, you think she actually wants to talk to me?

Pass on something, since you all seem to be buds and you seem to be talking a lot, pass on an invitation. I invite you, in fact I challenge you, sir, and I invite her. Come on the dividing line, let's have a conversation.

I guarantee you, she won't do it. She will not do it. She was invited to go on the John Ankerberg show in 1995. She didn't do it. She sent a representative who was, well, anyways, I just invite everybody to watch that and see for themselves how that went down as well.

The fact of the matter is, sir, you're the one who made certain statements to me, about.

Me.

Okay?

And here is what she said. Let's just play it again so that when you say, go talk to Gail Riplinger, it wasn't.

Me.

Let's listen to what you actually said.

I might check out Gail Riplinger's material. I just talked to her an hour ago in Virginia. There's a debate that Sam White, James White, he said he did a debate with her, he did not. She was on a radio program talking.

He was just one of the callers that called in. And then he greatly edited out, he edited out all of her responses. So if you see that James White thing, where picking on Gail Riplinger and she's, you know, making a fool of her, that's because he's disingenuous.

In English that means lying, deceitful, okay? Not true.

So that's what you said. And now you are trying to duck responsibility for your publicly made slander against me by saying, well, I just have to talk to Gail Riplinger. I didn't listen.

I don't know.

This is responsible adult behavior? Doesn't seem to be responsible adult behavior at all. So yeah, okay.

And you're referring to a 1993 debate apparently with her, and I don't know, have you talked to her since then? Have there been other conversations or articles written where things were deleted?

No, there haven't. So just to, since you haven't listened, Dr. Hovind, and again, I doubt that you've listened to this, but who knows? Since you haven't actually listened to it, let me play you a segment.

And let's see how even rational it is for Gail Riplinger to be suggesting that her actual responses were edited out to make her look foolish. Because the foolishness of this debate was what she said. Her own words condemned her.

So much so that in the second half of the second day, they had to arrange to have a person call in to try to defend her because she had done so poorly in the first day.

Judy Pinalta.

It was a setup. She was the first one in, and she still couldn't defend herself. But, after I finished my five minute documentation of, for example, her gross misrepresentation of Edwin Palmer and just, again, cultic King James Onlyism loves to attack Christian leaders.

Loves to take them out of context, loves to accuse them of being liars, just as you're doing, Dr. Hovind. You fit into the cultic King James Only movement very, very, just seamlessly. And I documented these behaviors on her part.

But let's listen to this back and forth. You'll be able to tell I'm in studio. You were lying about that. I'm in the studio with the host of the program. Gail is on the phone. And it becomes very obvious that there's nothing edited here, that we're going back and forth.

You couldn't have edited this. We're going back and forth on the subject of acrostic algebra. And so I want to ask you, Dr. Hovind, do you believe that God spoke to Gail Riplinger and gave her acrostic algebra?

Do you believe that Gail Riplinger actually knows what God calls the New American Standard.

Bible?

Do you really?

You do realize that there are recordings of her saying that the reason she used GA Riplinger on her books was God and Riplinger? This woman is not balanced by any stretch of the imagination. Let's listen in.

You got as much as you could in. Gail, you're still there.

Sure I am.

All right. Now, get specific. You've made your case. James, where do you want to start with Gail?

Well, I think that the first thing I would probably go to is I have some very serious problems with the type of argumentation, Gail, that you utilized in your book. For example, if you could explain to us, on page 149, you utilized something called acrostic.

Algebra.

And what you did in a passage that reminded me a little bit of the identification of Henry Kissinger as the Antichrist two decades ago, how they'd take his name apart and add it up, so on and so forth.

You took the New American Standard Version and the New International Version, NASV and NIV, and then you somehow subtracted out AV, and using this acrostic algebra, somehow demonstrated that supposedly the NIV and the NASV together add up to SIN, as if this demonstrated something about the version.

So, I'd like to ask you, first of all, where does acrostic algebra come from, and secondly, why it is that everywhere else in your book, you refer to the NASB, New American Standard Bible, except for this one place where you changed it to NASV.

Why the change in the two things?

Okay, I'll address your first question, or just this last question of yours relating to that acrostic algebra. Your ministry is called Alpha and Omega, right? Jesus Christ is the Word of God. Now, it's very, very likely that every single word and every single letter in the Bible has a specific meaning, and it's there for a reason, and that lots of words and things that we use today have very specific meanings.

You said, not one jot or tittle would pass from the law to all people. So, I don't think anything is accidental, and I think when we're in Heaven, the dark glass that we're seeing through now, everything will be quite clear.

And the fact that when you take the letters out of, when you take the material that's in the NIV and in the NASB out away from them, and you just have the AV left, what's left are the letters S-I-N.

Now, I didn't expect that's something that just happened, and I think it's very purposeful, because the new versions do allow for sin. I mean, you've got immorality instead of fornication. If you ask any college student that I'm sure you've worked with and asked them what immorality is, they'll give you a definition relating to pollution or something like that.

And if you look fornication up in the dictionary, it's very clear that that's premarital sex. And so, the new versions do, in fact, allow for sin. And so, where did I get that from? The Lord gave that to me one night.

I was pretty surprised when I saw it.

Well, then, you didn't answer the question of why throughout the book you use NASB, but you changed it to NASB.

Well, I suspect that the Lord calls it the NASB. Actually, it is the NASB, and I call it...

The Lord calls it the NASB?

Well, I don't know. I'm just suggesting that he gave me that formula there, and that's the only thing that I can say about that.

Yeah, okay. It actually is not the NASB. Its official title is the New American Standard Bible, which is the acronym that she used throughout the book, but that wouldn't add up to sin. So hey, it's what the Lord calls it.

And the Lord gave it to me, so can't argue with that. Divine revelation. You know, God and Ripplinger.

There you go.

Okay. So, Dr. Hovind, how did I edit it? How did, by editing out her comments, did I create that? I'd like to know. You know what would be wise, Dr. Hovind? You might want to go listen to the entirety of that encounter for yourself.

I mean, the encounter upon which you slandered me, you might want to go listen to it. And to any rational person, you're left going, wow, that lady's got some weird ideas, and she can't seem to defend her position at all.

She can only make assertions and wander off this way and that way, and there's all this weird stuff going on in her mind, and you've believed it. And now that it's been documented to you without question that you were wrong, you just go, oh, well, just call Gail Ripplinger up, I'm just repeating what she said.

No, you weren't repeating what she said. Your first video did something about saying, well, you know, Gail Ripplinger has said to me, I don't know, because I haven't taken the time to look into this stuff, but Gail Ripplinger told me that this stuff was edited.

That's not what you said. You stated it as a fact, and now you're trying to dodge responsibility for it. You have a real simple choice here, Dr. Holden. You either come clean and say, look, I believe everything Gail Ripplinger says, I take it at absolute face value, I don't check anything out whatsoever, and I will go to the mat believing whatever Gail Ripplinger says.

I am that gullible. I have that little integrity. Or you can go, okay, I completely blew it, I've been misled, and I've got a lot of thinking to do and a lot of homework to do to find out what I really believe about this stuff, because obviously I've been in error.

I mean, you didn't even address, well, of course you didn't address, because you didn't even know that I had responded to it, but your statement about my video about you and how that had had like 200 views when it had actually nearly 92 ,000.

I didn't address that either, but again, you don't seem to be overly concerned about the accuracy of your statements on this subject. And since it's about the very translation and transmission of the Bible, how can we trust anything else you have to say?

How can anyone? That's really a question. So will this help any? Well, at the very least, a lot more people are listening again to something that took place, what, 23, well, 22 years ago, a little over 22 years ago now.

And to be honest with you, I had not had anyone contact me about Gail Ripplinger for a long time, but you're promoting her stuff. So if you promote her stuff, then you've got to deal with the reality of her deceptions and her dishonesty, which has been documented over and over and over again.

So what are you going to do, Dr. Hovind? 100 of the facts are against you. You've got nothing, nothing at all. What are you going to do? That's the question. Well, thanks for watching this video as distasteful as the subject might be.

Once again, we see cultic King James only-ism has no problem whatsoever being completely disingenuous and twisting the facts, but it can always be exposed for what it is. So beware, beware. Thanks for watching.