The King James Bible Debate with Nathan Cravatt

Greetings and welcome everybody. My name is James White. This is the Dividing Line. We are in the big studio today because we have a special guest with us and in the big studio we can put him on the big

TV and that makes him actually bigger than me in the shot so that's that's good.

But I mentioned on the program yesterday that a few weeks ago a debate took place on well it was just called the

King James Bible debate at least that's how it was introduced by the moderator anyways I was listening to it just a while ago and I listened to two and a half hours of it

I think I should be given a prize for listening to two and a half hours personally but the bigger prize should go to the man who survived many more hours than that it seems like it looked like it was like the recording was like four hours long or some incredible thing like that but our guest today is

Nathan Cravat. I say Cravat because that's German. Are you German? No actually we're

Italian. Italian? Yeah the name was originally Cravota and when we came to America my grandfather changed it to Cravat.

Oh Cravat well that's that's way too close to Thai in German so that's why

I sort of figured maybe that was there but you do have dark hair and you still have it even though you're allegedly older than you look so aren't you in your mid 40s then?

Yes sir I'm 45 turn 46 next month. Okay all right so I maybe this is just me anymore but I look at people and I guess they're much younger than they actually are which is a nice thing

I guess it's better than being like women who look at other women and add 40 years to their age and stuff like that and are just really nasty to one another but we won't get into that today so anyways

Nathan thank you for joining us today how long was from beginning then how how long did you endure actually?

I believe the recording is three hours and we had about a 30 minute intermission in between.

Oh okay so I didn't miss too much of it. Basically just some of the question time. Yeah the

Q &A time I just felt so badly for the people are asking questions because that they were so well anyways we'll get into that all right so let's get some information from you it sounds like we had somewhat similar upbringings maybe now

I was never King James only certainly in in my independent fundamentalist

Baptist circles there was a preference but I I could carry a

Schofield reference Bible without lightning coming out of the sky so that that probably meant I was a

I was a liberal fundamentalist from what it sounds like you grew up in so tell us a little bit about about where where you came from.

Okay so my parents were hippies in the 70s and they were saved into an independent

Baptist Church in Pensacola Florida and through that church Ruckman came and spoke there and my dad started auditing some classes at his

Bible Institute and so they were saved into the independent fundamental

Baptist movement they went into full -time ministry within a few years we moved around to a couple different children's homes and ended up in Rock Spring Georgia where I grew up from about 7 until I got married at 20 and an independent fundamental

Baptist children's home and so I was exposed to Ruckman he was a family friend we would go hear him anytime he was around Lester Roloff Lee Robertson I went to Tennessee Temple Elementary and high school so I was literally in the center of the the

Bible Belt and fundament independent Baptist fundamentalism sure yeah I I had some of my relatives taught at Tennessee Temple actually okay in fact my first exposure to King James only ism came when my parents went back and visited those folks at Tennessee Temple and came back and we're talking about churches splitting and all sorts of stuff going on about the

King James only movement and that's that's what I realized I had a friend of mine in high school who was

King James only I just didn't realize it I didn't have any categories to put it into but he was one this

Pentecostal so so the real issues with him were on the Trinity not on King James only ism but he had was one of the people that gave me the

Jack Chick stuff on on King James only ism initially originally and I've always said that I think it's one of my great experiences in life that I went from passing out

Jack Chick tracks on the playground in fourth grade and getting sent to the principal for doing that and I gave the principal one too two years later being identified as the

Antichrist by Jack Chick so I mean that's a that's that's really moving up in the world you know so and of course member

Alberto Rivera the name Jack Chick that the former he was the former priest that Jack Chick did all the

Roman Catholic stuff about and stuff like that okay I I came and listened to him speak at a church here in Phoenix it again was a one to spend a castle church it wasn't even a

Trinitarian Church and little short little guy about five foot one five foot two and when he saw

I was carrying a New American Standard Bible he just you know told me I was going straight to hell because it didn't have the commie Oh honey

I'm right there so that was yeah there you go but yeah I heard about it from Tennessee Temple because not everybody there was on that side and so there were splits taking place and and all sorts of things like that so I heard about from my parents initially from back in that area so yeah do you have any charcoal drawings from from Peter Ruckman we did growing up our church had some and yeah we he would do them at the boys home and places that we would go so yeah we did end up with some of those

I don't have any hanging in my office like my friend and Andrew Sluder but yeah

I was I was gonna say those would those would those might fetch a little money now in certain circles

I don't know but yeah growing growing up with with Peter Ruckman that must be a very interesting experience so obviously given your shirt recovering fundamentalist the recovering fundamentalist there you go got it got to keep that back straight

I'm struggling with as I get old it's ugly but obviously you you wouldn't be asked to speak in in in churches friendly to Peter Ruckman today so what happened so my wife and I got married right out of high school

I was 20 years old and we immediately joined a Southern Baptist Church which was a huge huge no -no oh yeah oh yeah of course

I had I had grown up King James only asked my dad some questions in middle school and high school and he was always honest with me even though he was very strongly

King James preferred he let me know that that a lot of the craziness I heard growing up wasn't accurate and so we had some really good conversations and I always appreciated my mom and dad even though we were raised in the middle of a lot of crazy stuff they were very balanced they loved the

Lord and they were faithful my dad and mom are still in ministry after 40 years so I'm thankful for what the independent fundamental

Baptist movement gave to me because I was born just a little while after they were saved and was raised in a

Christian home and and all the blessings that come along with that and so when we joined the Southern Baptist Church I started really

I was in college I started diving in for myself was taking some philosophy classes and really had a crisis of faith and through that process and through you know a couple years of two kids being married the

Lord humbled me broke me down and I was I was truly saved in that in that church and from there went back and forth a couple of times to you know back into a very light

IFB Church and then moved to the Calvary Chapel organization for a while then planted a church but through that process for about the first five years of when

God was calling me into ministry I had to dive into the King James issue because the verse that talks about your conscience being seared it's actually talking about not being seared to where I was taught that it was your conscience was seared and you fall into liberalism or into sin that verse is actually talking about legalism it's talking about people that have these rules enforced on them and their conscience is seared and that's where I was at and I honestly couldn't read or pick up any other version without just feeling like you know

God was gonna judge me for that so thanks to you and Dr. John MacArthur and hours of debates and reading books on both sides

I set out to prove King James only ism for myself and boy

I was surprised when I really started reading the facts and listening to the debates and basically the other argument the

King James only argument in my opinion came down to a lot of emotionalism and a lot of blind faith where you just kind of take a leap in the dark and I don't believe that's the type of faith that God calls believers to we have faith based on evidence so that was how

I ended up where I am and I did tell you in some personal correspondence that a lot of the things that I used you could just about piece almost everything

I said back to you in one way or another and I I had notes in my

I had a section in my notes to thank you and some other guys like Stephen Boyce and I think the only person

I actually mentioned was Timothy Berg and I mentioned him twice that wasn't on purpose but the section that I was thanking you

I ran out of time so I apologize for that publicly well that happens in debates it's you can you can just I don't know why it is but you can time your debate remarks when you get into actually debate actual debate it'll always take about 10 % longer than it did in your in your office that's been my experience so you always shoot to be a little bit short because as you probably know

I've always been extremely focused on being very timely in in my debates and my opponents not so much so so much not so much so so that's that's obviously a a long process you you mentioned that a couple times in the debate learning about where the

Bible's come from the process of translation the history of the of the Bible and yet not throwing everything out

I mean a lot of folks go through that fundamentalist experience I remember when

I was on the unbelievable radio broadcast with Brian McLaren who sort of was one of the key people in the emergent church movement the thing that struck me was he and I pretty much had the same story as far as our youth was concerned you know the

I don't know if you ever did this but we would always do these things on New Year's Eve where you'd you'd watch the

New Year come in and you'd have a prayer service and I remember watching

I remember watching Thief in the Night during one of those that was that was a great way to get people converted you know when when the camera panned back and that lawnmower is just sitting there and the guy is gone

I mean that's that I've been I've been trying to tell my kids they need to they need to watch that the the most rented

VHS Christian videotape of all time Thief in the Night so so there you go but but Brian McLaren and I both moved beyond that that upbringing but he just he threw everything out on the table and said let's let's negotiate everything and I recognized you couldn't do that you had to be consistent there were there were foundational things that that remained true and that you have to focus on and then there were other things we had to go nope that that actually is inconsistent and I'm not gonna have to I'm not gonna hold on to that so obviously you went through the same process yeah the the pendulum

I think a lot of times when people leave fundamentalism or something similar to that the pendulum usually swings and mine did

I actually was very drawn to the emergent church movement right and thank thankfully too

I mean because there's a lot of young cool guys and thankfully that some guys like Kevin DeYoung that wrote while we're not emergent that was really important to me when

I was going through all this and then I started swinging back more to where you know I started getting into reformed theology and discovering really the basis of a lot of what we believe and so so I believe

I came back to a healthy place and really desired to go deeper but my good friend JC Groves and I were talking about we constantly had these conversations about our upbringing and and about two years ago he called me

I think it's like two o 'clock in the morning and I almost never sleep so I answered his call and he said man have you ever thought about doing a podcast and I was like I think they're cool but you know

I don't really know much about it he said we need to do a podcast on fundamentalism on being ex fundies and I was like I was like that sounds awesome he said

I've looked and searched and the only thing I can find with having anything to do with ex fundies is like atheistic or agnostic and so we started doing a lot of research and he said why don't we just start having the conversations we've had in private for 20 years publicly he's also pastor and then we brought in one of our other pastor friends

Brian Edwards who has been around fundamentalism for four years and we always give him the hard time calling him the older one even though he's only 51 he's only like five years older than us we definitely give him a hard time but the three of us started getting together and we're about a year and a half 77 episodes into the recovering fundamentalist podcast and man we've taken a ton of heat for what we're doing and we also have thousands of people that have contacted us and said hey we you know you're helping us realize that there's freedom in Christ and the whole purpose is to talk about the gospel and to our mission statement says we exist to help and encourage those whose lives have been negatively affected by fundamentalist legalism into the church and to challenge those who value tradition over scripture so we're we're very conservative but of course we immediately got written off as heretics because we're not independent fundamental

Baptist but it's been it's been quite a journey for the last year and a half I bet I was really surprised a few g3s ago when

I was talking to folks how many of the people who stood in line for a long period of time to talk to me mentioned their

IFB background and how and I'm not because it's not something that Jeff and I ever sat down said let's do this but mentioning both

Jeff Durbin and myself as as people who had helped them to become better grounded and more balanced and and get out of the legalism and become involved for example in doing apologetics and things like that which

I think I have be folks they like to they like to bluster and they like to talk about defending the faith but their position makes it all almost impossible for them to do so in any meaningful fashion because you you have to expose yourself to other ways of thinking and you have to understand other perspectives accurately and there is a huge fear in that mindset of actually exposing yourself so that you can engage those those types of things and so I was just really really surprised at how many people were coming up to me and saying you know

I was I was raised in a very strict fundamentalist context and I was King James only and I was taught that you had 14 sets of horns hidden somewhere in your head and and and then one day

I stumbled on something on a different topic and it's like what you said made sense and so I started listening and a lot of them would say

I really liked what you said about other stuff but I stayed away from the King James stuff because I was afraid I was

I was scared of what I was gonna hear and then when I finally did so then it's like wow

I never I never heard any of this stuff before and so yeah so we're already 17 minutes in we haven't talked about the debate yet how did this how did this debate even get started because I'll be honest with you

I've never heard of the guy you debated I've just and then you said you spent hours listening to this guy

I I need to know how you survived that it was not easy I listened to a lot of sermons and debates and things like that that's just how

I'm wired but it was not easy I would have to force myself to listen and I didn't even get all the way through 18 episodes because I listened to he has a podcast that he's featured on and I didn't make it through that but I listened to enough of his sermons to where I reached a point where he wasn't ever saying anything new and he didn't say anything new that I hadn't heard in the debate which was why

I was so prepared for yeah the debate with him so yeah you had you had your nice notebook that's it that was somebody seriously somebody right

I did hear enough of the audience questions somebody took a shot at you because can you answer that without using your notebook that was maybe my favorite part of the whole debate

I'm not sure how many other people caught that but I sure did

I was I was cackling when I when I heard that what's like whoa take a shot there yeah yeah yeah be being prepared how dare you you know yeah and Andy anti intellectualism is definitely a problem in the circles

I grew up in oh yeah this debate proved that it was still a real issue but so we did four episodes back to back recorded them all in one day

I'm sure you know what that's like I spent about nine hours in the studio with Mark Ward who

I've become friends with and he did four episodes with us and he has a real heart for people in the

IFB and so he was real interested and followed up with us about getting on the program and after that Cody Zorn the pastor who hosted the debate in his church sent me a private message on Twitter and I didn't respond fast enough so he started heckling me and I got back with him

I said hey man I'm I'm not like trying to avoid you he was calling me a coward coward and all this stuff

I said I'm not trying to avoid you I'm just really really busy right now and I told him what was going on in my life and he was like well

I got a challenge for you boys you said truth doesn't fear a challenge which is something my co -host

JC grow says all the time he says truth never fears a challenge he said I've got a challenge for you and I said well

Cody that doesn't mean that we're gonna jump off of every cliff that everybody tells us to jump off of he said no

I've got a real challenge he said I want to challenge you boys to a King James Bible debate I'm gonna invite someone to debate you and I said well two things

I need to know first of all who I'm gonna be debating he let me know and I looked him up and did a ton of research and then

I said I need to know the rules and the format and we're gonna have to stick to that so he sent me the rules and I shared them with three or four of my buddies who are involved in things like this and because I've never done a debate before I've never been involved in anything not even in high school similar to this

I just listened to hours and hours and read a lot of books concerning that so anyway the questions were all three written

I believe by Mitch but you know by Mitch or by Cody and the question is pretty obvious they were they came to their perspective oh yeah yeah and everybody said you've got to change the questions and I said no

I don't want to change the questions because I want to be able to point out the inaccuracies in the questions and I want to go on to their turf and answer the questions basically stand up for what

I believe in on their terms and I thought that was important because I do have a heart for these people and I'm very thankful for how

I was raised and for my parents and so I wanted to be able to go in and answer them agreed to that and just started preparing and praying and meeting with a lot of guys and getting ready for the debate how much time did you have had about three months three months okay that's that's that's sufficient amount of time and so I assume this church isn't all that far away from you then or what's about two hours okay all right and about how many people were there because there was only one time in the video right to start that there was an audience shot and it was sort of fading out at least in what was posted on YouTube so I it was hard to tell and who was the loud obnoxious

I mean it's not like he was in the within the first two rows yeah the first three rows on the right side from the stage was all preacher boys in three -piece suits and ties and they had their

Bibles in their hand the entire time and they were shouting it out it was it was the craziest thing

I've ever said I'm used to that I grew up in the camp meeting crowd so that was completely normal but I haven't been exposed to it for a while and it was a little bit distracting but thankfully

I didn't really have to compete with a lot of shouts when I was talking oh no they didn't you didn't get any you didn't get any hey man it didn't matter what you said you went even when you said stuff they'd agree with it was yes very silent so there was about I believe 300 to 350 people there and I would say about 80 or 90 of them were

RFP family followers of the podcast and so I did have a section there but they were spread out throughout the church and they were a lot less vocal but they were they were rooting me on and praying for me the whole time yeah yeah

I got it I got a few little when you when you're done but you know it was yeah it wasn't quite the same as as the other guy got so all right so it sounded to me from mainly from your comments but then he would confirm it that he takes the in essence re -inspiration position for the

King James so he he's all the way over in the far extreme of the camp a lot of people that I've you know in fact you you sort of had a list of the people that he doesn't view as Bible believers yeah that included a lot of the big names yeah did you say da wait and yes what about Sam Gipp or where would he be with Sam Gipp I think he's pretty close to Sam Gipp I've never heard him mention him negatively but he's mentioned the

Reformers he's mentioned the the fundamentalist he really goes after them and I really the whole point of our our podcast is we really want to get back to what the fundamentalist movement was about in the beginning it was a unifying movement to bring people together in the body of Christ and then it turned into a separatist movement so yeah he goes after da wait and the guy that I forget his name but one of da waits associates he goes after him and just says basically they're not

Bible believers so I don't see how you can be a Christian and go to heaven if you're not a Bible believer so even textus receptus majority only all of those positions

TR only he just says they're not Bible believers they don't go far enough for him and it sounded like then for him and he was a little bit careful how

I respond to this because you said he had been on a on a program with other people and they had tried to push back on with him on it and stuff like that but that he literally believes that you can't be saved out of any other

English translation than the King James Version of the Bible yeah he preaches and teaches the corruptible seed argument that any other version is corruptible seed any other line he likes to talk about Alexandrian and and Rome he has this whole thing he does about three cities right

Antioch is the good city Rome and Alexandria are the bad cities and then he just argues and only tells the bad points about the two cities he doesn't like and only the good points about the city he does and so yeah

I forgot what the question was sorry yeah no but he he seems to really emphasize this idea that he questions the salvation of anyone yes would be saved by any other means than the

King James Version of the Bible so I mean I was just a young child and I only had a King James so I guess

I'm safe but no I realized he probably wouldn't go there but still I have over the years developed a distinction between King James preference

TR only is a majority text people yes and then what I call a cultic

King James only ism where you you make it a part of the gospel you make it as a mechanism of the gospel because it it just removes you so far from anything that would be relevant in church history

I mean you know for the first 1 ,500 years of church history every

Christian would look at you and go what what what do you what are you talking about what I mean any anybody before the printing press would have just no way of even understanding how you could even come up with where you're coming up with things and then in your opening statement now there was one point the second the second question that was asked the moderator got up after you both did your thing and said neither one of you answered the question and he was right about that it seemed to both of you just sort of went well this is the second question but we're just gonna keep on going where we were going after the first question to be very honest with you but the the the whole the whole thrust of his well you said in your opening statement you were straight up front you were like my opponent says things he throws stuff out about history that are just simply untrue

I mean he just plays fast and loose with the with the facts and man I could not tell you how many times

I was listening to him throwing stuff out there and as a church history professor I'm going what are you talking about how did how do you get away with this don't you don't you have any fear that somebody's gonna check out what you're saying because it's just it's either just completely fallacious or it's so one -sided and you're ignoring so much counter argumentation in your application your conclusions that it's astonishing

I guess he just has to trust that there is that such that strong fundamentalist fear instilled in people they're not gonna they're not gonna check him out they're not gonna they're not gonna go and find out hey he was just completely off on what he said yeah and he's been doing he's been traveling for 44 over 44 years doing conferences presentations at small independent

Baptist churches all across the country and I think for probably the first 20 years he did this the internet really wasn't an option and most people couldn't get their hands on the books that he could get his hands on so I don't think a whole lot of people pushed back on what he said they just took it for granted he

I've listened to some conferences he's done where he's claimed some absolutely crazy things even worse than he did in the debate and literally nobody asked questions they just amended so I think

I think the age we live in now he mocked me for using the internet and I'll completely accept that and own that but I'm not sure he even fully understands what we have access to well yeah and and of course yesterday someone memed that and and and put up what he said and said that you you owned the internet with your response which which after he said what he said

I don't have the internet and your response was you might want to get it it was quite true where he was coming from was just so so so far off it wasn't even well

I want to give folks a taste so that they'll go listen to to the debate

I want to give him a taste of I think this is I'm not sure if this is his first rebuttal but you you've just sat down and and here he comes and I I think this gives everybody somewhat of a of a flavor and I'm gonna have to resist the temptation to not be stopping and starting going saying that's crazy but I want people to hear it and if he does say something that I just really have to comment on that I'll I'll do it but let's let's listen to a little little brother

Mitch responds inspiration is not only a

Bible doctrine so is preservation if God did not preserve his word what was the use and inspiring it to begin with my dear brother keeps saying the originals the original he don't have the originals neither does anybody else even that long tenured

Hebrew and Greek professor at the average Bible College he doesn't have the originals many of your

Bible colleges around this country are using Thayer's lexicon Greek lexicon to overthrow the authority your

King James Bible and Thayer according to Baker's book publication of his work didn't believe in the blood atonement the deity of Christ he didn't believe the inspiration of the scripture why do you want to convert a consort a lost man for authority on your

Bible Wilhelm just sent us who was the

German rationalist it was responsible for the Hebrew definitions all Hebrew work in those days in strong concordance was a

German rationalist didn't even believe in the deity of Christ the blood atonement neither did any other German rationalist why do you want to consult a source that blasphemes your

Bible so let let's well let's a couple a couple things there that I want to look at if he did not preserve why inspire so why in the world does he believe that the

Bible had to be in essence re -inspired yeah I mean it doesn't make any sense if there's got to be a mechanism of preservation that you can demonstrate historically he doesn't even try he in essence is saying well it was re -inspired between 1604 and 1611 that's your final authority you don't need to look at Greek manuscripts you don't need to look at the

Hebrew manuscripts you don't have to listen to the King James translators you don't have to look at Erasmus you don't have to look at the process the source the history just disconnect all of it and this is your final authority so why even bother to say that he preserved it because he if it had to be re -inspired that he doesn't believe it was preserved anyways yeah and the problem with their position is they have a very very weak position on preservation they do and I couldn't

I couldn't get them to see this because he does not believe that God preserved his word in the original languages nobody claims that we have the originals but God preserved his word through copies of copies of copies throughout the centuries as he as he always have has and I believe as you do that we still have access to these right through fragments and different things manuscripts that we can look at and he does not believe that God preserved his word in the original languages so re -inspiration is necessary for his position and if God couldn't get it right the first time then why are we gonna trust

God's plan B because it is plan B and when when he said he doesn't have the originals he was confusing your discussion of the original languages and the fact that the the

King James translators you know they utilized they were translating the original languages they they utilized

Erasmus and Stephanos and Beza and they had that they had the Hebrew they're translating these printed editions of these original language texts without confusing those specific texts with the originals so you what the reason

I stopped it eventually was because the the thought that crossed my mind was I'm especially in the in the audience questions when they were sort of goading each other on in essence with the questions they were asking was a communal celebration of utter ignorance that's what it was it was it was we are celebrating the fact that we will not listen to any other perspective and we will not engage any other perspective in any meaningful fashion and we will encourage one another to just yell amen whenever we feel threatened and I it almost seemed to me that it was getting louder because the threat was getting greater so we just gotta yell louder to try to convince ourselves we actually still believe this stuff because we really don't know how to give an answer to all this type of thing and it was it was just it was sad to hear people doing this kind of thing yeah he he could straighten you out on some of what you just had to say about the

King James and how they referred to a lot of Bezos work and Erasmus work he actually believes that there was a

TR that existed that was perfect that they literally just translated word -for -word and then it burned up in the

London fire I heard him say something about that yeah it where does this mythology come from because I mean

I'm not just just the just the marginal notes demonstrate that's not the case I mean it's obvious but he didn't have any answers for for that and he also didn't have any answers for the fact that he claimed that there's no difference from the 1611 and the 1769 and I read about 14 of them the biggest differences and he never even addressed that and based on his position his

Bible is a perversion right because of what I showed and he just absolutely did not address it

I have had multiple people reach out to me and tell me that that was a point that swayed them over many people told me you won't convince anybody and my good friend

Timothy Berg said you won't convince anybody on the stage he said but there are gonna be a lot of people listening yeah that you may be able to sway and I have heard from many many of them and some of them that said hey you've made me think and some of them said

I've had to walk away from the only position even though I still prefer the King James Version so praise the

Lord for that oh most definitely yeah and that's been yeah that's been my experience for decades now you know my intention in writing the book wasn't wasn't to convert

Gail Ripplinger I can guarantee you that you know you have you have listened to our encounter right yes everything

I could get my hands on I've listened to and read that was

I can still remember that radio studio to this day and I am the very last person she ever engaged in that way from that point and why yeah yeah

I understand that she would send the questions ahead of time and you're only allowed to ask those questions and yeah that's why

Kent Hovind as soon as you get out of prison made a beeline for Gail Ripplinger's house I that's anyway oh boy but then to hear stuff like Thayer's Greek lexicon

I mean what century does he live in yeah I mean I suppose I have Thayer's someplace in accordance someplace but Bauer Donker Arndt and Gingrich is the is the standard today and I'm sure he would go after every single one of them too but again you go okay so only

Christians so that's does that is that how he gets gets around Erasmus I assume you know

I ask him those questions and he did not answer I just think for he I think he has enough sense to know for his position to work he has to claim there was a perfect text out there that the

King James was translated from he cannot abide that they went with Beza in one place and and you know

Erasmus and Stephanos in another place and even the Bishop's Bible and Lord help us the

Geneva by Latin Latin oh I mean yeah yeah so I had things printed off and showed to them and pointed out where they went with different readings and there's just there's just no answers for those questions no you just have to yell a whole lot louder but there's there's no question how in the world given that there were multiple committees that translated different portions of the

New Testament how in the world could all of the Greek texts that they used have been burned up in the

London fire because they would have been in different places outside of London yeah I don't have an answer for that well brother

Mitch I'm sure does somewhere yeah but let's listen let's get it now

I wanted people to get some of the some of the taste I didn't play any of Nathan's presentation because you can't get a taste of the crowd because they're just sitting there staring at him going

I'm not I'm not gonna say anything yeah we're just we're just waiting for you to get done so the good guy can get back up again but I hope you're listening to the background and and listening to what is being

Haman and it's not just amen it's there's got to be a there's got to be an

H there at the start if you don't get that one of one of our listeners pointed out that they said the word they said more than anything else was hey man which

I think what they meant was straw man

I do have his Calvinism section queued up I do want to get that before we run out of time so this rhetoric sounds good but there's no basis for it because it's always reverting back to the originals to the original to the originals they don't have the originals amen now folks listen to me if they had the originals you folks couldn't read them most of you do you know

Hebrew and Greek and Aramaic do you yeah well then you got to depend upon somebody to tell you what it means just like a

Catholic has to depend upon a priest to interpret the scripture for him okay now okay

I'm remembering all these things as I'm listening to them and so if you if you have the

Greek in the Hebrew then you have to depend upon someone to tell you what they mean and that's like the

Catholics and I'm like okay so how did you get the

English translation in the place and obviously the actual historically the form of the

Greek New Testament that underlies the King James Version of the

Bible in the New Testament was primarily given its form by Desiderius Erasmus who was an ordained

Roman Catholic priest who wrote a book in defense of transubstantiation okay that's the historical reality how

I listen to this and knowing the historical reality I just go are you seriously just trying to get people's emotions so riled up that they won't hear what the other side saying or is this just what you've done for so many decades now you don't know what else to do it's hard to know which it is yeah and and based on his position he has to depend upon 54

Anglicans right which is maybe sprinkling Anglican yeah to know what the original said so even though he actually did he not actually deny that they were

Pato Baptists he says in multiple talks that they didn't start until the 1630s dunking babies because that was after King James and as long as King James is in there they didn't do that and he also says

King James didn't ever execute anybody and that's not true that's not true either

Wow just just when history doesn't fit if the glove doesn't fit doesn't fit you have to acquit so if history doesn't fit make up new history that's that's how it goes

Wow let's listen a little bit more here you say I'm a preacher I'm not only a Bible teacher you say you should

I'm not angry I'm as happy as a clam at high tide I'm doing what

God called and equipped me to do 45 years now but I'm telling you if you hadn't got a book that's the authority then you've got to depend upon your pastor or teacher to tell you what the

Bible means you can't sit down let me tell you something folks when you get down to read your Bible and you say now

Lord I got a King James Bible here but I know it's full of mistakes and I know it's full of mistranslations and interpolations and idiosystems and glosses and inundations to the text but if you could possibly show me something in the

Bible please do you think God's gonna fool with you five seconds hmm a little bit of a threat there but if you go down like I do and like so many of us do get down say

Lord I don't I don't understand everything in this book but you said you'd preserve it every generation

I'm in an English generation I'm not going to the Hebrew or the Greek or any other language

I'm an Englishman I speak English amen now let's let's go ahead and talk about this just briefly

I'm gonna spend some time doing this I'm having some problems with the cordons and so it's throwing me curves when

I get in the Old Testament but Psalm 12 I mean he started with it it is absolutely foundational does he ever do anything other than mock the recognition that contextually the much stronger argument can be made by walking through the text that the the word of the

Lord that is referred to there is the promise it was just given that he will deliver the the oppressed that I mean that's the context that's what it's what it's talking about it has to try to push that out to a 17th century

Anglican translation as the fulfillment of that oh and by the oh I just remembered so I'm sorry

I just remembered something I actually endangered my life at one point during this debate because I was driving down the road

I'm I'm in a truck pulling a fifth wheel there's about 17 ,000 pounds going down the road and he actually okay you got you got to help me

Nathan I'm sorry cuz I'm not sure that I can get through this without breaking up but okay he just he tries to distinguish between numerology and numerics right yes he does okay and he

Rich is sitting here waiting for this one because you haven't heard this I wish I had queued this one up I really I really really do but he actually went to Luke 19 41 through 44 and said that the that the chapter and well he was wrong about the chapter in verse stuff by the way the chapters existed before Stephanus because I have a 1550s fun is that and the chapter divisions are in there but the verse divisions aren't he did that between 1515 1551 that but the chapter stuff was there long before that and you'll find references in Erasmus and others to those

Erasmus has chapter divisions too so that was before Stefanus anyway but he thinks that the

King James chapter and verse divisions are given by God as proof of the of the inspiration of the

Bible just like the Muslims think the number 19 is relevant in the

Quran been there done that got the t -shirt but he goes to Luke 19 and says that the digging of the trenches around Jerusalem was fulfilled in the

Nazi Holocaust in World War 2 1941 through 44 so chapter 19 and those numbers go together as the years that they are fulfilled in so I'm sitting here going so that means everything in chapter 20 must be a prophecy of what's going on now right and things so and chat but what would what what if you find something in chapter 16 that might have a fulfillment today that must have been filled in the 1600s and I I'm grabbing my phone while driving trying to find what what was in Luke 19 19 because I'm going

I can't believe that this is being presented but I think it got pretty did it get quieter it was there any evidence from your perspective that maybe at least that stuff a few people in the audience are going yeah

I'm not so sure I heard from a lot of guys on their side that that had some issues with some of the stuff he said even though they agreed with a lot of it but some of them were really put off with that but that's honestly not even the worst

I've heard him do I've heard him count the vowels and consonants a number of words and and I believe

Genesis 1 1 and the number of vowels and consonants and words in the last verse in the

Bible Revelation 22 whatever and apparently they're exactly the same and then he says if you go the

Kami Oh honey um the number of consonants and vowels are exactly the same as are in those two verses he says so you tell me that that doesn't belong in your

King James Bible only God can do that Wow Wow okay there isn't in my experience there simply is no mechanism or means to reason with people in that context there's facts rationality saying okay if you're right about that then that needs to be something that can be a can be falsified so there there should be other examples and and and you know they're just there's like nope nope

I can't open your mind you if you just can't feel the spirit telling you see I can actually get into this and start start doing it it is you if you would swing to the other side oh man make a whole lot of money and you would be booked from now

I was about to say

Paul's conversion man I'll tell you but I've looked at some of those churches and I'm not really certain that that's the day

I don't think they I think they'd think I was I was Paul and hence they're not gonna they're not gonna accept my conversion story no it ain't gonna happen that way no but I just I heard

I just remembered that I'm not sure what reminded me of that and I'm just like oh my goodness

I forgot the Luke 1944 stuff and it's just it's just astonishing well let me

I'm gonna have to pull this over here to cue it over to you had

I forget how this had started maybe you'll remember but you had raised some issues concerning the translators

I think you were just trying to push him to be consistent on what he was saying about people and and if that's the case then you really wouldn't listen to the

King James translators and that kind of thing so let's you went into a lengthy section on the

Reformers and James and Tyndale and the fact that they were reformed and again you had all that stuff in your in your notebook and so let's pick up with the end of your comments there there you go there's the notebook and let's let's pick up with the last of what you had to say there and and his his comments translators were

Calvinistic reformed they were Protestants who belonged to the Anglican Church and then he turns and he belittles all these other men after he says you can't belittle

King James but he can belittle anybody else he wants to King James was a

Presbyterian but he was not a Calvinist King James was against the

Geneva Bible because he knew that in the footnotes of the King James Bible of 14 pro Calvinistic footnotes okay now

I just have to ask a question he's not old enough to have known King James right so so my so my immediate question is how does he know why

King James didn't like the Geneva Bible because every historian I've ever read believed that he didn't like the

King James the the I'm sorry the Geneva Bible because of the footnotes that specifically limited royal power and said that Kings were subject to the law of God that's what he didn't like it wasn't the

Calvinistic stuff where does he get this I do you just simply make it up on the fly do you say it once and since no one challenges you you just keep repeating it

I'm still left wondering how this functions yeah I'm not sure but he made a statement in one of his podcast episodes going through the corruptible line the perverted line as he calls it and he said that the all of the

ESP translators were Calvinists so therefore they were heretics to start with so why are you gonna trust a bunch of heretics to translate your

Bible and that's when I really started studying because I have a couple of friends who are

Anglican and I started studying the Anglicans and of course have studied the Reformation before and the more

I discovered was just amazing in the the 39 articles and then

King James comments after the sign out of Dort where they agreed with all five points of the tulip right where he congratulated them and and was bragging on the the documents that they helped push through even though they were maybe a little bit softer than the

German Calvinist they still agreed to all five points of the tulip so he didn't have any answers to those questions either no no he didn't

I I noticed that he was completely completely silent on that had nothing to say on on the subject whatsoever but it was he is a

Presbyterian but he wasn't a Calvinist and I'm just like okay have if you read the 39 articles and I don't know if he has or hasn't

I I can't tell but if he if he has he hasn't understood what he was reading that's for certain but you knew this this next part was coming and I all right let's listen to it

I'm not getting into debate about Calvinism but I'm very anti Calvinist and people say well it's not

Calvinism it's the doctrines of grace really John Calvin said it please God for the decree of reprobation that if a baby should die and not be elect that that baby should burn in hell forever now he gave that like he was giving a quote mm -hmm and I you didn't really give it get a chance to challenge him to provide a reference but it sounded like he was giving a quote it's it's not a quote

I mean it may be his summary of something out of the Institutes or something

I don't know but that's not a direct quote from John Calvin as far as I know have you ever heard him

I've I I was on the Bible Answer Man broadcast of George Bryson for three hours that infamous afternoon and I heard a lot of quotes from from Calvin that sounds like a sort of a compilation of a few things with throwing a baby in for the fun of it type of a situation that's not out of the ordinary because he he regularly misrepresents his opposing viewpoint right

I mean he he regularly mischaracterizes what anybody of any other persuasion including the fundamentalists believe hmm yeah okay we but we press on here that's grace

I would tell you what you could do with that grace but God won't let me

I'm saved amen if you're sitting here this morning since it went over to Calvinism when you sitting here this morning and you're saying that Jesus Christ only shed enough blood for the elect and they reprobated the rest of the world then you're saying that Jesus Christ is responsible personally for the damnation of everybody he didn't shed blood for so I'm hearing okay

I get the preacher boys okay I I get the preacher boys but it it's hard for me to imagine that over 40 plus years there wasn't some evening meal with somebody who had the guts to say to this guy by the way that's not even close to what

Calvinists believe yeah I suppose it's possible I you know

I don't know but to hear that kind of misrepresentation and then to hear it just just it's it's sad but it's also frightening in a sense for those people

I feel for those people that are that are sitting there going why it doesn't really sound like what

I've been hearing people say but you know if he says it I can't I feel guilty questioning him that kind of authority especially in IFB churches there's the don't touch the

Lord's anointed thing you know oh yeah oh by the by the way by the way just something else kicked in here you can go a couple of minutes over the hour right definitely okay the law of first reference oh

Rich is looking at me do you know do you know what we're talking about because I do remember as a as a young child hearing somebody make reference to the law of first reference and he used it and you basically said that's not actually a hermeneutical law at all which is true

I mean no no serious scholarly work on hermeneutics anywhere says that when a word in the

Bible appears the first time how it's used there is how it's going to be used through the rest of the

Bible I mean that you won't find that in any meaningful hermeneutics text but I only heard it in that context so I guess that's still very much part of the interpretational methodology and in IFB or is he somewhat off the rails there no it's pretty mainstream within his branch and a lot of the

IFB and he even went as far I've heard it called a principle of first mention and and I might be okay with that there's some cases where yeah okay you see patterns in the

Bible I don't think anybody will deny that there are patterns and even some interesting numbers that's great but when he calls it the law of first mention right and that has to be true every single time so the first mention of every single word has to carry through so I just simply took the the word perfect that they kept going back to in the questions and said let's look at what the first mention of perfect is and of course in the

English language which it's totally different the the word that you know he was using in Psalms and then in the

New Testament and in Genesis but he doesn't want to go back to Hebrew and Greek so I said let's look at the first mention of perfect and it was of Noah and that he was a man who was upright or he was in the

King James he was perfect and I said is was Noah perfect the same way that you're talking about the

King James Bible being perfect in these questions and there were a few people that shouted amen and I said

I'm sorry but no you cannot believe that because Noah was not perfect he was not sinless in the same way that you're saying the

King James Bible is perfect and sinless so that disproves your law of first mention mm -hmm and comment but that was that was oh yeah he didn't answer the whole idea would just turns any meaningful exegesis on its head it really really does and you could come up with so many counterexamples that it's it's shocking but I but I did hear it when

I was younger I heard that being presented and that plays into the

Strong's exhaustive concordance exegesis style where you can just look up a word and the first reference is here and then you can you can shoehorn just all sorts of stuff in there in in the process and so yeah it's it's amazing so now that you and Mitch I'm sure you and Mitch probably went out afterward and you know had a good time together had some cheeseburgers and and some good southern southern cooking right we did not we we had a sandwich in between in the intermission and we had a conversation but none of it had to do with the

King James it was just about people that mutual friends that we knew and things like that because I grew up around the circle that he preached in and out of so yeah we had some conversation and I've had conversation with Cody since then but but not a lot of interaction well obviously since you all you all are best buds you could you could arrange you can arrange for me to debate

Mitch on on Calvinism and and the Bible translation issue right I will certainly do everything

I can I would love to see that I suspect that they would not take me up on that they may have some email malfunctions like you talked about yesterday but I don't think that he or anybody else would take you up on that now

Cody Zorn and I'm just gonna throw this out there as a challenge he said that he could take a King James Bible and in two minutes he may have said two seconds but I think it was two minutes disprove everything

I said well it's interesting to me that he brought in somebody else to debate me in his church right and he did not choose to debate me himself which

I don't know that I would have accepted it but one of my biggest goals going into this and it was written down obviously

I wanted to honor God I wanted to keep my temper and keep my cool which was very very difficult throughout this but I wanted to I wanted to show love and kindness for them and I pray for them because that's what how

I was raised and I relate to that but one of my main goals was not to get caught up in the weeds because he talks about so much ridiculous stuff that I was just praying

Lord help me stay on topic and I kept writing things down to say and I was like nope I'm sticking with my notes but as I was going through this going back to not getting caught in the weeds

I built my whole case on really one point and I came back to it in my introduction and every single point every single question

I tried to go back to it and that is if a man travels for 45 years teaching something specializing in something it had better be an

Orthodox Bible doctrine right and I do not believe I know from my study that King James only ism or you call it version ism or Timothy Berg calls it textual absolutism is not an

Orthodox Bible doctrine and I've made the point that doctrine was once for all delivered to the

Saints the faith was once for all delivered to the Saints passed down by the Apostles anything that was not has to fall in the category of preference and this is definitely not a

Bible doctrine right yeah you made that point a number of times you know that their response was but without it you can't have a sure word from the

Lord and sadly in many instances what they mean by that is not that they have a sure word from the

Lord but their preacher tells them that they do and they believe what their preacher says they they'll mock that they'll mock the

Roman Catholics are going to their priests but let's be honest the the IFB doctrine of touch not the anointed is normally turned into the very same kind of authoritarian you you go with my interpretation you don't have the right to look at the text yourself type stuff that that you find all over the place and that is a a major major problem so no

I that was why one of the reasons I wanted to get together with you there were there were lots of places where you could have gone off the rails and and I think he was trying to give you reason to get you know in his grill shall we say and you stayed focused it was very well done along those lines obviously

I've been in many many similar situations not just with King James only us but with Muslims I was

I couldn't help but think of my debate with Adnan Rashid in London a number of years ago where there was a bunch of young Muslim guys right in the front row and instead of hey man it was a lot walk bar and they were they were talk bearing that's called tuck beard they were doing that to everything he said and they were getting all excited and all you know and it was on a similar subject it was the inspiration of the

New Testament versus the inspiration of the Quran so it's a very similar context and at one point

I was up there and I made a real strong point and they're just sitting there and I said what you're not gonna you're not gonna

Allah who Akbar that and they're just looking at me like their eyes get real big because I focused right in upon them and I said you guys are all emotional and anything he says you're just going along with it but you're not listening to what's being said because I just demonstrated a major inconsistency in his position and you're not seeing it it's because you're not listening you're not applying equal scales and that's the same situation we're seeing you know that you experienced with a very very very very similar emotional commitment to a theological position which does not make it right by any stretch of the imagination so I'm sure we're gonna hear some blog posts about James White compares independent fundamentalist

Baptist to Muslims that's that's the next thing that someone's gonna do I you know you just you can you could write these things before they happen oh yeah but the the emotional commitment aspect of it that keeps you from hearing it first people

I saw it with in my young life were Muslims not Muslims Mormons and you'd you'd show them stuff in the in the

Book of Mormon you'd show the contradictions between the Doctrine and Covenants program price the Bible and and what you'd get at the end was well you know you've strengthened my testimony and it's it's a defense mechanism and and I can only say too because you and I both know there are some fundamentalists watching right now live who are doing this because they're wondering about this type of stuff you know and look you there's there's this

I didn't come up with this line it's a line that came from that I heard first from Dan Wallace but Dan Wallace warned me and warned everybody against trading truth for certainty you must not trade the truth for certainty yeah and there are a lot of people that are absolutely certain the

Book of Mormon is the Word of God there are a lot of people are absolutely certain the Quran's Word of God you and I both agree they're wrong yeah but they've traded truth for certainty and we can't do we can't do that we can grow in the grace and knowledge the

Lord Jesus Christ but we have to be focused upon the truth and you know the thing I say to everybody the thing

I'd be saying in that debate over and over again I want to know what the Apostles wrote not what someone 500 years later thought they should have written yes and it's hard to argue against that it's hard to argue against the repeated assertion

I want to know what John wrote I want to know what Paul wrote that's the vitally important thing and in essence

Mitch's position was you can't know that without the re -inspiration the text what they wrote got lost and that's why you've got the

King James Version of the Bible and that's that is not a defensible position so anyway well done sir

I was gonna say well done young man but you're not you know you're well done middle -aged man I'll take it thank you

I get to say young man to almost everybody anymore except for a few people that then look down at me and say the same thing to me but but you've done a good job and so let's let's stay in touch as far as what you had mentioned doing something with you guys's webcast it sounds like there must be something that would be very enjoyable to do and any other debate challenges have come your way none yet but I'm just gonna take them as they come

I don't think I'll accept any this year but I do want to tell you thank you for your investment in my life and a lot of other younger guys lives the work you've done

I know when you're in the debate I experienced this firsthand now so I get it a little bit more when you're in the debate there's not a lot of affirmation there's you don't see a lot of immediate results although I've seen more than I expected to right at this point but it's a pretty difficult situation but but God's Word is faithful and it will not return void as the

King James Version says which is I have everything memorized in King James Version because for the first 20 years of my life that's all

I used but I thank you for all that you did and and I said this in my closing that the reason

I'm not King James only today is thanks to a lot of men like you and thanks to the

Independent Fundamental Baptists who taught me that the Bible is my final authority in faith and practice and when

I could not find translationism absolutism King James only ism in my even

King James Bible I had to let it go that's right that's right I thought as the final the final argument and I think it's an argument you made well and I don't believe that Mitch had any meaningful response to that so look it up on on YouTube just look up King James Bible debate it was first one that popped up when

I looked at it the only other one that popped up was the debate I did in London in 20 2011 with Dr.

Moorman and the Mount Impassable debate if you recall that one yeah that was an interesting interesting evening and what happened afterwards was quite interesting too if I could recommend that they look up the recovering fundamentalist

YouTube page we had a videographer there and our video is a thousand times better audio and video than the other one it's a lot easier to watch if they just want to search that one okay good yeah that would be a good idea because there were

I wasn't sure if there were dropouts just in the recording or if I was having trouble because I was traveling but yeah there were some things like that that happened so well thank you sir for joining us and hopefully this will get a lot more people to watch the debate and certainly hopefully more people will tune to the podcast especially those who are starting to realize that what they've been given is is not a full plate they need they need to have the rest of it and they might be able to find some some help in the conversations you all have about that so thank you for joining us

I appreciate it thank you dr. why you are the og thank you very much god bless all right well that's it for us folks we're gonna wrap it up and I'm not sure

I think Thursday we're gonna try to get back together again I do want to we're gonna be having at some point

Tony cost his book early Christian creeds and hymns just came out and so we want to get together with Tony and talk about those things it's a book

I read a number a number of months ago now and so we've got some good stuff coming up but till then