As many blog readers know, I had the privilege of debating James White-who utilized Acts 5:30 as a key part of his argument–on the topic:

The Legacy Standard Bible, as a representative of modern English translations based upon the UBS/NA text, is superior to the KJV, as a representative of TR-based Bible translations.

You can watch the debate here at What is Truth? at Faithsaves.net, on YouTube, or on Rumble.  A number of Christians posted debate reviews, some of which are discussed in a What is Truth? post here. I also produced a series of debate review videos accessible on my website, on YouTube, and on Rumble.  It had been a while since I had made a new one, but I (finally) got around to getting out my thoughts on James White’s argument from this verse:

The God of our fathers raised up Jesus, whom ye slew and hanged on a tree. (Acts 5:30, KJV)

The God of our fathers braised up Jesus, whom you put to death by hanging Him on a tree. (LSB)

James White’s Argument on Acts 5:30

White argued:

1.) The King James Version in Acts 5:30 teaches that the ungodly first slew Christ, and after He was slain, they hanged Him on a tree or cross.  This would destroy the gospel by denying that the Lord Jesus died on the cross for our sins; rather, the KJV (supposedly) teaches the heresy that Christ was first killed and then His dead body was hanged on a tree or cross.

2.) The LSB is a superior translation to the KJV because in Acts 5:30 it states that His enemies killed Christ “by hanging Him on a tree,” that is, by crucifying Him.

3.) The Greek of Acts 5:30 contains the participle kremasantes, which must indicate means and be translated as affirming that Christ was slain “by hanging.”  It cannot be translated “and hanged.”

4.) The KJV translators simply “missed” that kremasantes was a participle, and not realizing that kremasantes was a participle, they translated it like a finite verb.

5.) “Every English translation” translates kremasantes as a participle of means (that is, “by hanging”). The KJV “is the only one” that translates the Greek as “and hanged.”

6.) There is no Greek word “and” in Acts 5:30.  The KJV therefore mistranslates the verse by adding words not found in the Greek text.

7.) Because the KJV (allegedly) teaches the heresy that Christ was killed before He was crucified in Acts 5:30, because the translators were sloppy and missed that the verse had a participle and so disagreed with every other English translation, and because the KJV adds in the word “and” that is not contained in the text, the KJV is an inferior translation in Acts 5:30, and, so, presumably is an inferior translation overall. The LSB (and every other English translation, all of which unite to oppose the KJV in Acts 5:30) are superior, not just in Acts 5:30, but in the entire Bible.

James White has been making his claims against the King James Version’s translation of Acts 5:30 for around 30 years in the several editions of his The King James Only Controversy: Can You Trust Modern Translations? (Minneapolis, MN: Bethany House, 2009), and he made them again the debate.

The Truth on Acts 5:30 and James White’s Argument

In my review video, I demonstrate:

1.) James White’ argument from Acts 5:30 does not get him even close to proving the proposition in the debate.

2.) Dr. White’s criticisms of the King James Version in Acts 5:30 are astonishingly uninformed and inaccurate.

3.) White’s claim that the KJV translators simply “missed” that Acts 5:30 contained a participle is painfully unserious.

4.) White claimed that the KJV contains a mistranslation because it supplies the word “and” before “hanged,” when the syntactical category of the attendant circumstance participle (found in Acts 5:30) requires the insertion of an “and.”

5.) To attack the KJV in Acts 5:30, White’s King James Only Controversy invents a fictional Greek grammatical category called “instrumental circumstantial modal” and makes claims about the Greek grammar of Dana and Mantey that have no connection to the actual text of their book.

6.) Failing to account for the Old Testament allusion to Deuteronomy 21:22 in Acts 5:30  is another of many examples of what is lost on account of White’s writing the King James Only Controversy in only a few months and never improving it.

7.) The favorite manuscripts of the Textus Rejectus teach the heresy that the Lord Jesus was murdered by a spear thrust before His crucifixion in Matthew 27:49.  To be consistent with White’s line of reasoning, we must recognize the unambiguous superiority of the Textus Receptus because of the egregious error in the Textus Rejectus in Matthew 27:49.

Why?  Watch the embedded video below, or watch the debate review video on Acts 5:30 (#15) at faithsaves.net, on Rumble, or on YouTube.

–TDR