The Prevarication of Mark Ward with Wes Huff on the Textus Receptus

Mark Ward appeared with Wes Huff on his podcast and deceived the audience about whom he labels, “Textus Receptus Only.”  Wes Huff was an accomplice and cooperated with the deception.  Neither steelman their opposition.  Ward never does. They prevaricate and fool their audience.  Never once do they refer to the biblical and historical doctrine of the preservation of scripture.  Not once.  When Mark Ward does give his view on preservation in other occasions, he does not make his conclusions from the Bible.

Textus Receptus Only was not invented or claimed by those who advocate the Textus Receptus (TR).  It came as a pejorative to match it up with another pejorative, originated by opposition, King James Only.  You won’t hear TR men call themselves TR Only.  Mark Ward and others like him use the terminology as a pejorative.

First Principles

When listening to an interview of Elon Musk recently, he said that he likes working in engineering and physics, because these fields must always operate according to the truth.  He was taking a bit of a shot at Washington DC, because politicians there are not confined by these natural laws, like an engineer. To accomplish his goals in engineering, Musk uses what he calls first principles, essentially reducing his tasks to essential components.  Then he tests those according to the natural laws that exist and that’s how his projects succeed.

As much as the engineering in space travel, artificial intelligence, and robotics function according to natural laws ordained by God, Who created everything and sustains everything, the law of scripture works in the same way.  They both come from God, natural law and scripture, and this is the Father’s world.  The Bible, however, is the final authority on all matters of faith and practice.

Prevarication

With this post, I will describe what Mark Ward does in this recent podcast with Huff.  Ward can come here and talk to me directly.  It’s harder for him to do that, of course, because this means due process.  I’ve not found due process goes well for Ward.  He can’t make and finish his point or argument with just the truth.  He prevaricates.

I understand someone such as Mark Ward prevaricating.  If someone won’t tell the truth, prevarication is another option, like the lesser of two evils.  The big story here is not that I said Ward prevaricates.  No, it is that Mark Ward prevaricates.  Then professing Christians like Huff reward the prevarication with their participation.  He exponentially grows the amount of it.

First, I will provide the exact quotations, the transcript of what Ward said.  Ward doesn’t get to this issue until Huff asks him the question:  “What is the difference between the Textus Receptus and the critical text and why do certain groups maybe make a lot of that?”  Ward in answer rants four straight minutes starting at 47:55.  In that rant, he also prevaricates about the men who attest to the pejorative of Ward’s choosing,Textus Receptus Only.  I will divide Ward’s rant into sections.  Here’s what he said:

Section One

Right now, I think what they’re saying is not right.  It’s not sound doctrine, when it comes to the Greek New Testament. That’s not the reason we’re actually differing.  That’s a big thing I want to say.  I do think that effectively all talk about the Textus Receptus — if that’s reached the ears of your viewers because we’ve gone kind of from beginner to advanced now talking about the Septuagint, talking about the Textus Receptus.

Effectively all talk about the Textus Receptus arises from the King James only movement.  It’s people who love the King James — as well they should.  People who want to hold on to it in ways I don’t think they should, because they want to use it exclusively and say that every other translation is a corruption.  Those are the people who are talking about the Textus Receptus.  And the reason they’re doing it is that it’s actually something healthy combined with something unhealthy.

Section Two

The healthy thing is that they’re recognizing, well, it’s not doctrinally sound for me to say that this given translation is inspired by God, so instead I have to go back to its source and say what makes this translation superior to all others is that it uses a pure source and everybody else uses a corrupted source.  It’s actually healthy to recognize it’s not the translation itself that’s inspired, because God never said he would inspire any translation in any language.

Um, it’s the original the Greek and Hebrew that are inspired, but it’s unhealthy then not only to to claim that you’ve got the pure Greek New Testament and everybody else is corrupted, but I think it’s unhealthily, unhealthily confusing the issues, when people say that they are Textus Receptus only. They’ll only use translations based on it, but then the question I’ve been asking for years and years and never getting a clear answer to, finding only frustration is, well, what about the New King James — what about the modern English versions.

Section Three

Those are modern major, you know, translations of the Textus Receptus and the Greek New Testament, uh, of the Greek New Testament Textus Receptus.  And why don’t you use them, if your real concern is the Textus Receptus, then those ought to be acceptable to you and I get a lot of bluster and non-answer from people over that to the point where I I have finally kind of just stopped asking, um.  I’m, I’ve let my case on that land on the internet and people will make of it what they will.  I don’t think that there are hardly any people in the world who really in their hearts truly care about the Textus Receptus.

I think there are some, uh, I think almost all of that is, uh, an unwitting, not dishonest, but unwitting desire to hold on to the King James, because I’ve met, you know, I can count on two hands the number of people that I’ve met who strongly prefer the Textus Receptus but are also fine with the New King James or the Modern English Version.  Effectively everybody who wants to use the Textus Receptus also wants to use the King James exclusively and tell me that my Bible is Satan’s Bible, um, that’s divisive and not true and I’ve done a lot of work on my YouTube channel to try to graciously educate people on those issues.

Messy

Ward’s rant is an incoherent, jumbled mess.  I know it’s difficult in an interview without a script to talk in a smooth, structured way.  However, his messiness comes because he does not operate based upon first principles or with scriptural presuppositions.  He cannot put together a sensible answer.  It’s all over the place, because he does not know what he is talking about.  Mark Ward in essence pulls his answer from the seat of his pants.

This is going to be a multi-part presentation that will go piece by piece through his answer to Wes Huff and then also address a couple points that Huff himself made.  I will reveal how Mark Ward prevaricates once again.

Sound Doctrine

In section one, Ward says, “I think what they’re saying is not right,” which is a very bad start, because it is not answering the question.  He doesn’t tell us who the “they’re” is of “they’re saying.”  He adds that what “they’re saying,” “it’s not sound doctrine.”  I’ve heard Ward talk like this before, calling what his opposition says, “is not sound doctrine,” and then he never says what’s not sound about it.  Why is this doctrine not sound?  It would seem one would have to explain that.  It’s very convenient to call something false doctrine and not explain it at all.

Whatever the false doctrine is, if Ward started with scripture and worked on certain foundational truths, he could give a brief talking point to explain it.  At this juncture, he can’t mean his credo, “edification required intelligibility,” because he’s not talking about the translation issue, but the underlying text issue.  I call this prevarication number one, because sound doctrine does undergird support for the Textus Receptus.

Huff should have pushed back on Ward’s answer right away.  He should have asked, “What is the doctrine of which you speak?  What do you mean, Mark Ward, by “not sound doctrine”?  Please explain.”

Doctrinal Motivation

Ward says outright that doctrine is not the reason for the differences between him and Textus Receptus Only advocates.  Really?  Even though these men say it is a doctrinal issue, Ward knows otherwise.  He says that the differences don’t start with doctrine even though he believes that his opposition believes not sound doctrine.  This is prevarication number two, because it is doctrine that motivates the belief and practice of those who support a perfectly preserved text of scripture, what some call the ecclesiastical text, others the traditional text.

King James Onlyism

Ward also prevaricates (number three) when he says also in section one, “effectively all talk about the Textus Receptus arises from the King James Only movement” (another pejorative).  He continues, not answering Huff’s question, with his rant.  Much, if not most, of the talk about the Textus Receptus, arises from (1) scriptural presuppositions on the perfect preservation of scripture and (2) the historical doctrine of preservation of scripture.  It did not arise out of a movement in support of a particular English translation.

Those who believe God preserved His Words in the New Testament in the Textus Receptus know that the King James Version now is not its first edition.  If their belief was in the King James Version only, they couldn’t support the second edition of the King James.  Also, they would make all foreign language translations directly from the English and not the original languages of scripture.  They don’t believe that.  Again, this is a prevarication of Ward to smear men who do not believe what he said.

More to Come