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The Textual Pope Theory of Mark Ward

September 18, 2024 / 5 Comments on The Textual Pope Theory of Mark Ward

Hypothetical Manuscript Finds

In his last video, Mark Ward again clarifies his viewpoint of a doctrine of preservation of scripture. He makes up this position out of sheer cloth. As a case study, he imagines an ancient New Testament manuscript discovered at Pompeii that helps swing textual critics’ opinion toward one word in one verse over another. It’s the reality, he says, of willingness to still alter any verse in the New Testament based upon a further archaeological find.

Ward illuminates an important aspect of his view of preservation: every verse of the biblical text is yet to be settled. Any word could still change in the worldview of Mark Ward and others. They reject the biblical and historical doctrine of preservation.

The Argument

How does Ward argue for his position? He doesn’t rely on scripture at all. Ward claims a doctrine of preservation (which he explained in a recent video) and then rests on his experience and circumstances to formulate it. Then when he goes to explain our position, he twists it on purpose. He perverts and misrepresents it. I’m sure this is why he won’t discuss it with any legitimate critics, because it would expose him for his total strawman.

It’s very easy for Mark Ward to sit and eviscerate the biblical and historical position on preservation, when he sits unchallenged. He can much easier caricature it. He takes an utterly moron representation of what we teach, hopeful his adherents will succumb to the deceit. The resulting opposition to his ungodly practice, he labels unchristian and feigns persecution for righteousness. Whatever suffering he experiences is in fact for his own unrighteousness.

Ward speaks into his own bubble of misinformation. It bounces around that echo chamber, returning back to him as true. He can’t allow legitimate challenges because the other guys are too mean, unlike him. He’s fuzzy kind while his constant targets are harsh and injurious in their tone. Ward poses as a teddy bear and they a hard tonka truck making his cute bear into road kill.

“The Text” According to Ward

According to Ward, what is causing changes to the text? Ward says, “the text,” those words. He says, something causes changes to “the text.” What text? “The text.” Is there a “the text” in the universe of Mark Ward. He calls it “the text,” but what is it? He says that the Editio Critico Major, the coherence based genealogical method, the CBGM, causes changes to “the text.”

In the view of Ward on the text of scripture, only a Pope figure could possess the real authority to intervene and stop changes to “the text.” I couldn’t tell what “the text” was, but only a Pope could impede it from continuing to change. On the other hand, besides this fictional Pope person, science is totally free to change “the text,” that is, except for Ward’s one chosen exception: conjectural emendation. He won’t accept CBGM to cause changes to “the text” based on conjectural emendation. He won’t allow for sheer guessing the words, a bridge too far for him, but that’s it.

A Mysterious Pope-Like Figure

Ward mockingly says the following verbatim, which mirrors what he said in the video I last reviewed:

The only real alternative is for some pope-like figure to come to us with Christ’s authority and tell us to stop. A great fiery angel might come and tell Dirk Jongkind: “Your work is at an end. The current edition of the Tyndale House Greek New Testament now perfectly matches the originals — or is close enough.” Then we’d be done. No verses would be permitted to change for any reason at that point.

These statements do not represent what God says He would do with His Words according to scripture. Canonicity did not occur from a pope-like figure uttering the names of the sixty-six books in a state of trance, the channel of God’s revelation. That’s not the story. Ward should get the position right, but he continues to make these kind of representations that straw man the biblical and historical position. He won’t engage anyone in public who can state the actual position.

Ward then continues:

The real difference between me and some of the smartest defenders of the Textus Receptus is that they’ve limited the changes by deciding by fiat, that without God’s authority only printed editions of the Textus Receptus are allowed to be considered. I just have a bigger pool of Greek New Testament readings to draw from than they do, because I want to be aware of all the readings God has preserved for us.

Changes by Fiat?

Ward above flat out again annihilates the biblical and historical position on preservation. What God preserved would be available to every generation of believer. New finds are rejected, because they do not fit that presupposition. Ward will continue accepting new discoveries ad infinitum, because he both doesn’t believe in the perfection of the preservation of the text, nor in a settled text. It’s an ongoing and never ending process for him and others. That is not preservation.

The received manuscripts of the church were printed into editions of the Textus Receptus. This is the settlement or canonicity of the text. The church accepted this. Upon the end of that period in the 16th and early 17th century, they ended their continued updating. The words were available in those printed editions, one facet of the doctrine of preservation.

Inward Testimony of the Holy Spirit and Agreement of Churches

Like the church settled on the Books, evidence of the inward testimony of the Holy Spirit, confirming the Books, the church did the same with the text of scripture. This reflected a belief in preservation. It was not a never ending process. It was over and settled, not dependent on naturalism, but on the providence of God and the witness of the Spirit.

Believers did not look for a Pope figure. Ward purposefully spins the biblical and historical position into this transmogrification. Only one Holy Spirit works through all the true believers. Their agreement, they saw as the testimony of the Spirit. They also trusted that God would do what He said He would do. The model is there in the canonicity of the Books.

You will never hear Mark Ward represent the biblical and historical position as written by myself and others. Never. He does not represent it properly. I and others have not only written this position, but we have documented from church history, a multiplicity of statements from the historic doctrine of preservation. Churches embracing scripture as final authority believed and wrote this doctrine. This is why the Textus Receptus reigned as the text for the church for centuries.

Ward intimates in a very ambiguous way that supporters of the Textus Receptus should respect the testimony of contemporary believers in the same way they do for those in the past. I hear that from him and consider the veracity of it. Is this a matter of church vote or churches voting? The church already received what the text was. If the vote changes, a greater number support a critical apparatus rather than a settled text, should people consider the updated text as the actual text, the original one?

Problems with a Theory

There are a lot of problems with Ward’s theory concerning the most recent acceptance of professing believers. First, it doesn’t fit biblical presuppositions. It rejects availability and a perfect and settled text. The Holy Spirit won’t suddenly change His testimony. His witness is true. The change would mean it wasn’t.

Second, the recent professing believers, who choose something different than the received text, don’t believe in perfect preservation. They don’t themselves embrace the underlying text in the same manner as those in their historical and biblical doctrinal presentations for centuries.

Third, the embrace of a perfect text means continued tweaking and changing is over. The presuppositions won’t change either. An already confirmed settled text eliminates a future new or different text.

Perhaps Mark Ward finds himself toward the end of this period of his life where a primary emphasis is pushing people toward modern versions of the Bible. His focus shifts from his intelligibility argument to a textual one, explaining what he really thinks about the doctrine of preservation of scripture. Perfect preservation doesn’t require a Pope figure to declare ex cathedra the settled text of scripture. God already through the inward testimony of His Spirit led His church to those Words. I call on Ward and others to receive them by faith.

Answering Mark Ward’s Last Attack on Preservation of Scripture (part two)

September 2, 2024 / 16 Comments on Answering Mark Ward’s Last Attack on Preservation of Scripture (part two)

Part One

Modern Textual Criticism

In a recent video, Mark Ward again attacked the biblical and historical position on the preservation of scripture. He’ll surely have or find people who will support him. They use modern versions and many of them don’t understand the issue. He helps them stay in the dark on this. Ward says that we, who he calls the advocates of his MT/TR story, cause division with true believers. Division comes from a later, novel bibliology that contradicts the already established and believed position. When someone changes a biblical position, the right way is showing how that the former position rests on wrong or no exegesis. This isn’t what occurred.

What did occur was that modern textual criticism arose out of German rationalism. Modern textual criticism in its roots traces back to German rationalism, particularly in the 18th and 19th centuries. A shift in theological thought characterized this period, where scholars began to apply rationalistic principles to biblical texts, leading to a more critical approach to scripture.

German Rationalism

German rationalism emerged as a philosophical movement that emphasized reason and empirical evidence over biblical exposition and theology. This intellectual climate encouraged scholars to scrutinize manuscripts of scripture with the same critical lens applied to other historical documents. The movement sought to understand the Bible not merely as a sacred text but as a collection of writings subject to human authorship and historical context.

The principles of German rationalism significantly influenced early textual critics such as Johann Griesbach, who is often regarded as one of the pioneers in this field. Griesbach’s work involved analyzing biblical manuscripts using methods that reflected rationalist thinking, which included questioning historical belief about divine inspiration and preservation of scripture. His approach laid the groundwork for subsequent textual critics like B.F. Westcott and F.J.A. Hort, who further developed these ideas in their own critical editions of the New Testament.

Continued Assessment of Mark Ward’s Attack

Perfect or Accurate Translation

Ward slants the MT/TR position to attempt to make it look like a joke and it’s advocates a bunch of clowns. Then when he does it, he doesn’t allow anyone to come and correct his statements. He next says that MT/TR supporters believe the King James Version (KJV) translators saved the Bible from Satanic counterfeits by making a “perfect translation” of “perfect Hebrew and Greek texts.” I’ve never called the KJV a “perfect translation.” The only time “perfect translation” occurs in my voluminous writings is when quoting and criticizing Peter Ruckman. Besides that, I wrote this:

God doesn’t ever promise a perfect translation. Turretin, like me, believes that preservation occurs in the original languages because that is what Scripture teaches.

This is the only usage by me for “perfect translation.” I use the language “accurate translation,” because I believe they could have translated the same Hebrew and Greek texts differently. Most of the other MT/TR men would say the same as I.

Perfect Hebrew and Greek Texts

Ward also gets the “perfect Hebrew and Greek texts” wrong. Mark Ward already knows this. He caricatures our position to try to make it look silly. That is mainly what he is doing. The MT/TR position expresses the doctrine of perfect preservation of scripture, but doesn’t say that all the preserved words are either in one manuscript (text) or even printed edition. The words are instead preserved and available to every generation of believer. God did perfectly preserve the text of scripture and providentially provided a settled text by means of the same method of canonicity, the inward testimony or witness of the Holy Spirit through the church.

True churches received God’s Words. They agreed on them. This is a position taken from biblical presuppositions. Just like churches agreed on Books, they agreed upon Words. What I’m describing is the historical and biblical way of knowing what are the Words of God. What I just described doesn’t sound as stupid as how Mark Ward characterized this part of his fabrication of a story.

Satanic Corruption

One thing Ward gets right is “spotting” the Satanic corruptions in other Bibles. If you have a settled text based on God’s promises, then whatever differs from it is a corruption. Two different words can’t both be right. The text of scripture isn’t a multiple choice question. If we are to live by every Word, then we must possess every Word. It’s true that I believe that Satan wants to confuse through the offering of all these different “Bibles” and presenting hundreds of variations of text as possible. This doesn’t fit scriptural presuppositions and it affects the authority of scripture.

Story of Ruckmanism

The second story Ward tells is his story of Ruckmanism. Many times Mark Ward has called Ruckmanism more consistent than the MT/TR position. Maybe he believes that, but it seems possible he says it to get under the skin of MT/TR people. Ruckmanism doesn’t operate with scriptural presuppositions unless one considers an allegorical or very subjective interpretation of passages, which read into the Bible, to be scriptural. Ward says that Ruckmanities originated their position as a reaction to lack of manuscript support in the MT/TR.

Peter Ruckman was born in 1921. Ruckmanism came to and from him no earlier than then 1940s. His view of the superiority of the King James Version arose from his presupposition that it was advanced revelation from God. No one held that belief until Ruckman. Peter Ruckman wrote in The Christian Handbook of Biblical Scholarship:

The King James Bible was ‘given by inspiration of God.’

Ruckman invented the position and then defended it by spiritualizing or allegorizing certain passages, reading into them his viewpoint on the King James Version. Ruckmanism did not come from his view of the inferiority of the Textus Receptus Greek New Testament as a further iteration of that.

Ruckman’s Position

Since Ruckman believed God reinspired the King James Version, he rejected all other versions. Even if they had the same textual basis as the King James Version, he would repudiate them. To him, the English words were equal to the original manuscripts of scripture. That view did not proceed from disagreement about underlying textual differences. Ruckman denied the preservation of scripture through original language manuscripts and editions.

Several times, Ward says the Ruckman story is the inspiration of the translator “to recover the right reading.” That’s false. Ruckman did not believe, as Ward says in his Ruckman story, that the textual choices and translation choices of the King James Version were perfect. To Ruckman and his followers, God didn’t inspire the right reading. No, God inspired the English itself. It wasn’t that Ruckman didn’t like the textual choices of Erasmus or that he relied on the Latin Vulgate. Based on his presuppositions, he took a novel double inspiration position.

Support of the Majority of Manuscripts

Unlike the critical text, which has support of either a small minority of manuscripts or none at all, the majority of the Greek New Testament manuscripts support almost the entirety of the Textus Receptus. Only in very few places does the Textus Receptus have support of few extant Greek manuscripts, even though there is large extant Latin evidence in those few places. In one place, one word has no extant manuscript evidence. However, that does not mean no manuscript support. TR editions are printed copies from sometimes a non extant manuscript. It is preservation of scripture.

Not all the manuscripts relied upon by Theodore Beza survived the religious wars in Europe. In one place where critical text advocates say he did conjectural emendation, he writes in Latin that he had the support of one Greek manuscript too. I believe in preservation in the original languages. However, people like Mark Ward are hypocritical in this, because they themselves support the best texts in many places rely on a translation. His and their Septuagint view says that Jesus Himself quoted from the Septuagint.

More to Come

Answering Mark Ward’s Last Attack on Preservation of Scripture

August 31, 2024 / 4 Comments on Answering Mark Ward’s Last Attack on Preservation of Scripture

Mark Ward summarized almost all of his views on the issue of the preservation of scripture towards the end of his most recent video (here next is a transcript):

Stories?

King James Onlyists in my experience tend to tell themselves one of two neat and tidy stories: a Masoretic Text/TR story or a Ruckmanite story. The MT/TR story goes like this. Once upon a time God inspired the Hebrew Bible and the Greek New Testament and He promised in Psalm 12 and Matthew 5 to preserve them perfectly down to the jot and tittle. Satan came along and produced counterfeits of the Greek New Testament, but thankfully the King James Version translators perfectly translated the perfect Hebrew and Greek texts once and for all. And it’s easy to spot the terrible Satanic corruptions in other Bibles.

When difficulties and inconsistencies are pointed out, however, in this MT/TR story, as I’ve done in this video, it tends to turn into the Ruckmanite story, which goes like this. Once upon a time God gave special blessings to the King James Translators so that all of their textual choices and all of their translation choices were perfect. If there are a few places in the King James that have no textual support in the Greek or the Hebrew manuscripts, that’s okay because God inspired the King James Translators to choose the right reading. If there are a few places in the King James Version where the translators actually followed readings taken from Erasmus that were translated from the Vulgate, that’s okay because God inspired the King James translators to recover the right reading.

The Ward Viewpoint

Now I told the pastor who sent me some of these examples that I don’t enjoy having to point out these difficulties and complexities. But let me build another bridge of trust, the one that I myself use all the time in my Bible study travels. Who gave us the situation in which we have incredible well preserved copies of the Hebrew Bible and Greek New Testament, but there are numerous minor uncertainties and difficulties? Who gave us a world in which perfect translation between languages is impossible?

Who inspired the New Testament apostles to quote a Greek translation of the Old Testament rather than make new and doubtless perfect translations of the Hebrew? (And by the way I draw that last question directly from the King James Translators and their preface.) Who chose not to give us inspired translators, yeah, even a pope to give the best translation in each language his official imprimatur, the seal of divine approval?

Who gave us a Bible that comes in two very different languages, Hebrew and Greek, and actually Aramaic, three, and would therefore require translation in the first place? Who gave us a Bible over the course of 1500 years instead of all at once? Who chose to commit His precious Word to fragile papyrus and sheepskin?

Who gave us the excellent but not perfect situation we’re in? But who told us that one day the perfect would come that we would know even as also we are known? I think you know the answer to my not so rhetorical questions. God did all of these things, and He is good. He is my refuge even when I don’t understand His choices.

Overall Observations and Criticisms of Ward’s Statements

Ward’s little speech makes it easier to deal with what he thinks and says. First, I have some overall observations or criticisms. One, Ward caricatures and misrepresents especially the MT/TR position, and even gets wrong how Ruckmanism arose. He’s not telling the truth. Why do his followers give him a pass on this?

Two, Ward lumps the MT/TR people together with the Ruckmanites. I don’t know if he thinks this, or just conveniently tells it as a story. Either way, it is false. The MT/TR position arises from scripture like he says (albeit in a mocking way), but it also mirrors historic Christian doctrine as seen in creeds, confessions, and many other writings. His view did not exist among professing believers until the 19th century. This has been established, but Mark Ward and others like him just ignore it for a lie of a story. I will return to this point later.

Three, do consider that Mark Ward uses the word “story” to describe MT/TR people. Ward knows what words mean and he knows that the popular usage of “story” today is fiction. Notice then when he starts talking about his view, he calls it a “bridge of trust” and a “situation.” He doesn’t call that another story, a third story as the first two are stories.

Ward on Truth Serum

It seems to me that Ward has “lost it.” His primary target essentially rejects what he says, and he’s lost it, perhaps because of that. And then because he’s lost it, he did something I have not seen him do. I’m not saying he’s never done it, but I’ve never seen it myself. Mark Ward takes truth serum. He plainly states his viewpoint as I’ve never heard him. Ward acknowledges a lack of perfection of the Bible, based not on scriptural doctrine but on his experience. His stark confession reminds me of two examples.

In the last year, I saw a clip of Bill Maher in which he says that all pro-choice people know abortion is murder. He said he knows abortion is murder and he is fine with that. Maher’s two guest sat with jaws dropping at the sheer admission. In one sense, I can respect Maher because at least he tells the truth about his position on abortion. Another popular figure, Bernie Sanders, just comes out and in an obvious way supports socialism. He states his leftist positions without hiding them. Mark Ward does the same in this latest video like no other time.

I think it is important that someone hear what Ward says and understands what’s wrong with it. This is a teaching moment for a true bibliology. Ward admits what a big chunk of his side thinks. It is akin to neo-orthodoxy, not a biblical position. When Bart Ehrman came to this realization, it turned him apostate, which is a danger. I’m going to go through the above paragraphs by Ward and give a scriptural, truthful analysis to it. He’s wrong in so many ways.

First, what’s wrong with Ward’s MT/TR story?

“Neat and Tidy”

Mark Ward mocks the idea of a “neat and tidy” position. Don’t miss that. He would have his audience believe that the truth is not so neat and tidy. To him this is worth mocking with his articulation. The neatness and tidiness of the MT/TR position is that, one, God said He would preserve every Word He inspired and, two, He did it. That is neat and tidy. Modern version onlyists, critical text supporters are in a never-ending quest to improve the text of scripture. God didn’t preserve it perfectly — it’s really disorderly and messy. If you won’t embrace that, Ward will mock you for it.

“Tells Themselves”

Ward says that MT/TR people tell themselves a story. It’s as if they are repeating this story as a mantra, abracadabra and suddenly it will be true, because they keep telling it to themselves. It’s like spinning a talisman in one’s pocket or a lucky rabbit’s foot. “Just keep telling yourself.” He’s the nice guy regularly using this type of derogatory style. Yet, he won’t allow his opposition to comment on his constant youtube presentations on the subject. It gives the impression that everyone agrees. Just because someone tells himself something doesn’t make it true. When God says it, it is true.

“Once Upon a Time”

“Once upon a time” again is a reference to make believe or fantasy. It’s like opening up Cinderella as an actual book of history. He equates the truth with something that is a fable. Ward treats historical and scriptural doctrine like it is a fable.

It is difficult to separate some of what Mark Ward says from other of what he says. He bunches inspiration of scripture into his storybook mode. Is that a story too? I don’t think he means to do that, but it is the net result of this style of criticism he employs. Inspiration is supernatural. Our reason for believing inspiration is the inspired Bible itself. I believe Ward accepts this, but the attacks on inspiration from the neo-orthodox are the same as those on preservation. They question the veracity of inspiration based on so-called external evidence and reject the biblical teaching on inspiration.

Scriptural Presuppositions

Ward is correct that MT/TR folk presuppose perfect preservation based upon preservation passages in scripture. This wasn’t odd through Christian history and yet it is now, because of the attack on the doctrine mainly in the last thirty or so years. Ward is part of this attack. I’m using him here as a representative. He cherry picks two chapters for the simplicity of his storybook, Psalm 12 and Matthew 5. There are numbers of passages that teach preservation, as many or more than teach inspiration. This is presuppositionalism. We presuppose God fulfilled what He said. What’s wrong with that?

Is the teaching of preservation a story as in a storybook? True Christians have long believed it. The doctrine of the perfect preservation of scripture comes from the Bible. I and others didn’t invent this. Many people in the pews of churches believe this too. They see it in the Bible and it is not buttressed only by Psalm 12 and Matthew 5. There are many others (some of which we exposed in our book, Thou Shalt Keep Them).

Ward himself recently started taking on scripture to support his doctrine of “edification requires intelligibility,” teaching it on a level unprecedented in the history of biblical doctrine. People like myself and others support his notion, even if we question his reliance on 1 Corinthians 14, a passage on using the known language of the congregation rather than gibberish. In other words, it’s a stretch to make so much of that principle due to even fifty to one hundred of his “false friends.”

Satan Counterfeiting

Next Ward says that MT/TR people assert that Satan took on the strategy of counterfeiting the MT/TR. Nope. Not true. Satan attacks scripture, yes. You see that in classic passages like Genesis 3 and Matthew 4. It’s also something seen in 2 Peter 3, where false teachers wrest the scripture. Also, Paul wrote in 2 Thessalonians 2, that false teachers spread a false epistle with teaching contradictory to his, feigning as though it was from him.

MT/TR people like myself would agree that the attack by Satan starts by attacking the doctrine of preservation. Satan also wants people to be unsure, have doubt, about the perfection of scripture. This takes away from authority. Rather than a settled text, it is a disorderly and messy one that is uncertain. Mark Ward calls this confidence. It is a relative term, meaning something like 95% to 98%, what I like to say is less pure than tide detergent.

More to Come

The New King James Version Does Not Come From the Same Text as the King James Version

August 23, 2024 / 15 Comments on The New King James Version Does Not Come From the Same Text as the King James Version

In recent days at his youtube channel, Mark Ward again compared the New King James Version (NKJV) with the King James Version (KJV). This goes back a few years, when Ward wrote a blog post that said that the NKJV and the KJV came from an identical Greek New Testament text. In the comment section, I started giving him examples of differences, five at a time. I provided these examples after he made his claim. His claim did not come from his own personal research. After continuing to give examples about five at a time, that showed his claim was wrong, Ward admitted that the two texts were not the same in at least six places.

Systematic Search

The standard as to whether the NKJV and KJV are different, however, is not the few differences that I found in the little time after Ward made his claim. Ward speaks about the differences as though there were just six that really don’t matter much to the meaning of the text. He does not mention that he did not find these variations himself. He also treats those six like they represent all of the differences. It’s just not true though. I hardly looked for examples and found the few ones that I sent him without any systematic search.

Since Mark Ward won’t stop misrepresenting the issue of the differences between the text underlying the NKJV and the KJV, I decided to start a more systematic search in my spare time. I began in Matthew 1 to start chapter by chapter through the New Testament, and I’m to the fifth chapter of Mark So, this is just Matthew — one gospel — and then Mark 1-5. That doesn’t mean that I found every example, because I don’t have a copy of the text for the NKJV. Perhaps one doesn’t exist.

If someone were trying to study and teach from the NKJV and use the original languages, what text would he use for that study? I’m asserting there is none. It doesn’t come from the same text as the KJV so an underlying text of the NKJV, that same as that translation, is not available. That’s a tough one, wouldn’t you say?

Examples

To find my examples, I had to look at the two translations and compare them. When I saw differences, then I went to the Greek text to see if these differences were the result of a different text. Again, Mark Ward didn’t do this work. He doesn’t look for these examples. How does someone report something like fact that he doesn’t even know? All of the examples to which Mark refers came from my finding them for him.

Without further adieu, below are the most recent examples I found of differences between the underlying text of the NKJV and the KJV [CT=Critical Text, TR=Textus Receptus].

Matthew

1:18—KJV, TR, ”as,” gar versus NKJV, CT, no “as,” no gar
7:9-10—KJV, TR, “if he ask,” aorist versus NKJV, CT, “if he asks,” future
9:17—KJV, TR, “perish,” future middle versus NKJV, CT, “are ruined,” present passive
9:22—NKJV, CT, strepho, versus KJV, TR, “turned him about”epistrepho, “turned around”
10:19—KJV, TR, “shall speak,” future versus NKJV, CT, “should speak,” subjunctive
13:36—NKJV, CT, “explain,” diasapheo versus KJV, TR, “declare,” phrazo
16:17—KJV, TR, kai, “and” versus NKJV, CT, no kai, no “and” to start verse
18:6—KJV, TR, epi, about,” versus NKJV, CT, peri, “around”
19:5—KJV, TR, proskalleo, “shall cleave” versus NKJV, CT, “be joined,” kalleo
20:20—KJV, TR, ”of,” para, versus NKJV, CT, apo, “from”
21:25—KJV, TR, para, “with” versus NKJV, CT, en, “among”
22:10—KJV, TR, hosous, “as many as” versus NKJV, CT, hous, “whom”
23:34—KJV, TR, kai, “and” versus NKJV, CT, eliminates kai, no “and”
27:3—KJV, TR, apestrephe, “brought again” versus NKJV, CT, apostrepho, ”brought back”

Mark

1:16—KJV, TR, de, “now” versus NKJV, CT, kai, “and”
2:15—KJV, TR, to, “that” versus NKJV, CT, no to, no “that”
2:21—KJV, TR, kai, “also” versus NKJV, CT, no kai, no “also”
4:18—KJV, TR, no eisin, “they are” versus NKJV, CT, eisin, “they are” (in italics but in so doing accrediting the CT)
5:6—KJV, TR, de, “but” versus NKJV, CT, no de, no “but”

These are nineteen more examples after looking at about one and a third New Testament books. I don’t want to keep searching for these. Rather, I would wish for the other side to defer and just admit that the NKJV translators did not use the same text. In other words, I don’t want them to keep challenging this assertion. The NKJV is not the NKJV. It would come from the same text as the KJV, one would assume, if it were a “New” King James Version. The NKJV comes from a less different text than most modern versions, but it does come from a different text.

Why Does It Matter?

Why does any of this matter? It isn’t a translational issue in this case, but one of the underlying text. This is presuppositional. God promised to preserve every Word. If that’s true, which it is, then this relates to the doctrine of preservation of scripture. Mark Ward and others act like they don’t even understand it. They rarely to never mention it.

In a recent video on this same issue, Mark Ward went on the offensive against the King James Version. It wasn’t a new attack. This is the point. Textual critics say one short phrase in Revelation 16:5 wasn’t in any known manuscript, but was instead a conjectural emendation by Beza (read about this issue here). It is not a phrase that appears in a majority of presently preserved Greek manuscripts. I carefully wrote that last sentence, because a translation of the Latin of Beza doesn’t say it was a conjectural emendation, but instead he wrote:

Therefore, I am not able to doubt but that the true reading should be as I have restored it from an ancient manuscript [hand-written] codex of good faith, truly ο εσομενος.

Men like myself and others with our presuppositions from scripture believe this is what Beza did, not conjectural emendation.

A problem that Ward would not mention in his offensive against the King James Version is that almost all modern versions, ones that he supports, come from a minority of the manuscripts. Not only that, but in hundreds of lines of text in the underlying text of the modern versions there is zero manuscript evidence. They have no manuscript support. Yet, Ward and many, many others, who deny the biblical and historical doctrine of preservation, have no problem advocating most for those modern versions that translate that text.

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Addendum

I don’t plan on continuing to keep looking up more examples. It wasn’t as those examples did not present themselves as I looked. This makes the point of variations in the textual basis between the NKJV and the KJV. What made this tough is that the NKJV translators said, no differences, and yet there are.

If you trusted the translators, then you didn’t know the differences. Perhaps you never checked. Yes, there’s a difficulty sometimes in deciding translational differences. I tried to find the ones where the differences would or could reflect a difference in the text. A variant needed to exist for me to use the example. It’s easy to come later and defend it as a translational choice, but there is a there, there. If you want to criticize, you could try to do that, and I could just keep looking for more too. This is something perhaps you haven’t done, that is, look on your own.

If you haven’t looked on your own, maybe you could do that, if it matters to you. As I’ve said in the past, for a long time, I assumed the NKJV used Scrivener’s, the same text as the KJV in other words. Then I read someone who said, no, so then I began looking a little and agreed that it wasn’t the same. You really shouldn’t have it both ways, that is, a first way where you say there is no difference. And then you have a second way, where when someone looks up examples and you attack the person doing that. That is having it both ways. It isn’t honest.

AI Friday: Who Won the Thomas Ross/James White KJV Debate?

August 16, 2024 / 13 Comments on AI Friday: Who Won the Thomas Ross/James White KJV Debate?

Again, I asked AI the question of the title of today’s post, and here was it’s answer.

The debate between Thomas Ross and James White regarding the superiority of the King James Version (KJV) versus the Legacy Standard Bible (LSB) was marked by a clear division in perspectives on textual criticism and translation philosophy.

Debate Overview

Participants and Positions:

James White affirmed that the LSB, based on modern textual criticism and the Nestle-Aland Greek text, is superior to the KJV, which relies on the Textus Receptus.

Thomas Ross denied this claim, arguing for the KJV’s superiority based on its textual basis and historical usage within Protestant traditions.

Key Arguments:

James White argued that modern translations like the LSB are more accurate due to advances in textual criticism and manuscript discoveries.

Thomas Ross countered by emphasizing the preservation of Scripture as understood by KJV advocates, asserting that the KJV translators intended their work to be seen as superior to all previous translations.

Critical Points Raised:

Ross highlighted that White failed to provide substantial evidence from primary sources regarding what KJV translators would support today.

He also pointed out that many of White’s claims about modern translations undermining key doctrines were not substantiated with adequate historical context or documentation.

Conclusion Drawn from Reviews:

Post-debate analyses from various observers suggest that while both sides presented compelling arguments, Ross’s emphasis on historical fidelity and doctrinal integrity resonated strongly with those who hold traditional views of Scripture preservation.

Overall Assessment:

The debate did not yield a definitive “winner” in a traditional sense; however, many proponents of KJV-only perspectives believe that Thomas Ross effectively defended his position against James White’s assertions.

In summary, while both debaters presented their cases passionately, many observers lean towards viewing Thomas Ross as having won the debate, particularly among those who advocate for KJV-only positions.

***********************

I asked AI why Thomas Ross won the debate with James White and it concluded:

In summary, Thomas Ross won the debate against James White due to his strong argumentation on textual preservation, effective use of Scripture, engaging presentation style, ability to address counterarguments effectively, appeal to historical context, and connection with the audience’s values regarding traditional biblical texts.

“It’s Alive!” — The Modern Creation of a FrankenText

July 22, 2024 / Leave a comment

Mary Shelley and Frankenstein

Mary Shelley, born in 1797 in London, completed her novel, Frankenstein, in 1818. The lead character in her novel, Victor Frankenstein, succeeds at piecing together parts from dead corpses. He sews them together and brings them to life with electricity.

In the original novel by Shelley, the words, “It’s alive!”, don’t appear. They came into the public consciousness in the 1931 film adaptation of the novel. In the book, when Victor first animates his creature, he is horrified by its appearance and immediately flees from it. The scene is described with a sense of dread and regret rather than excitement or triumph.

Frankenstein was a fictional monster built from parts from various dead bodies. The pieces don’t fit because they come from all different bodies. In the same way, a Frankentext constructs a brand new text, using words plucked out from many different manuscripts.

Thomas Ross, Dwayne Greene, and the Frankentext

On a few different occasions, people used the term “Frankentext” to describe a brand new, diverse text from many varied sources. In recent days, I’ve heard a man, Dwayne Greene, use it in a podcast. He titled some of his episodes with the word. Greene refers to a practice that Thomas Ross earlier pointed out in his debate with James White about the modern critical text of the New Testament. The fifth of United Bible Society’s edition of the Greek New Testament, the same as the Nestle-Aland 28th edition, is a Frankentext.

I wrote in a post about Ross’s debate with White:

In his debate with White, Ross dismantled White’s position with evidence, point by point. White himself resorted to ad hominem style arguments by regularly pointing out how fast Ross talked and judged his motives. He never answered Ross’s primary argument against the underlying text of the LSB and other modern versions of the Bible. Ross showed plainly how that in hundreds of places, lines of underlying Greek text behind the LSB had zero manuscript evidence.

Talk about the Frankentext

I talk about this again in something else about the debate:

In every place the USB/NA has no extant manuscript support for its lines of readings (again, over 100), the TR has manuscript support. This should end White’s manuscript argument. Ross pointed this out in the debate in a very clear fashion. White would not recant of his position.

In a post to review the debate and explain how Ross won, I wrote:

White asserts no manuscript evidence for one NT reading, the one in Revelation 16:5. He says there is light evidence for one word in Ephesians 3:9 and the Comma Johanneum in 1 John 5:7. Ross shows there is no manuscript evidence for at least 41 separate lines of text in the NA, evidenced by Swanson in his New Testament Greek Manuscripts: Variant Readings Arranged in Horizontal Lines against Codex Vaticanus. None of this occurs in the TR. Based on the ratio of Matthew and Mark text to the rest of the New Testament, that would result in 191 total for the NT.

A Further Description from Me

In another post, referring to this, I wrote to describe this:

The other side, the critical text and multiple modern version position, does not follow scriptural presuppositions. It proceeds from naturalistic and relativistic ones. This is especially seen in the hundreds of lines of Greek text for its New Testament with no manuscript evidence. Critics pieced together lines of text that never existed in any copy anywhere and anytime.

The above is what I (and others) mean by a FrankenText. Mark Ward in one of his recent podcasts interviews a friend of his getting his PhD in textual criticism, and he asks the man about this Frankentext problem, referring to Dwayne Greene. He uses the term with the man. In answer to the question, Ward’s friend says that all Greek New Testament texts are Frankentexts, including the Textus Receptus. This is an outright, utter falsehood. It isn’t true and it deceives or misleads people.

Lies Including the Textus Receptus As a Frankentext

The Textus Receptus does not contain hundreds of lines of text with absolutely zero manuscript evidence. Those lines in the critical text of the New Testament (the UBS and NA) have no manuscript support in any manuscript. That doesn’t occur with the received text of the New Testament, the basis of the King James Version. Manuscripts actually have those readings. There is minority support for certain words, but lines of text are found in manuscripts for the Textus Receptus.

A common line of argument today, people term, “Whataboutism?” It is defined:

Whataboutism or whataboutery (as in “what about….?”) is a pejorative for the strategy of responding to an accusation with a counter-accusation instead of a defense against the original accusation.

Ward’s friend does this. Instead of dealing with the problem of these lines of text with no manuscript evidence, he uses whataboutism. In fact, even his whataboutism isn’t true, which sometimes is the case with this sort of argumentation.

CBGM

More Frankentexts are bound to arise because of a new method of modern textual criticism, given the shorthand CBGM. It’s going to sound impossibly technical, but it means, “Coherence Based Genealogical Method.” To try to put it simply, someone wrote this:

The computer application itself aggregates relationships between readings based on agreement with other readings as well as based on their disagreements. Basically, it compares Greek manuscripts, finds the similarities and differences, and then uses an algorithm to decide which is “probably” the right reading.

This same article said this about CBGM:

CBGM is a relatively new approach to textual criticism using a computer program in order to determine the validity of a reading (somewhere between 1997 and 2000). By “reading”, we are referring to anything from a single word of Scripture to a phrase, or even a more substantial section of the Scriptures. In this method, the computer becomes a tool in determining which readings are “most likely authentic”. Having said that, it should be noted that it still requires much interaction from the users.

Frankentexts will increase. Is that a concern? It looks like, not so much. That criticism that your line of text has zero manuscript evidence doesn’t matter as much as it once did. All of this sadly departs from a supernatural, divine presupposition about preservation of scripture, embracing instead a naturalistic, humanistic viewpoint about lost scripture in need of restoration.

Acts 5:30 & James White: King James Version Only Debate

June 21, 2024 / Leave a comment

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

John 5:4 KJV/TR: Inspired Scripture or Inserted Invention?

June 14, 2024 / Leave a comment

John 5:4 appears in the Greek Textus Receptus, the English King James Version or Authorized Version (KJV / KJB / AV), and in other Received Text – based Bibles. However, it is omitted in many modern Bible versions. The verse reads:

John 5:4 For an angel went down at a certain season into the pool, and troubled the water: whosoever then first after the troubling of the water stepped in was made whole of whatsoever disease he had.

ἄγγελος γὰρ κατὰ καιρὸν κατέβαινεν ἐν τῇ κολυμβήθρᾳ, καὶ ἐτάρασσε τὸ ὕδωρ· ὁ οὖν πρῶτος ἐμβὰς μετὰ τὴν ταραχὴν τοῦ ὕδατος, ὑγιὴς ἐγίνετο, ᾧ δήποτε κατείχετο νοσήματι.

The variant actually concerns John 5:3b-5:4. The section in bold is what is omitted:

3 In these lay a great multitude of impotent folk, of blind, halt, withered, waiting for the moving of the water. 4 For an angel went down at a certain season into the pool, and troubled the water: whosoever then first after the troubling of the water stepped in was made whole of whatsoever disease he had.

3 ἐν ταύταις κατέκειτο πλῆθος πολὺ τῶν ἀσθενούντων, τυφλῶν, χωλῶν, ξηρῶν, ἐκδεχομένων τὴν τοῦ ὕδατος κίνησιν. 4 ἄγγελος γὰρ κατὰ καιρὸν κατέβαινεν ἐν τῇ κολυμβήθρᾳ, καὶ ἐτάρασσε τὸ ὕδωρ· ὁ οὖν πρῶτος ἐμβὰς μετὰ τὴν ταραχὴν τοῦ ὕδατος, ὑγιὴς ἐγίνετο, ᾧ δήποτε κατείχετο νοσήματι.

Should we receive John 5:4 (or rather, John 5:3b-5:4) as part of God’s holy Word? Yes, we should. Why?

1.) In God’s singular care and providence it has been included in the Textus Receptus, and received by the churches. Scripture promises maximal certainty about its own text.

2.) John 5:4 has great support in Greek manuscripts. It appears in 99.2% of all Greek manuscripts. The United Bible Society’s Greek New Testament, which is biased against the Textus Receptus, nevertheless lists as supporting witnesses in favor of John 5:4 the following: A C3 K L Xcomm Δ Θ Ψ 063 078 f1 f13 28 565 700 882 1009 1010 1071 1195 1216 1230 1241 1242 1253 1344 1365 1546 1646 2148 Byz Lect ita,aur,b,c,e,ff2,j,r1 vgcl syrp,pal copbomss arm Diatessarona,earm,i,n Tertullian Ambrose Didymus Chrysostom Cyril.

Thus, for example, Tertullian explicitly comments on John 5:4 in his On Baptism (Tertullian, “On Baptism,” in Latin Christianity: Its Founder, Tertullian, ed. Alexander Roberts, James Donaldson, and A. Cleveland Coxe, trans. S. Thelwall, vol. 3, The Ante-Nicene Fathers [Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Company, 1885], 671.) with no indication that anyone was questioning it. Undoubtedly, the testimony in favor of John 5:4 is both very extensive and very ancient. Its “appearance in an overwhelming number of surviving Greek manuscripts, its diffusion into the Latin and Syriac traditions (plus even some manuscripts of the Egyptian Bohairic version), along with its citation by fathers in both East and West … serve to underscore its age[.]” (Zane C. Hodges, “The Angel at Bethesda—John 5:4: Problem Passages in the Gospel of John Part 5,” Bibliotheca Sacra 136 (1979): 29.)

3.) John 5:7 does not make sense without John 5:4:

The impotent man answered him, Sir, I have no man, when the water is troubled, to put me into the pool: but while I am coming, another steppeth down before me.

If John 5:3b-5:4 is omitted from the Gospel of John, John 5:7 does not make any sense. What is the impotent man talking about?

4.) The Copper Scroll from Cave 3 at Qumran establishes that the spelling of the name as “Bethesda,” as found in the Textus Receptus and the vast majority of Greek manuscripts, is correct, while the alternative spellings that are featured in the tiny minority of MSS that omit John 5:4 (Bethsaida; Belzetha; Bethzatha) are incorrect. If the witnesses for omission are clearly wrong here, while the Textus Receptus is right, we should not be surprised if the Received Text is also right in including the passage.

5.) The theology of the passage fits with the rest of Scripture, although some have unreasonably questioned it. How can John 5:4 accurately record real events? I do not see why we should think that, in that period of time before there was a completed canon of Scripture and when the Jews, who desire a sign, were God’s nation and institution in a pre-Christian dispensation, that He could not have at unspecified intervals (John 5:4 does not say how often this happened) have miraculously healed people who came to this location through the instrumentality of angels. If demons contribute to at least some sicknesses and disease, why should we be surprised if God’s angels are associated with health? The area was destroyed by the Romans in A. D. 70, and so this miraculous action would have ceased by that point (if not earlier with the inauguration of the church as God’s institution, or even with Christ’s actions in John 5). Such miraculous healing could have been a sign that God’s special presence remained with His nation and people, even in the times of the Gentiles. Indeed, we should see that God even designed the entire place to point forward to Christ and to the manifestation of His glory as seen in John 5, after which the miracles likely ceased to take place there. The fact that, in this age when sign miracles (semeion) do not occur (although God works powerfully [dunamis] in His providential care and in many other wonderful ways) this verse can seem odd, and (in this dispensation) we are rightly highly skeptical about miracle claims, could easily explain why someone wanted to take the passage out and why a small number of people who were fine “correcting” the Bible were able to get the verse out of less than 1% of Greek MSS. One writer comments:

[I]t must be said that the miraculous intervention of angels in human life is so well established in the Bible, and so variegated, that only those who are uncomfortable with supernaturalism itself are likely to be genuinely troubled by the content of the verses under consideration. Indeed it may even be proposed that the reference to the angel is functional for Johannine theology. Already the Fourth Evangelist has pointed to the subservience of angels to the person of Christ by citing the Lord’s memorable words to Nathaniel, “Hereafter ye shall see heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of man” (1:51). But here too the angelic ministration at the pool of Bethesda is markedly inferior to the ministry of God’s Son. Indeed, the seasonal and limited character of the healings the angel performed—and which were of no avail to the invalid described in this passage—are an appropriate backdrop for the instantaneous deliverance which Jesus brought to a man who had virtually lost all hope (cf. v. 7) while he lay forlornly in a place where God’s mercy seemed always to touch others, but never himself. The concept that Messiah is greater than the angels—despite the reality of their divinely appointed activities—lies implicitly in the background of the Johannine text. That this was an important theme for early Christianity no one will doubt who has read the opening chapters of the Book of Hebrews. Its appearance here, therefore, is hardly surprising. (Zane C. Hodges, “The Angel at Bethesda—John 5:4: Problem Passages in the Gospel of John Part 5,” Bibliotheca Sacra 136 [1979]: 38–39).

It is also unfortunate that anti-Received Text presuppositions lead to the exclusion of any consideration of John 5:4 in many modern books on the doctrine of angelology.

In conclusion, John 5:4 (John 5:3b-4) is part of God’s Word, just as inspired as the rest of the text. We should receive it with fear and trembling, reverence and love, as we do the rest of holy Scripture.

–TDR

Mark Ward / Thomas Ross Videos on King James Version English

May 31, 2024 / 10 Comments on Mark Ward / Thomas Ross Videos on King James Version English

As What is Truth? readers may know, Dr. Mark Ward, Bob Jones University graduate and Logos Bible software employee, produced a series of three videos (5/2/2024; 5/9/2024; 5/16/2024–note that I am making it quite easy to find his videos if you want to do so, while he made it difficult to locate the video of mine that he was responding to, which is unfortunate) on his YouTube channel entitled “More New KJV-Only Arguments” in which he responded to my “Is the King James Version (KJV) Too Hard to Understand? James White / Thomas Ross Debate Review 11” video (also here on Rumble, or here at FaithSaves). Here is the video as an embed:

I summarized my argument in the video here at What is Truth? in a previous post. Dr. Brandenburg wrote a post about how Dr. Ward said in these videos, concerning me, “I regard him as an extremist of a particularly dangerous kind, the kind that is super intelligent.” This comment by Dr. Ward definitely made me laugh. But watch out–this post is written by a particularly dangerous extremist. Has Dr. Ward warned about the Roman Catholic, Seventh Day Adventist, theologically modernist, and other sorts of damnable heresy that is published by Logos Bible software for whom he works? Maybe he has called this content that his employer publishes “dangerous” somewhere–I am not aware of it if he has. So I suppose all of that is fine, but saying English speakers should continue to use the Bible that has served them so well for 400 years–that is very, very dangerous. Millions of people are going to hell because of Roman Catholicism and theological modernism, but what is truly dangerous is anyone who would advise English speakers to use the Authorized, King James Version, despite a small number of archaic words it contains.

I pointed out in my video that the KJV’s English fits within the parameters of the linguistic difficulty of the original language texts of Scripture. Thus, since the KJV’s English is not harder than the Greek of the New Testament or the Hebrew of the Old Testament, we have an exegetical basis for concluding that we do not need, at this time, to revise the English Authorized Version. We also have an exegetical basis for determining when it would be appropriate to revise the English of the KJV–if it ever becomes significantly harder to read than the original language texts, then it is time for true churches to come together to produce a revision.

There are some serious problems in Ward’s response to my argument, although I appreciate that he actually offered a response. (James White just ignored it, so good for Dr. Ward.) I am not going to point out in this post all of the problems in his book claiming that the English of the KJV is too hard, or his serious inaccuracies in his three videos. I will, however, share with blog readers a comment I offered to part two of his three-part series. I have italicized my comment below and have added some explanatory words within it in bold.

Dear Dr. Ward,

Thank you for taking the time to review my “Is the King James Version (KJV) Too Hard to Understand? James White / Thomas Ross Debate Review 11” video in two videos (and apparently a third video coming).

In my comment I specified the name of the video he was critiquing so that people could actually watch it instead of just hearing his critique with a very limited ability to even find and hear first hand what he was arguing against.

Someone brought these videos to my attention and so I thought I should take a peek. I hope that both my video–which, of course, was not about anything you said in particular, but about Dr. White’s comments in our debate–and your response will contribute to Christians thinking Biblically about the issue of Bible translation, and evaluating their philosophy of Bible translation from a sola Scriptura perspective, instead of just creating whatever standard they wish. If my video and your responses lead to that happening, then something useful for God’s kingdom will certainly have been accomplished for His glory.

I really do mean that. I am glad that he made his videos, and I hope that people who are anti-KJVO will start to approach the question of Bible translation exegetically. Of course, if they do, they just might end up becoming perfect preservationists who use exclusively the KJV in English.

Lord willing, at some point I will create a response to your videos. You may not be surprised that I have not found your responses especially compelling, although I am looking forward to hearing what you have to say in part three.

Part three was also less than compelling. Brother Ward did not seem, in some places, to even grasp my argument accurately. For example, in part three Dr. Ward argued that if I was right then we should just add in archaic words when we make new translations, but my point was not about making new translations, but about when it is appropriate to revise an already extant translation. The idea that one should randomly decide to add in archaic words for fun has nothing to do with my argument. For the large majority of the time since God has given the canon of Scripture God’s people would have found more rare or hard-to-understand words in the Hebrew and Greek texts than there are in the KJV, but God never instructed His Apostles and prophets to make a revision of the Hebrew or Greek texts.

I was wondering if you would be so kind as to let me know: 1.) If, before I produced my video, you had written or set forth in any setting an exegetical basis for your position on Bible translations, other than your claim that the KJV is in a different language and so violates 1 Corinthians 14 on not speaking in foreign tongues in the church without an interpreter. I must say that I find the idea that 1 Corinthians 14 teaches that we must abandon the KJV, or at least its exclusive use in English, most unconvincing exegetically. I would like to confirm that you view my claim that we should evaluate what is appropriate for English Bible translations based on the level of difficulty of the Old Testament and New Testament Hebrew and Greek texts as a claim that is indeed “novel” or new to you, and thus as something that you never considered before writing your book Authorized?

It is not good if someone has written an entire book arguing that the KJV’s English is too hard to understand and has given a significant part of his life to turning people away from the King James Bible, and yet has never even thought about comparing it with the lingustic difficulty of the text God gave His people directly by the dictation of the Holy Spirit.

Dr. Ward’s argument that because 1 Corinthians 14 forbids utilizing the miraculous gift of tongues to speak Japanese in 1st century Corinth if there were no Japanese speakers present and no translation into the common language–Greek–or forbids miraculously speaking in the tongue of Zulu if there are no Zulu speakers present, therefore we need to reject the KJV because it is really a foreign language. This, to be kind, is less than convincing. To be blunt, it is ridiculous, and a painful abuse of 1 Corinthians 14. However, that is all the Scripture Dr. Ward has for his position that the English of the KJV is too hard. Would his argument prove too much–would it prove that the Jews in Ezra’s day should have revised the books of Moses, or that the Apostles should not have used the LXX, even when it is accurate? Yes. So we can be thankful that his claim from 1 Corinthians 14 is astonishingly off base. It was fine for the Jews in Malachi’s day to just read the Hebrew Pentateuch, even though their language had changed much more than the English language has between 1611 and today.

2.) If you could please also let me know how many times you have read the Greek NT cover to cover and / or the Hebrew OT, as well as what training in the languages you have, I would appreciate that as well. It will help me to be accurate in what I say in response to you, as I am sure we both believe accuracy is very important, as our God is a God of truth.

Dr. Ward never answered this question, and I suspect the answer is “zero” for both how many times he has read through the Greek NT or the Hebrew OT. There are not a few things that he says in his videos that make me rather strongly suspect this. They are not things one would say were he closely acquainted with the original language texts of Scripture.

Thank you very much. Let me say that I also appreciate that you provided a significant quote from my video and appeared to want to accurately represent me. I thank you for that.

I do appreciate that, as far as I can tell, Dr. Ward did not intentionally misrepresent my argument. Did he misrepresent it? Yes, but I think this was a matter of inaccuracy, not intentionality. I also need to keep in mind that his anti-KJVO side does not approach issues like this through exegesis, through looking at Scripture first to see what it says about preservation and Bible translation, so he is rather like a fish out of water here. I am glad he is trying. I wish he had plainly told his audience where they could find my argument so they could go ad fontes and compare what I actually said with what he argued against.

3.) I would also be interested in seeing if you have any grammatical sources for your claim that the difficulty in Luke-Acts, for example, versus the Johannine literature, is mainly because participles are placed in different locations, as well as your other grammatical claims. Some of the claims seemed quite unusual to my mind, and I would like to know if any Greek grammarians make such affirmations as you made.

He never provided any sources for his claims. I suspect that is because there are no such sources, as people who write Greek and Hebrew grammars are likely to be quite surprised by not a few of the arguments that Dr. Ward made. I do not think that those who have actually read Luke-Acts and the Johannine literature in the New Testament would say that the main or even the chief difficulty in harder NT Greek is knowing what adverbial participles modify. This statement sounds to me like the claim of someone who is not very familiar with the Greek of these books.

I may be into having sources for my claims more than most people who make YouTube videos, but I did not notice any grammatical sources cited in your videos.

That is the problem with producing YouTube videos instead of writing things down, or instead of doing face-to-face debate.

4.) When you spoke about a test that you had given to KJVO pastors that definitively proved that they did not understand the KJV themselves, I was interested and took the test, and had some KJVO folk take it as well. I must say that they did much, much better than did the people whom you surveyed. (I myself got a 19 out of 20, and I think that the one I got wrong was a problem with the question.)

I had never heard of his test, which he mentioned in part 1 of his video, until examining his video, part 1. I decided to take his test. One of the questions was:

“Remove not the ancient landmark, which thy fathers have set.”

(Proverbs 22:28 KJV)

What does it mean to “remove” a landmark? 1 point

a.) To change position; to move a short distance or in a certain direction

b.) I don’t know

c.) To progress in a direction

d.) Take (something) away or off from the position occupied

This is a poorly designed question, because more than one of the answers fits both the meaning of the Hebrew word and the English translation in the KJV. Commenting on why the word “remove” here is (allegedly) archaic, Ward affirms:

The Hebrew here means “to displace [that is, to ‘cause (something) to move from its proper or usual place’] a boundary mark.” (HALOT/NOAD)

In 1611 “remove” in a context like this meant “to change position; to move a short distance or in a certain direction.” (OED)–just like the Hebrew. That sense, however, is marked as “Obsolete” in the OED.

Today, “remove” means to “take (something) away or off from the position occupied” or to “eliminate or get rid of” (NOAD).

However, the Dictionary of Classical Hebrew defines the Hebrew word here (in the tense used, the Hiphil) as follows:

Hi. 6.0.9 Pf. Q ‏הסיג‎; impf. 2ms ‏תַּסִּיג‎ (‏תַּסֵּג‎); ptc. ‏מַסִּיג‎, ‏מַסִּיגֵי‎ (Q ‏מסגי‎, ‏משיגי‎); inf. cstr. ‏הסיג—1a. remove, move back, <SUBJ> Israel(ites) Dt 1914, seducer of wife 4QInstrb 2.46; subj. not specified, Pr 2228 2310 4QInstrb 2.38. <OBJ> גְּבוּל border Dt 1914 Pr 2228 2310 4QInstrb 2.38 2.46. <COLL> סוג hi. :: גבל set a border Dt 1914.

b. ptc. as noun, one who removes a boundary, <SUBJ> ארר pass. be cursed Dt 2717, דבר pi. speak CD 520, נבא ni. prophesy CD 520, עמד stand CD 520, שׁוב hi. cause to turn CD 520, תעה hi. cause to err CD 520. <CSTR> מַסִּיג גְּבוּל remover of a border Dt 2717, מַסִּיגֵי removers of Ho 510=CD 1915 4QDa 14 CD 520 (הגבול; =4QDa 3.27 גבול) 4Q424 39, משיגי הגב[ו]ל removers of the border 4QDf 12; כול מסיגי all the removers of 4Q424 39. <PREP> לְ of benefit, to, for 4Q424 39; introducing object 4QDa 14; כְּ as, like, + היה be Ho 510=CD 1915.

2. remove, carry away, intrans., <SUBJ> Israel(ites) Mc 614 (or em. תַּסֵּג you shall carry away to ‏תַּשֵּׂג you shall reach, i.e. increase wealth; or em. ‏תִּסָּגֵר you shall be delivered up, i.e. ‏סגר ni.; unless סוג II hi. surround with fence). <COLL> סוג hi. || פלט hi. save Mc 614.

Note that this standard Hebrew lexicon–volume 1 of which was published in 1993–includes the actual English word “remove” in its definition of this word, but, supposedly, the KJV’s “remove” in Proverbs 22:28 is archaic. Has English changed a great deal since 1993, so that this Hebrew dictionary includes this alleged archaism, “remove”? Note as well that more than one of the options in Dr. Ward’s questionnaire would both fit the meaning of the Hebrew word and the English word.

Thus, his survey includes at least this allegedly “archaic” word in the KJV that is not archaic. The word is defined as “remove” in modern times in a modern standard Hebrew lexicon (one that, I might add, is never cited anywhere in Dr. Ward’s quiz–maybe he should have studied the Hebrew text a bit more carefully before producing his test, or at least before publishing it and making claims that are easily shown to be inaccurate.)

I am wondering if it is possible to get more information about who these people are. Are they Baptists? Are they people who believe in justification by works or baptismal regeneration and do not even have the Holy Spirit, as one finds even among various denominational “Baptist” groups if one goes house to house regularly in evangelism? Would they claim to be fundamentalists?

Who these people are is rather important. Dr. Ward said that only 7% of them knew the differences between “thee/thou/thy” as singular in the KJV and “ye/you” as plural. What? Seven percent? Who are these people? In our church the preachers all know, the adults are instructed, the children are instructed, and it is even in Bible study #1 in our evangelistic Bible study series. 93% of those who took his survey did not know this? Are his survey results verifiable, reproducible, and falsifiable–or are they none of the above? Why should we trust them?

Let me note that Mark Ward’s solution to people not knowing the difference between thee/thou/thy and ye/you is not to instruct them in the difference–it is to reject the KJV so that they are reading some modern version where you can NEVER know the difference. Quite a solution, no?

5.) I would be interested if you have done anything to encourage KJVO saints to do something like read KJVs that have the (small number of) archaic words defined in the margin of their Bibles, as do many study Bibles, the Defined KJV, etc.

I would love to find out I am wrong, but I think he has done exactly nothing to encourage saints who are going to cleave to their KJVs to understand them better by having them read editions of the Authorized Version where the archaic words are defined in the margin. I will applaud Dr. Ward when he donates the profits from his book against exclusive use of the KJV to purchasing copies of works that define its archaic words, such as David Cloud’s Believer’s Bible Dictionary, and donating those books to KJVO Christians. But I am not holding my breath.

If not, could you explain why you believe such a solution to your “false friends” idea is insufficient, and why what needs to be done is to replace the KJV with a multiplicity of modern versions that do things like take “hell” out of the Old Testament and replace it with that easy to understand and commonly used word “Sheol,” or attack the classical doctrine of the Trinity by changing the Son from being “only begotten” to being “unique,” or change the Son’s going forth from the Father in His eternal generation from being “from everlasting” to the Arian “from ancient days,” and so on, that would be appreciated. If you do not appreciate such changes in modern versions, I am wondering if you have any written sources or videos warning about them.

I am aware of exactly nothing written or taught by Dr. Ward warning about any of these serious corruptions–really evil “false friends”–in many modern Bible versions. Nor am I aware of Dr. Ward ever explaining why such a solution is more than sufficient to deal with the small number of KJV archaisms–just like there was not one word of criticism of Dr. James White’s inaccurate claims, the ones I was actually dealing with, in my video “Is the King James Version (KJV) Too Hard to Understand? James White / Thomas Ross Debate Review 11.” Only KJVO people deserve criticism, it appears.

I at least would rather have a Bible that teaches Athanasian Trinitarianism but uses “conversation” in an older sense meaning “conduct” than a Bible that has a nice new “conduct” translation but undermines the holy Trinity in some verses (while, thankfully, still supporting it in others).

Wouldn’t you?

Also, please feel free to get in touch with me if you ever change your mind about being willing to publicly dialogue or debate on this matter.

I have offered to debate him multiple times and he has refused. Could it be that his position is not defensible in open debate? Could it be that his whole case would fall apart if he had to do what Christ and the Apostles did in the Gospels and Acts, namely, debate and refute their opponents face-to-face?

I happen to think there would be more profit from a face-to-face encounter where we both have equal time to present our case than there is in your producing videos on your YouTube channel that are mainly preaching to your choir while I do the same on my KJB1611 channel with videos that will mainly be watched by people who are already convinced of the perfect preservation of Scripture. Finally, thank you for complementing me as being “super intelligent.” That was very kind of you. The “very dangerous” part, maybe not so much, but I suppose we can’t have everything. I am not planning to respond to any comments here, as I am not convinced that YouTube comments are the best place to engage in scholarly discussion, but I will look forward to hearing from you if you are able to answer my questions. Thanks again, Thomas

Dr. Ward did respond to my comment as follows:

Ross has said he won’t reply here. So I’ll reply to just two items for the sake of my viewers. (No reply on nos. 1, 2, and 5.)

Why do you think he does not want to answer questions #1, 2, and 5? It isn’t because I won’t reply on his YouTube channel in the comment section. Doesn’t he want me to have the best and most accurate information for when I actually respond to him, God willing? Surely it is not because he does not have a good answer to those questions. Right?

3. I mentioned in the video that I was offering my thoughts as a reader of the Greek New Testament; I self-consciously chose not to cite authorities here.

Does he cite authorities somewhere else, then? Where? Anywhere? I thought it was interesting that after I asked this question in part 2 of his three part series, in part 3 he mentioned that he had started reading a book on Hebrew discourse analysis. Great, good for him. He never said a word about my actual question–how much of the Hebrew Old Testament itself, and Greek New Testament itself, has he actually read?

4. All of the information I am able to release publicly about the participants in the study is available at kjbstudyproject.com, on the Demographic Data page that is linked in the main navigational menu. I refer interested viewers there.

The demographic data seems to indicate that the people who took his survey were not Mormons or Oneness Pentecostals, if the people who took the survey told the truth. So that is useful, and I appreciate that he pointed that out. But there is still something very wonky with his survey results. And, of course, we have no way of verifying, corroborating, or falsifying that whatever people said in the survey is actually the truth. Dr. Ward claimed his survey was “definitive,” when it is incredibly far from anything of the kind. But I do appreciate him pointing to that “Demographic Data” page, even though I wish he had taken the time to make sure that words like “remove” are actually archaic by spending just a bit longer looking at standard Hebrew lexica before putting his survey out.

Let me end this blog post by reiterating that, while his attempt to deal with my Biblically-based case for the English of the KJV is solely reactive, in that he never thought of actually seeing what God’s objective standard is for Bible translation by looking at the language level in Scripture until I brought this to his attention, by the grace of God, I am thankful if his videos at least get people to start to thinking that way.

Also, again, this is by no means a comprehensive response to his three videos or to his book–just a few thoughts to whet your appetite.

Finally, let me point out that this exchange illustrates why those who believe in the perfect preservation of Scripture and the Authorized, King James Version should learn the Biblical languages, especially if they are spiritual leaders. The large holes in his argument are much more easily visible if one knows Hebrew and Greek.

–TDR

New List of Reasons for Maximum Certainty for the New Testament Text (Part 5)

May 28, 2024 / Leave a comment

ANSWERING AGAIN THE “WHAT TR?” QUESTION

Part One Part Two Part Three Part Four

1. God Inspired Specific, Exact Words, and All of Them.
2. After God Inspired, Inscripturated, or Gave His Words, All of Them, to His People through His Institutions, He Kept Preserving Each of Them and All of Them According to His Promises of Preservation.
3. God Promised Preservation of the Words in the Language They Were Written, or In Other Words, He Preserved Exactly What He Gave.
4. God’s Promise of Keeping and Preserving His Words Means the Availability of His Words to Every Generation of Believers.
5. God the Holy Spirit, the Third Person of the Trinity, Used the Church to Accredit or Confirm What Is Scripture and What Is Not.
6. God Declares a Settled Text of Scripture in His Word.

THE APPLICATION OF THE PRESUPPOSITIONS, PRINCIPLES, AND PROMISES OF AND FROM SCRIPTURE

God’s Word is truth. It provides the expectations for Christians, not feelings or experience. People can count on what God says. True believers go to scripture to get their views for things.

The Lord in His Word gives the expectations regarding the future of scripture. What would God do? If God says He will do it, then He will do it, and believers will believe that He did.

The presuppositions, principles, and promises of and from scripture provide a model, paradigm, or template for knowing what God’s Words are. The true view will follow a biblical model.

Epistemology

What I’m writing in this series considers how people know or can know what they know, what’s called “epistemology.” The critical text and its modern versions are different than the received or traditional text and the King James Version. They can’t both be right. Of the two, how do we know which one is right?

Knowledge starts with God’s Word. Faith in what God says is the primary way of knowing what people ought to know. Someone can open to Genesis 1:1 and know what it says occurred based on God saying it.

Only one text and version position fits the principles, presuppositions, and promises of scripture. The above six true principles lead one to the received text or textus receptus. Only the received text, the underlying text of the King James Version, corresponds to what God said would occur.

Which Textus Receptus?

Opponents or critics of the received text position, critical text proponents, very often ask, “Which Textus Receptus (TR)?” I saw someone recently mock the TR by calling it the “Texti Recepti.” The idea of this criticism is that there is more than one edition of the TR, so which one is it?

The textus receptus is a very homogenous text. All the varied editions are very close and essentially the same. However, the differences would contradict perfect, every word preservation and a settled text. This criticism becomes a major presupposition for a critical text position. It says, “No one knows what the text is, so everyone continues with textual criticism.”

Following the presuppositions, principles, and promises of scripture, one witnesses settlement on the text of scripture. Even though each of the twenty-seven books of the New Testament were considered scripture immediately, its aggregation or collation into one book took one or two hundred years. This occurred through the agreement of God’s people and the testimony of the Holy Spirit, termed “canonicity.”

History of the Received Text

Through church history, God’s people continued to ascertain and identify scripture in the keeping process. Churches kept agreeing on the twenty-seven books of the New Testament. They also received the words of the New Testament, the text of the New Testament. Churches had already been receiving the same text of scripture in the manuscript or hand-written era. A few years ago, I wrote the following.

Kurt Aland

The TR never meant one printed edition. Even Kurt and Barbara Aland the famed textual critics, the “A” in “NA” (Nestles-Aland), wrote (“The Text of the Church?” in Trinity Journal, Fall, 1987, p.131):

[I]t is undisputed that from the 16th to the 18th century orthodoxy’s doctrine of verbal inspiration assumed this Textus Receptus. It was the only Greek text they knew, and they regarded it as the ‘original text.’

He also wrote in his The Text of the New Testament (p. 11):

We can appreciate better the struggle for freedom from the dominance of the Textus Receptus when we remember that in this period it was regarded even to the last detail the inspired and infallible word of God himself.

Barbara Aland

His wife Barbara writes in her book, The Text of the New Testament (pp. 6-7):

[T]he Textus Receptus remained the basic text and its authority was regarded as canonical. . . . Every theologian of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries (and not just the exegetical scholars) worked from an edition of the Greek text of the New Testament which was regarded as the “revealed text.” This idea of verbal inspiration (i. e., of the literal and inerrant inspiration of the text) which the orthodoxy of both Protestant traditions maintained so vigorously, was applied to the Textus Receptus.

I say all that, because Aland accurately does not refer to an edition of the TR, neither does he speak of the TR like it is an edition. It isn’t. That is invented language used as a reverse engineering argument by critical text proponents, differing with the honest proposition of Aland, quoted above. They very often focus on Desiderius Erasmus and his first printed edition of the Greek New Testament. That’s not how believers viewed what the Van Kleecks call the Standard Sacred Text, others call the Ecclesiastical Text, and still others the Traditional Text.

Metzger

Neither does Bruce Metzger refer to an edition of the Textus Receptus; only to the Textus Receptus (The Text of the New Testament: Its Transmission, Corruption, and Restoration, 4th ed. [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005], pp. 106-251):

Having secured . . . preeminence, what came to be called the Textus Receptus of the New Testament resisted for 400 years all scholarly effort to displace it. . . . [The] “Textus Receptus,” or commonly received, standard text . . . makes the boast that “[the reader has] the text now received by all, in which we give nothing changed or corrupted.” . . . [This] form of Greek text . . . succeeded in establishing itself as “the only true text” of the New Testament and was slavishly reprinted in hundreds of subsequent editions. It lies at the basis of the King James Version and of all the principal Protestant translations in the languages of Europe prior to 1881.

[T]he reverence accorded the Textus Receptus. . . [made] attempts to criticize or emend it . . . akin to sacrilege. . . . For almost two centuries . . . almost all of the editors of the New Testament during this period were content to reprint the time-honored . . . Textus Receptus. . . . In the early days of . . . determining textual groupings . . . the manuscript was collated against the Textus Receptus . . . . This procedure made sense to scholars, who understood the Textus Receptus as the original text of the New Testament, for then variations from it would be “agreements in error.”

The Textus Receptus does not refer to a single printed edition of the New Testament. The language of a received text proceeds from true believers in a time before the printing press in hand copies and then leading to the period of its printing.

Edward Freer Hills

Churches up to the printing press ‘received’ the “received text,” hence, “the received text” of the New Testament. This bore itself out in the printed edition era, as churches only printed editions of the received text. However, they didn’t permanently continue printing editions of the TR. They settled, as seen in the discontinuation of printing further editions after about a hundred years. This was a shorter period of time than the settlement or agreement on the twenty-seven books of scripture.

What I’m writing here corresponds to the now well-known position expressed by Edward Freer Hills in his book, The King James Version Defended. He wrote:

The King James Version ought to be regarded not merely as a translation of the Textus Receptus but also as an independent variety of the Textus Receptus. . . . But what do we do in these few places in which the several editions of the Textus Receptus disagree with one another? Which text do we follow? The answer to this question is easy. We are guided by the common faith. hence we favor that form of the Textus Receptus upon which more than any other, God, working providentially, has placed the stamp of His approval, namely the King James Version, or, more precisely, the Greek text underlying the King James Version.

King James Version Translated from Something

Some critical text adherents want to make Hills statement a “gotcha” or “aha” moment. “Look, this is an English priority!” I say, “No, the King James translators were translators, so they translated from something.” From which they translated is represented by the writing and teaching in all the centuries after the last printed edition of the textus receptus and the acceptance of the King James Version.

The King James Version translators translated from available words. They relied on the printed editions of the textus receptus. Their text was its own independent variety, like Hills said. However, that text pre-existed the translation, even if it wasn’t in one printed edition. Again, scripture doesn’t argue for the preservation of an edition.

Those translations forerunning the King James Version also relied on the textus receptus. The necessity of a settled text, that particular presupposition, looks on which the vast majority of believers settled. The concluding certainty comes from faith in what God said He would do.

Printed Editions of the TR

Almost one hundred percent of the words for the King James Version came from the printed editions of the textus receptus. Maybe two or three words total in the King James Version don’t appear in any printed edition of the textus receptus but had textual attestation elsewhere. A vast majority of true believers were not reading the Greek New Testament. They accepted or received the textus receptus by receiving the translation from the textus receptus. This helps explain the Hills statement of an “independent variety of the Textus Receptus.” It’s not unique though in a fair understanding of the word. It reflects what God’s people received as the text of the New Testament since its original writing.

In 1881, F. H. A. Scrivener took on the monumental project of printing the received text underlying the King James Version New Testament. For many decades the Trinitarian Bible Society has printed this edition of the textus receptus. The printing of this as its own edition suggests the independent variety of the Textus Receptus underlying the New Testament of the King James Version.

The Ecclesiastical Text

Some call the textus receptus, “the ecclesiastical text.” I don’t mind that title. It acknowledges the testimony of the Holy Spirit toward His words through the church. God uses the church to attest to the words of God as a means of settling the text. Naturalistic and rationalistic modern textual criticism does not settle the text. It uses naturalistic means as a basis for speculating the original text of the New Testament. It does not claim certainty or knowing what the text is. Because of its means or instrumentality, it doesn’t and can’t claim to know the original text. It also does not acknowledge the truth of the above principles, promises, and presuppositions.

I know I’m saved. Scripture assures me of my salvation. The Bible also assures me that I know what is the text of the New Testament. I know the New Testament text like I know the twenty-seven books of the New Testament.

Acting in Faith

Faith acts. It will bite down on what God said and what He said He would do. You don’t believe if you sit back and taste without swallowing. Faith isn’t a sample-fest.

On this subject, some are reticent to say what is the text of the New Testament. They anticipate the attack coming, including mockery. Those mocking do not bite down. They instead adjust based upon their naturalistic presuppositions. They say something like “confidence” instead of “certainty.” That doesn’t follow what scripture says about itself. This should embarrass them. I think it does many of them, which is why the angry reaction and the resultant mockery.

The trail of faith on this issue ends with the underlying text behind the King James Version. The closest to that is all the words found in the printed edition. That sort of settles, but it leaves wiggle room. It’s a harder-to-defend position, based upon the plain scriptural presuppositions.

More to Come

Tag Archives: textus receptus

Recent Posts

INDEX FOR WHAT IS TRUTH

Hypothetical Manuscript Finds

The Argument

“The Text” According to Ward

A Mysterious Pope-Like Figure

Changes by Fiat?

Inward Testimony of the Holy Spirit and Agreement of Churches

Problems with a Theory

Modern Textual Criticism

German Rationalism

Continued Assessment of Mark Ward’s Attack

Perfect or Accurate Translation

Perfect Hebrew and Greek Texts

Satanic Corruption

Story of Ruckmanism

Ruckman’s Position

Support of the Majority of Manuscripts

Stories?

The Ward Viewpoint

Overall Observations and Criticisms of Ward’s Statements

Ward on Truth Serum

First, what’s wrong with Ward’s MT/TR story?

“Neat and Tidy”

“Tells Themselves”

“Once Upon a Time”

Scriptural Presuppositions

Satan Counterfeiting

Systematic Search

Examples

Matthew

Mark

Why Does It Matter?

Addendum

Debate Overview

Participants and Positions:

Key Arguments:

Critical Points Raised:

Conclusion Drawn from Reviews:

Overall Assessment:

Mary Shelley and Frankenstein

Thomas Ross, Dwayne Greene, and the Frankentext

Talk about the Frankentext

A Further Description from Me

Lies Including the Textus Receptus As a Frankentext

CBGM

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.

James White’s Argument on Acts 5:30

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

ANSWERING AGAIN THE “WHAT TR?” QUESTION

THE APPLICATION OF THE PRESUPPOSITIONS, PRINCIPLES, AND PROMISES OF AND FROM SCRIPTURE

Epistemology

Which Textus Receptus?

History of the Received Text

Kurt Aland

Barbara Aland

Metzger

Edward Freer Hills

King James Version Translated from Something

Printed Editions of the TR

The Ecclesiastical Text

Acting in Faith

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