Multiple Versions Only (MVO): No Scripture, So Invent a Fake History February 26, 2007
Posted by Kent Brandenburg in : King James Only , 28 comments
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Normally, doctrinal statements start with Scripture. They are a careful presentation of what Scripture says on a subject, topic, or issue, which would in essence be “what the Bible says” about it. If we were to teach on the doctrine of preservation, we would lay out what the Bible reveals on the issue in a contextual and organized way, leaving no stones unturned to find out what God said about it in His Word. That’s what we, the One Bible people, have done. We major on what the Bible says. Only after this will we mention the history and other external evidences.
MVO:Â No Scripture
You will not see this with the MVO advocates. They provide no developed, organized system of teaching on preservation, none of them. Their idea of a Biblical presentation is to attack the exegesis and application of the One Bible presentation. This really has become the tradition of MVO and textual criticism. They don’t tell you what the Bible teaches about its own preservation. Despite having no Scripture, they really want you to think that they represent the historical point of view. They want you to think that the One Bible people, who do present Scripture, don’t have any history previous to the middle of the 20th Century.
Mount Calvary Baptist Church of Greenville, SC, where Mark Minnick pastors, put together one of their “histories,” as did Mike Sproul and a cast of MVO advocates (BJU) in God’s Word in Our Hands. I dare you to find anything that Doug Kutilek has written on what God’s Word says about its own preservation. These people do not seem to be interested at all about what the Bible says about it.
Mount Calvary and Mark Minnick did not provide a booklet with exegesis on the Bible doctrine of preservation. They provided you a pamphlet with quotations of men. The Ambassador-Emerald “Translation Committee” wrote an entire volume with no Scriptural presentation and followed it with another 400+ tome, subheaded “The Bible Preserved for Us,” that starts with historical quotes. You won’t find Scripture until p. 83, and again, that is mainly attempting to debunk the One Bible position, that lasts up to p. 117 and that is all, pp. 83-117. God’s Word Preserved, the Mike Sproul book in which within the entire 405 pages he alone is called Dr. Sproul, including on the front cover, has zero Scriptural teaching on preservation. None. You would think he would have been able to find some teaching on preservation for a book called God’s Word Preserved. The way he defended his position is with quotes of men. Just quotes; that’s all.
Our book, on the other hand, Thou Shalt Keep Them, is 315 pages of only Biblical teaching. We exegete several of the passages (not all) that reveal the doctrine of preservation. We could have written something almost double that size, if we included all the passages.
One of the reasons they do not give Scripture is because several of them do not believe Scripture teaches preservation. They admit this themselves. Some of the major, most quoted spokesmen for the MVO side, don’t believe preservation is promised in Scripture. William Combs of Detroit Baptist Theological Seminary writes concerning his own side:
In an an article entitled “Inspiration, Preservation, and New Testament Textual Criticism,” by Daniel Wallace, we find what is apparently the first definitive, systematic denial of a doctrine of preservation of Scripture.
That is quite an overstatement by Combs. Many liberals have denied preservation. Many do not believe that the Bible teaches inspiration or preservation. He must mean the first denial of preservation by a “conservative.” Denial of preservation and “conservative” go together in this new paradigm. Combs adds W. Edward Glenny, a major contributor to the volume, One Bible Only?, out of Central Seminary in Minnesota.
They are not strong about Scripture teaching the doctrine of preservation, so what is their position on history and preservation? Sadly, they don’t give a historic presentation either. They give you quotes of men mainly addressing the translation issue. The first two quotes by Trusted Voices are also the first for Mike Sproul:
The holy Scriptures viz. the Originalls Hebrew & Greek are given by Divine Inspiration & in their first donation were without error most perfect and therefore Canonical … no translation can possibly express all the matter of the body originals, nor a thousand things in the Grammar, Rhetoric, & character of the tongue. ~~John Smyth
Now though some translations may exceed others in Propriety, and significant rendering of the Originals; yet they generally, (even the most imperfect that we know of), express and hold forth so much the Mind, Will, and Counsel of God, as is sufficient … to acquaint a Man with the Mysteries of Salvation, to work in him a true Faith, and bring him to live godly, righteously, and soberly in this World, and to Salvation in the next. ~~Banjamine Keach
What do these two quotes do to eliminate the Scriptural and historical view on perfect preservation that we represent? Nothing. They only refute a view that says that English has replaced the Hebrew and Greek text of Scripture. These two quotes do nothing to dispel what we believe and what Scripture teaches on preservation. We wholeheartedly agree with them. A large majority of their quotes read like these two. Only close to or after the Revised Version of 1881 do they find quotes that attack the Scriptural position on preservation. This is their so-called “history.”
MVO:Â No History
Since the MVO position is not even historical, let alone Scriptural, where did it originate? This is important to understand. Many liberals believed what the MVO advocates teach. When did it become the position of the more conservative? This is easy to see. One would think that the Westminster Confession and Baptist Confessions (London, Philadelphia) would get in the way of changing the historic view of preservation. They have and do. But then came along the well-respected Presbyterian, Princeton (Ivy League) theologian, Benjamin Warfield. Warfield read into the Westminster Confession and into its “providential care,” textual criticism. You’ll find it on pages 239-241 in Vol. VI of his Works:
It (the WCF) admits of no denial that they explicitly recognized the fact that the text of the Scriptures had suffered corruption in process of transmission, and affirmed that the “pure” text lies therefore not in one copy, but in all, and is to be attained not by simply reading the text in whatever copy may chance to fall in our hands, but by a process of comparison, i.e. by criticism (p. 239).
In the sense of the Westminster Confession, therefore, the multiplication of copies of the Scriptures, the several early efforts towards the revision of the text, the raising up of scholars in our own day to collect and collate MSS, . . . . are all parts of God’s singular care and providence in preserving His inspired Word pure.
Warfield reads schizophrenic in that section. In one moment he is espousing the historical position and in the next he does what you read above. The fake history of the MVO began with these writings of Warfield. Warfield inserted a history into the Westminster Confession that contradicted what these men said they actually believed. His invention is much different than the conclusion of the well respected Westminster expert, E. D. Morris, who wrote concerning the divines:
As a Professor in a Theological Seminary, it has been my duty to make a special study of the Westminster Confession of Faith, as have I done for twenty years; and I venture to affirm that no one who is qualified to give an opinion on the subject, would dare to risk his reputation on the statement that the Westminster divines ever thought the original manuscripts of the Bible were distinct from the copies in their possession.
My reading of the Puritan writings mirrors Morris’ assessment. Benjamin Warfield brought textual criticism into a “conservative” doctrine of preservation of Scripture much like evolutionists brought theistic evolution into the Bible.
They have their own fake history, but they are also bold enough to provide us with our history too. They don’t have time to look at what Scripture says, but they do have a lot of time to concoct a new history for the perfect preservation view. Sproul spends a huge chunk of his book (pp. 209-245) creating a fraudulent history of the One Bible view, tracing it back to a Seventh Day Adventist, Benjamin Wilkinson, through David Otis Fuller, all beginning in the 1930’s in the United States. I have no doubt that some have been influenced by these two men, but this is not the history of the doctrine of preservation. Personally, I have never read Fuller or Wilkinson and don’t possess either of their books on the issue. They may have been defending One Bible, but they didn’t originate a view of perfect preservation, a doctrine which is as old as Scripture itself.
Conclusion
God-fearing saints in Baptist churches for centuries have believed in the perfect preservation of Scripture. And they still do. When they open their Bibles to study or to listen to preaching, they believe that they hold in their hands God’s Word, inspired and perfectly preserved. They don’t take that position from any scholars or historians. They have read it themselves in their own Bibles.
As for me, this is my covenant with them, saith the LORD; My spirit that is upon thee, and my words which I have put in thy mouth, shall not depart out of thy mouth, nor out of the mouth of thy seed, nor out of the mouth of thy seed’s seed, saith the LORD, from henceforth and for ever. Isaiah 59:21
Quotes, Quotes, Quotes: We Take the Historic Position February 25, 2007
Posted by Kent Brandenburg in : King James Only, The Word , 7 comments Print This Post
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In Mike Sproul’s book, God’s Word Preserved, a title full of irony for anyone who actually does believe what Scripture teaches on the preservation of itself, Keith Gephart writes under his watchful care:
Brandenburg’s book posits an interpretation of Scripture regarding the method, means, and location of God’s preserved Word that was unknown to godly fundamentalists before the late twentieth century. As Mike Sproul demonstrates in chapter four of his book, godly fundamental and separatists leaders of past and present looked at the same verses as these men and have come to completely different conclusions regarding their meaning (p. 394).
No one should say that fundamentalists do not take this position of perfect preservation. If they do, as Michael Sproul often does in his book, they have obviously not interacted with George Sayles Bishop, one of the authors of The Fundamentals (Vol. II, Chap. 4). Consider this quote from The Doctrines of Grace by Bishop (p. 35):
We take the ground that on the original parchment, the membrane, every sentence, word, line, mark, point, pen-stroke, jot, tittle, was put there by God. On the original parchment. Men may destroy it. To say that the membranes have suffered in the hands of men, is but to say that everything Divine must suffer, as the pattern Tabernacle suffered, when committed to our hands. To say, however, that the writing has suffered—the words and the letters–is to say that Jehovah has failed. The writing remains. Like that of a palimpsest, it will survive and reappear, no matter what circumstance, —what changes come in to scatter, obscure, disfigure, or blot it away. Not even one lonely “THEOS” (”GOD” was manifest in the flesh, 1 Tim. 3:16
) written large by the Spirit of God on the Great Uncial “C” as, with my own eyes I have seen it—plain, vivid, glittering, outstarting from behind the pale and overlying ink of Ephraem the Syrian—can be buried. Like Banquo’s ghost, it will rise; and God himself replace it, and, with a hammer-stroke, beat down deleting hands. The parchments, the membranes decay; the writings are eternal as God. Strip off the plaster from Belshazzar’s palace, yet Mene! Mene! Tekel! Upharsin! They remain.”
Sproul writes concerning me in his book without ever contacting me first: “This is an amazing slander” (p. 149). For this “amazing slander,” he refers to this line, “So much of what functions as documentation also depends on craftily pulling a quotation from its context, either the context of the book itself or the context of history.”
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A Plea for an Updated King James Version February 24, 2007
Posted by Dave Mallinak in : King James Only , 44 comments Print This Post
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Should the Lord tarry for, say, another 200 years, the 1769 edition of the King James Version, the edition that most use today, would hardly be adequate. In fact, it would be the equivalent of reading Beowulf in the original. The Bible would be out of reach for all but the most educated.
I point this out on purpose. I understand that most of those who are persuaded of the King James Only position also believe that the Lord’s Return is imminent. Several friends of mine believe that we will not finish out this year, or that the Lord will return within the next two years, or hold to some similar viewpoint. Certainly, this is possible. It is equally possible, however, that Christ will not return in the next two years, that he will in fact tarry for another, say, 200 years. In which case, it would be ungodly to insist that those Christians should still be using the 1769 edition of the King James Version.
Nevertheless, some will no doubt continue to insist. In the early days, men like Tyndale gave their life so that the average man could have the Bible in his own language. And the hard-liners of today will eventually undo that purpose. The King James Version was finished in 1611. After that, there were 14-16 updates and editions, each one intended to bring the version up-to-date. For some reason, we stopped updating it in the 1700’s. And as a result, we have a version today that is badly in need of an update.
The scenario I used at the beginning of this post is admittedly an understatement. We have to start somewhere in our thinking, and for those of the more rabid persuasion of KJVO, 200 years out might get them thinking. But I wouldn’t be honest if I said that I myself believe that we should wait 200 years before attempting a new edition.
I can only please some of the people some of the time, but I can offend some people all of the time. I am not careful to tiptoe around this issue. Some, no doubt, will be offended. But then, some have made the art of taking offense their life’s calling. I guess I shouldn’t be proud of myself for offending them. That’s just too doggoned easy.
There are objections to updating the King James Version. No doubt some will object that the edition we have is just fine. Our fathers used it, their fathers used it, and their father’s fathers used it, so we can (or should) too. TRADITIO-O-O-O-N! TRADITION! TRA-DI-TION! I can hear the song playing in my head even as I type. Tradition is obsessive-compulsive. You could give up Tradition if only Tradition would let go of you.
But I’d ask those who feel a strong loyalty to the 1769 edition to consider a few arguments. First, what if we had no editions of the KJV after 1611? No doubt some enjoy reading “ye†for “the.†No doubt some don’t mind having an extra “e†tacked on to the ends of many of the words. But for the bulk of Christians, the 1611 is simply out of reach. I’ve read the Mayflower Compact. I’ve read from William Bradford’s Of Plimoth Plantation. They are not easy reading. So, newer editions have been a blessing to us.
Secondly, we really can’t argue that the 1769 is the final and perfect edition. Nor can we argue for the exclusivity of the 1769. After all, if the 1769 is the exclusive preserved Bible, then the 1611 is not, nor are any of the other editions between the 1611 and the 1769. If it was lawful to make a new edition in 1769, then it certainly is lawful to make one now.
Thirdly, while the readers of this blog might breeze through the language of the 1769 edition King James Bible , many Christians struggle mightily. We need to be careful here, lest we transgress the law of God by our tradition. Wouldn’t this issue also fall under the category of loving our neighbor? When we insist that our neighbor should “figure it out…†we essentially make the law of God of none effect by our tradition.
As a pastor, I have on more than one occasion had to deal with God-fearing believers, discouraged in their pursuit of God by the difficulty of the King’s English. Why would we not want to help them? If we refuse to allow the King James Version to be updated, we will eventually come to the place when the average English-speaking person will not be able to read the Bible. Even now, readers struggle with those infamous “antiquated†words, or with fun phrases like “I wist not whence they were†and “to whit,†and with the never-ending stream of –eth and –est attached to the ends of so many words.
Now, I should say here that I’ve been reading the King James for my entire life. So, I don’t struggle to read it. Apart from a short time in my early years when my dad gave me one of those “four translation†Bibles, I’ve never read anything else. Being a student of God’s Word has given me an ability to grasp the words, for the most part. Other times, I’m thankful for Matthew Henry, John Gill, Adam Clarke, and Albert Barnes.
But not everyone can say this. Especially (though not limited to) those who have been burdened with a public skool ejication. Some struggle valiantly to make heads or tails out of their Bible. Others compromise: when they come to those parts that are out of reach, they do like you and I do when we come across a Latin phrase in a commentary… they skim over it. So to me, this issue is as much about loving your neighbor as it is about anything else.
We can make a new edition. And we should. We should make one for the sake of those for whom the 1769 edition of the King James Bible is out of reach. We should make one for the sake of unbelievers who get lost in the language. We should make one for our children, for our grandchildren, lest they should be discouraged. Just as we set step stools by the drinking fountain so the little ones can reach it, so we should make a new edition of the King James Version.
Of course, some will ask why we should update the King James at all. Why not simply use one of the other versions that are out there? Since we have taken a full month to explain our position on this, I will avoid giving a long answer to that question. Please read the other posts we have made on the issue if you struggle to understand our position.
A brief answer would be that the majority of the modern versions rely on the Critical Text, and translate using “dynamic equivalence†rather than “formal equivalence.†A faithful translation, as we have contended, will translate from the Received Text, and will concern itself with translating every word, inasmuch as possible.
Probably the one modern version that comes the closest to meeting that criteria would be the New King James Version. And, no doubt, some will wonder what could possibly be wrong with using that version. We have three main issues with the New King James. First, the translators used an eclectic approach to the text, as is evident in their footnotes and marginal references. Secondly, as Douglas Wilson said, they “have accepted the task of a scholarly reconstruction of the text but believe that the widespead acceptance of the minority readings is misguided… in other words, they have come up with a traditional answer but with a suspect, modern method.(1)†In other words, they engaged in a little “textual criticism†of their own, though not to the extent of the major modern versions. Thirdly, the New King James has not met with the wide acceptance of the churches.
I should expound on the third point briefly. Bible versions and translations should not be individualistic. It isn’t “up to me†or even “up to my church†to decide which books should be in the canon, or which text should be used. According to God’s plan, as Kent detailed here, God’s churches lend their witness, a very important and vital testimony, to the Word of God. The churches lend their witness to the books, the chapters, the verses, the words, and yes, to the translations.
Some have argued that the King James Bible was written to undermine the Geneva Bible. Others, however, have pointed out that historically, England was deeply divided between the Bishop’s Bible and the Geneva, and that John Reynolds urged King James to commission a new version that would unite the churches. The fact is, the churches did settle on this version of the Bible, and for nearly 300 years, the King James Bible was the Bible of choice for English-speaking people.
Over the last 100 or so years, modern versions have gradually undermined the allegiance that English-speaking churches had to the King James Bible, so that today, we find ourselves once again deeply divided over an acceptable Bible version. The New King James has done nothing to alleviate this problem. If anything, the NKJV has added to the problem.
For those reasons, we do not believe that the New King James Version could meet the criterion for a settled Bible for New Testament churches. Wilson called the Authorized Version “the last true ecclesiastical version,†and called for a new edition of that (2). We concur. In hopes of getting an updated KJV, we must work towards a consensus among churches to that end.
See this clarification to this post.
_____________________
Footnotes:
(1) Douglas Wilson, Mother Kirk: Essays and Forays in Practical Ecclesiology (Moscow, ID: Canon Press, 2001), p.55-56
(2) Ibid., p.60
What Constitutes a “Faithful†Version? February 22, 2007
Posted by Jeff Voegtlin in : King James Only , 6 comments Print This Post
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When we got it started, the word faithful was used many times.Â
1. We affirm that on the issue of versions, our most important duty is to be faithful to the Word and words of God.
8. We affirm that translations should be chosen, not particularly for their “accuracy†as for their faithfulness.
9. We deny that any form of “dynamic equivalence†can be considered to be faithful. We deny that any modern version that utilized “dynamic equivalence†can be considered faithful.
10. We affirm that “formal equivalence†is the only faithful method of translation.
11. We deny that reliance upon the Critical Text could be
considered faithful . . . . Â13. We affirm that any version which attempts to translate either the Received Text or the majority text faithfully by means of Formal Equivalence can be considered a faithful translation.
For some this may be a new term to the topic of preservation and translations. A term I have heard much more is the word “accurate.” While not promoting inaccuracy, I want to point out that accuracy is not the most important quality for a translation. There are some translations that claim to be “more accurate” than the King James Version. I’ve not studied the details, but the gist of the claim is that the choice of English words to represent the Hebrew and Greek of the text is more accurate to today’s meaning than the choice of the King James. Now that may be true, but accuracy is not as important as faithfulness.
I stated in my first post in this series,
As a steward, I cannot add to the words he has given. If I did, would they continue to be His words? I dare not take away from the words he has given. Who am I to steal from my master?
Let me further state that a faithful steward trusts his master. He is not continually second guessing him. He takes his word and he takes him at his word. An unfaithful steward could relay accurately a message that the master did not give–someone else gave it. The same is true of a translator or a version. An unfaithful translator can give a very accurate translation of something that is not the complete words of God. An accurate translation of a “second-guessing” text is not faithful. Accuracy is important, but its importance is secondary to faithfulness. So, what constitutes a faithful version?
In a faithful version, the translators diligently strive to give an “every word†rendering of the faithfully received Hebrew and Greek text. To the best of their ability, they would give the translated word (for us, English) that best conveys the meaning of the original word or words. They faithfully give the words and form (or usage), not merely the sense. All the while, they acknowledge their own (and their language’s) limitations, admitting that they cannot preserve the precise meaning.
Precision and accuracy are important. But faithfulness is moreso. The faithful translator starts with trust in his Master (the received Word), then attempts to faithfully (accurately) relay the message.
Churches: The “How” of Perfect Preservation February 20, 2007
Posted by Kent Brandenburg in : King James Only , 23 comments Print This Post
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Not everyone who calls himself even a conservative evangelical believes that God promised in the Bible to preserve every Word. W. Edward Glenny writes: “[N]o statement in Scripture . . . can establish the doctrine of the preservation of the text of Scripture.” However, most professing fundamentalists admit, even if grudingly, that the Bible teaches its own preservation. Usually, they will quickly add: “It doesn’t teach how.” So they say they believe in the reality of the preservation of the Words of Scripture, but not the means by which preservation would take place.Â
THE MEANS OF PRESERVATIONÂ
God does say how. In the Old Testament He used Israel and in the New Testament, the church (study the Hebrew word for “keep” [shamar and natsar] in the OT and the Greek word, tareo, in the NT). “Unto [Israel was] committed the oracles of God” (Romans 3:2). The nation passed it down generation after generation (Acts 7:38), also using the family to do so (Deuteronomy 11:18-21).
Colossians 4:16 provides a case study for seeing how the church would keep God’s Words: “And when this epistle is read among you, cause that it be read also in the church of the Laodiceans; and that ye likewise read the epistle from Laodicea.” Likewise, in 1 Thessalonians, Paul wrote, “I charge you by the Lord that this epistle be read unto all the holy brethren” (5:27). From Thessalonica believers everywhere were to get their copies of this canonical epistle. The Jews copied, passed down and along, and read the Old Testament; and the churches continued this pattern in the New Testament. A large majority of the copies of Scripture that we possess come from the region of Asia Minor (the Byzantine empire) where Paul started His churches. This Scriptural understanding of the means of preservation is stated by Richard Capel in 1658:
God committed the Hebrew text of the Old Testament to the Jewes, and did and doth move their hearts to keep it untainted to this day: So I dare lay it on the same God, that he in his providence is so with the Church of the Gentiles, that they have and do preserve the Greek Text uncorrupt. (Capel’s Remains, London, 1658, p. 83)
CANONIZATION
Closely related to how the churches preserved God’s Words is the doctrine of canonicity. Scripture teaches the canonicity of the Words of God. Christ promised “that when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth” (John 16:13). Early church believers recognized canonical writ, even as Peter in 1 Peter 3:15-16 writes: “[O]ur beloved brother Paul also according to the wisdom given unto him hath written unto you; as also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things; in which are some things hard to be understood, which they that are unlearned and unstable wrest, as they do also the other scriptures.” Peter knew that what Paul wrote was Scripture. The Holy Spirit guided His churches generation after generation to copy and then agree upon His Words. The canonization of the Books were a logical extension of the Scriptural doctrine of canonization of Words.
That the Spirit would lead New Testament churches into all truth is a matter of faith. That very faith has manifested itself in agreement on what the Books of the Bible are, and just as much what its Words are. Recognition of God’s Words is not a science, but an act of Divine intervention and illumination. The churches made copies of the twenty-seven books of the New Testament, not the other books. The proverb for the perfection of the Words was: “What mistake is in one copy is corrected in another.” Through His Spirit God would preserve His Words through His churches.
Was canonization a miracle? Yes. Was canonization by supernatural divine intervention? Yes. In canonizing Scripture did God the Holy Spirit work through the churches, directing them to the Words inspired by God? Yes. Was canonization an act of inspiration? No. Canonization and inspiration are two different acts of the Holy Spirit. A belief in canonization is not some form of double inspiration. The leading of the Spirit in identifying His Word to the believer and protecting His Words from error is the ongoing operation of God by which He preserves His Words.
To discredit the mighty, gracious activity of the Almighty, His preservation of His Words, some have questioned this doctrine, accusing it of recent origins. Believers, however, have historically applied this to the Word of God, even as we read in the Westminster Confession: “[O]ur full persuasion and assurance of the infallible truth and divine authority thereof, is from the inward work of the Holy Spirit bearing witness by and with the Word in our hearts.”
On the other hand, the brand new doctrine, concocted from human reasoning, is the “science” of textual criticism, leaving the doubtful care of God’s Word to a handful of man-made criteria, crafted by men who rejected the doctrine of divine preservation. We shun this novel humanistic approach for God-ordained reliance on the guidance of the Holy Spirit.
Several times the New Testament says something like it does in 1 Thessalonians 2:13, “When ye received the word of God which ye heard of us, ye received it not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the word of God,” which mirrors what Jesus said in John 17:18, “For I have given unto them the words which thou gavest me; and they have received them.” Even on the day of Pentecost, conversion is described as “they that gladly received his word” (Acts 2:41). The churches received God’s Words as led by the Holy Spirit, so it is no wonder that the terminology used to name their first printed copies in 1633 was textus receptus (TR), the mindset of God’s churches through history. As the Holy Spirit bore witness in the believer’s hearts to the Words of God, they received them.
No single individual can be the pillar and ground of the truth. The Holy Spirit directs through the church, not through one man. Agreement on the text of Scripture comes from the unity of the Spirit. In contrast, eclecticism is the practice of one man choosing the Words of God, essentially canonizing Scripture on the spot, regardless of what churches have already agreed.
Finally, after centuries of handwritten copies, the printing press was invented and God gave the churches the opportunity to bring the text of Scripture into one printed edition. The English speaking people had uniquely responded to the Word of God. They, more than any one culture, devoted themselves to the Bible in their own language. After their finest scholars finished their translation of the Bible in 1611 (the King James Version), their churches agreed upon it as the Word of God. The Words of God were settled for the people of God. For at least 300 years after, the KJV was the Bible for God’s English-speaking believers. The Spirit canonized the Words of Scripture through the churches.
CONCLUSION
The Bible does tell us how God would preserve all of His Words. He would use His congregation to do it, Israel in the Old Testament and the church in the New.  By means of the Holy Spirit, God used the congregation of the righteous to recognize and then settle on the Words of Scripture. Revelation 22:18-19 warns against adding of taking away from the Words of this Book.
For I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book, If any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book:Â And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book.
If the Words of Scripture were not settled, no one could possibly violate God’s instructions here. God did lead His people into Truth and continues to keep His Words by means of His Spirit through the churches.
John Owen on Perfect Preservation of Scripture February 18, 2007
Posted by Jack Hammer in : King James Only , 2 comments Print This Post
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The Works of John Owen (1616-83):Â Vol. 16
But my present considerations being not to be extended beyond the concernment of the truth which in the foregoing discourse I have pleaded for, I shall first propose a brief abstract thereof, as to that part of it which seems to be especially concerned, and then lay down what to me appears in its prejudice in the volumes now under debate, not doubting but a fuller account of the whole will by some or other be speedily tendered unto the learned and impartial readers of them. The sum of what I am pleading for, as to the particular head to be vindicated, is, That as the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament were immediately and entirely given out by God himself, his mind being in them represented unto us without the least interveniency of such mediums and ways as were capable of giving change or alteration to the least iota or syllable; so, by his good and merciful providential dispensation, in his love to his word and church, his whole word, as first given out by him, is preserved unto us entire in the original languages; where, shining in its own beauty and lustre (as also in all translations, so far as they faithfully represent the originals), it manifests and evidences unto the consciences of men, without other foreign help or assistance, its divine original and authority.
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It can, then, with no color of probability be asserted (which yet I find some learned men too free in granting), namely, that there hath the same fate attended the Scripture in its transcription as hath done other books.
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A Presuppositional Approach to Preservation February 16, 2007
Posted by Dave Mallinak in : King James Only , 22 comments Print This Post
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Attempting to be neutral in one’s intellectual endeavors (whether research, argumentation, reasoning, or teaching ) is tantamount to striving to erase the antithesis between the Christian and the unbeliever. Christ declared that the former was set apart from the latter by the truth of God’s word (John 17:17
Such indiscrimination in one’s intellectual life not only precludes genuine knowledge (cf. Prov 1:7
Greg Bahnsen in Robert Booth, ed., Always Ready: Directions for Defending the Faith (Nacogdoches, TX: Covenant Media Press, 1996), pp.7-8 (emphasis his)
Presuppositional apologetics is best summarized by Paul in 2 Corinthians 4:3:
We having the same spirit of faith, according as it is written, I believed, and therefore have I spoken; we also believe, and therefore speak;
In other words, we fear God so that we can understand and know. As Bahnsen correctly says (p. 20),
To make God’s word your presupposition, your standard, your instructor and guide, however, calls for renouncing intellectual self-sufficiency – the attitude that you are autonomous, able to attain unto genuine knowledge independent of God’s direction and standards. Instead of beginning with God’s sure word as foundational in their studies, they would have us think that they begin with intellectual self-sufficiency and (using this as their starting-point) work up to a “rational†acceptance of Scripture.
So, believers are set apart from unbelievers by their assumptions (John 17:17 again). The believer assumes that Scripture is true, no matter what it says. The unbeliever assumes that all Scripture must be tested by other evidence. Cornelius Van Til, in his book The Defense of the Faith (1), traces this autonomous desire of man all the way back to the garden of Eden, where Satan challenged Eve to “go to as many as possible of those reputed to have knowledge.†Of course, in Eve’s case, there were only two “reputed to have knowledge.†God commanded Eve not to eat of the fruit, “for in the day that thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die.†In deciding these things, Van Til reminds us, God would have us to know first “what do we know†and after this, “how do we know it.†Satan urged Eve to first consider “how do we know it†while ignoring the question of “what do we know.â€
So, Eve stepped out and became her own authority, took the neutral position, and decided for herself. God said, “thou shalt surely die.†Satan said, “Ye shall not surely die. For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.†But ultimately, the woman made herself the final and ultimate authority.
And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat.
Certainty or Uncertainty: Perfect Preservation or Multiple Versions February 14, 2007
Posted by Kent Brandenburg in : King James Only , 26 comments Print This Post
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God wants us certain. Satan wants us doubting. We put on the “helmet of salvation” against Satan’s fiery darts because God wants confidence (Eph. 6:17). God takes away all excuses; we are “without excuse” (Rom. 1:20). The Bible is full of unquestioning assurance. Faith is the “assurance of things hoped for” (Heb. 11:1). Paul was “confident of this very thing” (Philip. 1:6), “for he was persuaded” (2 Tim. 1:12). These things, God said, were written “that ye may know” (1 John 5:13), because God “cannot lie” (Titus 1:2). God says, “Thou shalt surely” (Gen. 2:17) and Satan says, “Thou shalt not surely” (Gen. 3:4).
The Preservation Issue
I’ve noticed that people often have their favorite textual position advocate or book. Years ago Central Seminary, in the twin cities area of Minnesota, published a booklet explaining their position on the text of Scripture. It was quite controversial, mainly because it point-blank stated that the Bible did not expound its own preservation. In 2001 it was expanded into a book, One Bible Only?, and it became more popular with an added, major contribution from Kevin Bauder, now the Dean at Central. Bauder is more objective and more civil than most MVO (Multiple Version Only) proponents, and he does a good job at putting his finger on the crux of this issue when he writes in the Introduction (p. 26):
Again—this point cannot be overemphasized—perfect preservation demands that all of the words and only the words that were in the originals be present. If the King James-Only controversialists begin to equivocate on this point, they have really given away the debate. If they can admit that a legitimate margin of error exists within their sources, then they do not really believe in perfect preservation at all; they do not really believe that all of the very words of God must be preserved to have the Word of God. If they are willing to recognize two dependable sources that differ on even a single word, then, in principle, they agree with our position. They ought to change the theological, doctrinal judgments that attend their view and admit the whole controversy is simply an academic debate over acceptable percentages. Our discussion should turn from theologizing to the doing of textual criticism.
In a personally refreshing way, Bauder nails the issue. They believe the Bible has errors and we don’t. Of course, one omission or deletion and we don’t have a perfect Bible any more, and with that one flaw in Scripture, we lose the crystal clear certainty that the Bible and its doctrine of preservation is all about. We suddenly become Central, Detroit, Bob Jones, Maranatha, Pillsbury, Calvary, Faith, Masters, Northland, Clearwater, Desiring God, and others. They don’t believe that the Bible they have in their hands is without error. They’re not satisfied with just holding that position; they want everyone to become at least as uncertain as they are. They do not so much attempt to make it a Scriptural issue—they generally profess that the Bible does not teach anything specifically about the preservation of itself.
Because this is the issue, it is also the reason why the MVO crusaders push their perfect preservation opponents toward admitting merely one error in the text. That’s all they need, as Bauder stated, so with that goal they endeavor through various means to box the one-Bible believers into conceding a single mistake in the text. If they succeed this becomes “an academic debate over acceptable percentages” of uncertainty.
Historical Explanation
To understand how those who profess New Testament Christianity arrived at this position we must go back into history. In the eighteenth century, rationalism came to Europe. During the time of rationalism, which is also known as the enlightenment, coming out of the Dark Ages man believed that he could solve all problems with his own mind. He began to worship his mind. He was in awe of his mind. He felt that he had the mental capacity to understand everything and solve all problems. God, it was believed, didn’t interfere in the affairs of men when men were so supremely intelligent they could handle their own affairs. At best, God created the world and just let it go. And now it was up to man. And so they decided that since the mind of man was ultimate, anything that the mind of man could not conceive or understand wasn’t true. And so they went to the Bible and anything that didn’t seem rational, reasonable, logical, intellectual was eliminated and thus all the miracles in the Bible were denied, this was taught by the likes of Immanuel Kant, G.W.F. Hegel, and Friedrich Schleiermacher. The central activity of this movement theologically was and is to criticize the Bible. Before, the Bible criticized man, but now the Bible is up for the shellacking. This denial of the supernatural ultimately became modernism.
Today’s innovation in theology is called postmodernism which is most recently manifested in the emerging church movement. The emergents take the posture that the Bible isn’t completely clear, that no one can really know what it means. They take that as an academically, theologically, and socially superior position to the certainty crowd. Most of the “conservative” Bible critics don’t even like that amount of uncertainty, but where do you think that it all started? It all began when men decided that it was acceptable to believe that one error was found in God’s Word, when men stopped trusting what God said and launched into a period of interminable Bible “restoration.” When Europe opened the doors and pulled in the Trojan horse of rationalism, intellectualism and the enlightenment, it lost its faith totally and became liberal and dead. That’s where we’re headed for, if we haven’t already arrived, in the U. S.
The Biblical Position: The Position of Certainty
Scripture claims perfection for itself (Psalm 19:7; 119:140). The Bible teaches perfect preservation in the languages in which it was written (Matthew 5:18—”jot”, “tittle”). The graphe (Scripture) was the actual markings on the page, the letters and words (2 Timothy 3:16), and those are what God promised to preserve. The Bible teaches general accessibility (Matthew 4:4; Isaiah 59:21) of those Words to every generation of believers. The Holy Spirit, Who inspired every Word, continues to know every Word, and it is He, the Spirit of Truth, Who indwells true churches (1 Corinthians 3:16), Who guides them “into all truth” (John 16:13). Churches agreed upon the Words of the Ben Chayyim Hebrew Masoretic Text and the several editions of the Textus Receptus (essentially 1598 Beza), settling on the Words of the text behind the King James Version of the Bible (found today in Scrivener’s 1894 Greek text). This stated position is also the historical position of the Lord’s churches, despite the creation of a new but fraudulent history made-up by the proponents of uncertainty.
We have grounds for translations of the original languages in that the Greek New Testament quotes (in Greek) parts of the Hebrew Old Testament. We can say that an accurate translation of God’s Word is God’s preserved Word. We believe we have this in the King James Version of the Bible.
The Naturalistic Position: The Position of Uncertainty
On the uncertainty side of New Testament preservation of Scripture, three major positions exist. None of them believes that Christians possess a perfect copy of the Bible. The Critical Text is the Greek text of the New Testament that is the product of late 19 century textual criticism (a general description for everything from Westcott and Hort–1881 to the United Bible Society Fourth Edition); the New Testament text behind almost every modern Bible version. Textual Criticism is a division of Biblical criticism in which men judge extant copies of the text of Scripture and attempt to reconstruct the presumably lost readings of the original manuscripts. As it relates to textual criticism, Biblical criticism is an ongoing means of determining which words are closest to those of the original manuscripts. The criteria for weighing the manuscripts are the same as those used in the criticism of ancient secular literature. According to someone who has actually counted the words, the Critical Text differs than the Received Text of the New Testament by 7%. Of course, we’re only talking about degree of certainty.
Majority Text is the terminology that for a long time was generally synonymous with the Received Text in that a vast majority of extant manuscripts support the Received Text. Two modern published texts are also called The Majority Text, one edited by Arthur Farstad and Zane Hodges (1985) and the other by Maurice Robinson and William Pierpont (1991). These two published editions of the Greek New Testament result from the same rationalistic philosophy as the Critical Text, the premise that the Word of God has been lost, and, therefore, must be restored, in this case, by means of counting manuscripts. Some like the Farstad and Hodges text because its only 2% different than the Textus Receptus.
Eclectic Text is a description of a text formed from varied manuscripts of potentially different text types that is based upon the choosing of a person or group in accordance with his or its subjective criteria. The English word “eclectic” comes from a Greek word which means “to choose.” Eclecticism says that almost any Christian in any era can choose what the Words of Scripture are. Recently a website that is a proponent of this position defined their “balanced eclectic position” as: “Each text type is to be evaluated independently without premeditated bias as to which manuscript family is most authoritative. It also posits that internal and external evidences are to be considered equally. This school basically suggests that each textual variant be investigated thoroughly and considered on its own merits.” With eclecticism a pastor or teacher can decide the very week he makes his presentation what he thinks God’s Words may be.
What’s Wrong?
What’s wrong with uncertainty? Uncertainty starts with man’s reasoning, his interpretation of history, or what he thinks is evidence and conforms the text of Scripture to his thinking. If that sounds like rationalism; well, it is. New versions are regularly published, determining based on updated research what presently has the best chance of being the Word of God. The criteria is primarily a long-standing group of principles that are very similar to those used as a basis for analyzing secular literature. There is no guarantee that the text actually is the majority text. Not all of the manuscripts have even been collated and counted by which this decision could even be made. This let’s you choose what God’s Words are based on your own unique textual criteria, where you can get personally involved in restoring the text of the Bible. None of these reflect a Biblical position on the preservation of Scripture.
The Bible is replete with guarantees and assurances. In Matthew 4:4 the Lord says, “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.” Man shall live by every word that proceeds out of His mouth. He shall. That promises every Word and the accessibility of those Words. I don’t have to prove it from history. I just accept it by faith. God said it and that settles it. I’m certain.
Preservation? Where? February 12, 2007
Posted by Jeff Voegtlin in : King James Only , 18 comments Print This Post
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For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth shall pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled. Matthew 5:18
This verse of Scripture gives great comfort to believers. In it we find that God’s Law will stand unchanged until all of it is fulfilled even until the end of heaven and earth as we know them. But there is another more academic point we can understand from Christ’s words here. He promised that the law would be preserved; he also pointed out where they would be preserved.
Someone asked, “Is preservation found in translations, or in jots and tittles?” It seems to me by asking the question this way the answer becomes obvious. What do you think? If preservation is found in translations, in which one is it found? Arabic, Chinese, Dutch, English, French, German, Hindi, Japanese, Korean, Latin, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish?
The Scripture says, “jot and tittle.” The “jot” is the smallest letter of the Hebrew alphabet. The “tittle” is the vowel points of Hebrew letters. The common denominator here is the Hebrew alphabet. The letters that make up the Hebrew language. It is likely that Jesus was not speaking in Hebrew when He said this. The common language of the world was Greek; another common language of the region was Aramaic; but he could also have been speaking Hebrew. My point is that he told the people the language that would be preserved. It was the language that the Law had been written in.
So here, we have scriptural support for believing that God will not allow anything to be lost from His Word until heaven and earth shall pass away and everything in His Word be fulfilled. No “jots;” no “tittles” will pass from the Law, and we can confidently carry the promise to the Word given to us in Greek to say not one “iota” will pass from His Word until all be fulfilled.
God’s Word is preserved for us in its purest form, in just exactly the way it came at the first. Like fresh water from the fountainhead, we have the pure Word of God in just the form that He gave it.
From Francis Turretin (1623-1687):
21 Questions on The Doctrine of Scripture
February 11, 2007
Posted by Jack Hammer in : King James Only , 13 comments
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Three [needs] in particular support the necessity of Scripture: (1) the preservation of the word; (2) its defense; (3) its proclamation. It was necessary for the written word to be given to the church to be the fixed and changeless rule of faith of the true religion, which could thus more readily be preserved pure and whole in spite of the weakness of memory, the perversity of humanity, and the shortness of life; more surely defended against the frauds and corruptions of Satan, and more readily proclaimed and transmitted not only to people who were scattered and separated from one another, but to future generations as well. As Vives reminds us (De causis corruptium artium 1), “By letters all the arts are preserved as in a treasury, so that they can never be lost, although transmission by hand is uncertain.” “Divine and marvelous is this blessing of letters,” says Quintilian, “which protects words and holds them like a deposit for an absent person.” Nor are the statutes and edicts of kings and commonwealths inscribed in bronze or posted in public places for any other reason than that this is the surest means of preserving them in their original form, and of proclaiming throughout the ages matters which it is important for people to know.
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