The show went well. Damien and I co-hosted the Understanding Our Times Radio show for Kevin Thompson. We shared our stories regarding KJV Onlyism and were able to address the debate. 30 minutes goes by fast, but we covered quite a bit of ground. The show is available for free download from BlogtalkRadio. Click here and then click on the download button (or else just listen online). The direct link for the mp3 is here.

Saturday evening, we’ll be taking the KJV Only debate ON AIR.

Kevin Thompson of Understanding Our Times Radio, has asked me to guest host his radio show for him this week.  He’s had me on the show as a guest before discussing Fundamentalism and Reformed Theology.  With Kevin’s blessing, I’ve decided to throw open the phone lines and discuss the issues surrounding KJV Onlyism.  I’ll share my own story as a former TR-Onlyist.  And I may have another KJVO Debate contributor with me as a co-host (Damien).

So please feel free to tune in to the show live, or download the free podcast in .mp3 or other formats.  The download is available pretty much immediately after the show’s completion.  If you have a question you’d like to call in with, we’ll be taking callers.  Details are below.

Understanding Our Times Radio Show
Guest Host: Bob Hayton
Time: Saturday 5:00-5:30pm CST
Where: online at BlogTalkRadio
Call-in Number: 347-945-7171

One Bible Only? Examining Exclusive Claims for the King James Bible may just be the best book on the King James Only debate, period. The posts in this series are tracing the arguments of Kevin Bauder, in his conclusion to the book: “An Appeal to Scripture”. He explains several theological arguments that KJV Onlyists resort to, in an effort to continue propagating their belief against a mass of contrary evidence. Bauder shows that these arguments are really illusions that don’t stand up to scrutiny.

Part 1 set the stage, and part 2 dealt with “the appeal to faith”. Now in part 3, we come to “the appeal to reason”.

Bauder has in mind a specific argument that KJV Onlyists use in relation to preservation. They claim that “verbal inspiration… is useless unless it is followed by exactness in verbal preservation”. I have seen KJV Only materials which claim that verbal preservation (also known as perfect preservation), is a direct corollary of verbal inspiration. Bauder is quick to affirm verbal inspiration, but does not affirm perfect preservation. “While this argument from reason sounds plausible at first hearing,” he says, “it actually runs counter to God’s dealings in Scripture.” (pg. 158)

Bauder makes the case that this demand that perfect inspiration requires perfect preservation does not stand up to Scripture itself. First, he shows that not all of God’s spoken words were recorded in Scripture. Pre-flood instructions on sacrifices, the seven thunders of Revelation (Rev. 10:1-4), and Jesus’ words that aren’t recorded in Scripture (John 21:25) all are evidence that perfect words of God can be given and yet not preserved.

Bauder’s second line of argumentation here deals with the written words of Scripture comparing the actual record we have in Scripture with the KJV Onlyists requirement of perfect preservation. Bauder finds that the testimony of Scripture doesn’t support perfect preservation. His thoughts are worth repeating at length.

Even with regard to written words, it is demonstrably true that when someone’s spoken words were later recorded in Scripture, the “exact” words spoken were not necessarily the very words that were used in Scripture. For example, when the Gospel writers recorded words that Jesus had spoken during His lifetime, these authors, under the influence of the Holy Spirit, recorded the essence of Jesus’ words, not His exact words. This observation must be true because the recounting of Jesus’ words by the Gospel writers do not exactly agree (compare, for example, Matt. 13:1-13 with Mark 4:1-13 word for word). We affirm wholeheartedly that the Gospel writers were accurately employing the exact words that God wanted them to use to record Jesus’ speech under the perfect, supervisory ministry of the Holy Spirit. However, we also know that the Holy Spirit intended for these writers to record the essence of Jesus’ speech, not His exact words, for that is what they did. Also, remember that Jesus and His disciples frequently quoted the Old Testament (OT) in other than exact words. They sometimes quoted the Septuagint, the Masoretic text, a free rendition, or a combination thereof. In God’s method of propagating truth, it is apparent from the text of Scripture itself that He allowed some degree of latitude for the accurate and authoritative communication of that truth apart from the perfect preservation of all of the exact words in one particular place; and this latitude is observable even under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. (pt. 159, bold emphasis mine)

He then gave one final example from Scripture. “In one case,” he said, “the entire written revelation of God survived in a single manuscript that was hidden from public view (2 Kings 22:8; 2 Chron. 34:15).”

From this, Bauder makes the following conclusion about “the appeal to reason”:

…In all of the cases enumerated herein, God gave specific, verbal revelation, but He did not necessarily see fit to preserve all of the words and exactly the words in a publicly accessible form. The doctrines of inspiration and inerrancy (which are absolute truths) and the King James-Only proponents’ postulate of perfect preservation (which is dubious speculation) are certainly not inextricable corollaries.

All parties to this debate acknowledge that God has superintended the choice of the precise words that would be used to communicate His truth. To accept this fact, however, is not to concede that God is obligated to preserve every word through which His truth has been revealed. He might preserve some words and He might permit some to be lost, depending upon His own purpose. The appeal to reason is not a sufficient ground for the King James-Only argument.

What Bauder has done here is extremely important, in my view. He goes to Scripture itself to see how important the preservation of the specific wording of a text is. When one can see parallel accounts in the OT and NT which do not line up perfectly in word order and precise wording, and when one sees quotations of other texts which are not word perfect, why shouldn’t one conclude that a certain latitude is permissible here, that minor variations among translations of Scripture do not affect their authority?

This is a debate blog. Healthy discussion is the whole point of maintaining a blog about the KJV Only controversy. Ground rules are essential to any debate, and its best to make the expectations very clear up front.

We’ve had to delete comments, edit them and even ban people from commenting in the past. But as this is a group blog, sometimes we’ve disagreed with ourselves in how to enforce the rules and what expectations we have.

With the recent redesign, I thought now would be a good time to lay down some explicit rules and then let previously banned posters have a second chance at following the new rules. This is our turf, and I’m the founder of this blog and pay the bill for hosting it. So please respect our right to moderate as we see fit. I’ve borrowed from the discussion guidelines at our sister site: Re:Fundamentals to come up with the following guidelines:

1. Please write your comments plainly and neatly. Remember that written text often sounds different in another’s head than it does in yours. Be ready to clarify; and on the other side of things, be ready to ask good questions.
2. This is a discussion among Christian brothers and sisters, for the most part. It should read like a discussion among brothers and sisters, not like hate mail or attacks (from either side).
3. Name calling and ad hominem accusations are not appropriate for this discussion and such things will be edited out of your comments. Repeat offenders will be moderated, warned, and if necessary banned.
4. The authors of this blog represent diverse Christian traditions. We often model proper interaction in responding to each other’s articles.
5. The opinions of commenters are their opinions. We do not assume responsibility for their statements.
6. Stay on topic or take the discussion off-line.
7. Do not make lengthy quotes from sources using cut and paste. These quotes will be abridged by the site administrators.
8. We welcome re-posting and tweeting on the topics and issues we raise. We ask that you link back to the original article in your re-post and do your best not to reproduce whole articles or quote us out of context.
9. These guidelines will be amended and appended as necessary to maintain a healthy environment of discussion.

This post is from our newly edited “What is KJV Only?” page.

KJV Onlyism is hard to define. And like any grass roots movement, there are many competing manifestations of it. As a former, self-dubbed “KJV-onlyist” I will try to carefully put forth a definition. I know I’m going to say something wrong here and won’t please everyone, but I hope the end result is helpful for those new to the debate.

Simple Definition

The KJV-only position holds that the only Bible an English speaking Christian should use is the King James Bible. While some KJV-only proponents bristle at the label viewing it as a derogatory term, most don’t hesitate to affirm it. In KJV-only circles, you cannot disavow the label. Rather, you qualify it.

Now, for study, some KJV-onlyists may allow the use of other translations. But for memorization, church preaching and teaching, and general reading, the KJV should be the only version of the Bible one uses.

Why the King James Bible?

Different KJV-onlyists will offer different answers to this question. These are some of the common arguments used by most KJV-onlyists.

The Better Text Argument — The KJV is the only widely used Bible exclusively based on the Textus Receptus Greek & Masoretic Hebrew Texts.

The Better Doctrine Argument — The differences between the KJV and other Bible versions are examined and the KJV’s readings preserve a superior doctrine and more of Jesus Christ’s divine titles.

The Conspiratorial Argument — The manuscripts that support the newer Greek text were only found recently and were found in areas like Egypt where false doctrine was prevalent.

The Historical Argument — The Reformers and Puritans used the KJV and it launched worldwide missions and the Great Awakenings.

The Better Manuscripts Argument — The manuscripts that support the text behind the KJV agree with one another closely, don’t show signs of textual corruption and represent the vast numerical superiority – 90% of the manuscripts.

The Better Translation Argument — The KJV translators were masters of English and knew Greek and Hebrew and multiple other languages far better than translators today, plus they used a literal translation technique instead of the dynamic or loose method in vogue today.

Groupings of KJV-Onlyists

I mentioned before that there are numerous manifestations of KJV-onlyism. Sometimes the different groups are treated like one entity. I want to be careful to distinguish terms and not broad-brush the entire movement by the crazy antics of Peter Ruckman or Gail Riplinger, for example.

Generic KJV Only Position — Most KJV Onlyists find themselves here. They haven’t thought out a more specific position, or just believe the KJV is the only Bible that should be used and leave it at that.

English is Inspired View — This view takes issue with anyone correcting the KJV English. Since the Bible seems to show translations of the OT as being treated like they were inspired, the English is treated like it is inspired. Some versions are more strict than others, but all bow to the KJV as the final authority before they would trust a lexicon or dictionary.

Double-Inspiration View — This view goes further and says the English corrects the Greek. In some sense the KJV was inspired directly by God. People with this view (and some of those in the previous view) would hold that translations of the Bible into other languages must be guided by the English of the KJV.

Pure Seed View — This idea comes from 1 Pet. 1:23-25 and basically claims that the use of the KJV is essential for people to be saved. No one can be saved from an impure seed (the NIV, for instance). Any of the first three positions above could hold to this view as well, but no one in the next three camps would.

TR Only View — This view holds the Greek and Hebrew as superior to the English, but also holds that they were word-perfectly preserved. The text behind the KJV usually is the text held to be the word-perfect copy of the original text. The word of God is “intact” in English, and while they would correct the sense of the KJV through scholarship and original language study, they still would not see this as any kind of overt error in the KJV. Few if any, TR-onlyists use the NKJV however.

Ecclesiastical Text — This view places greater stress on church confessions and the historic use of the Textus Receptus by the church of the Reformation period and afterward. Some in this view would hold to errors in either the TR or the KJV, and some would use the NKJV or 21st Century KJV.

Majority Text — This view should be distinguished from the previous views. Proponents of the Greek Majority Text may or may not use the KJV or NKJV. They hold to a textual theory of the superiority of the Byzantine view, but they acknowledge the merits of careful, believing scholarship and textual criticism. As the Majority Text as such didn’t exist prior to 1980, they don’t see adherence to that text as a binding matter of faith for all Christians.

King James Preferred — This view is held by some who see some weaknesses with the King James Only position, but still believe the TR is the best text we have or else use the King James primarily for traditional or other reasons.

One Bible Only? Examining Exclusive Claims for the King James Bible may just be the best book on the King James Only debate, period.  The posts in this series are tracing the arguments of one of the editors, Kevin Bauder, in his conclusion to the book: “An Appeal to Scripture”.  Bauder explains several theological arguments that KJV Onlyists resort to, in an effort to continue propagating their belief against a mass of contrary evidence.  Bauder illustrates how these arguments really are illusions that don’t stand up to scrutiny.

Part 1 set the stage, and now we get to the first of the theological arguments for KJV Onlyism.

The first illusion is the appeal to faith. According to its leading defenders, the King James-Only movement is fundamentally a “faith position.” Genuine, biblical faith, however, must rest in the promise of God. To be believed, the promise of God must be clearly revealed in the pages of Scripture itself. The question is not whether the Bible contains a promise that God will preserve His Word. King James-Only advocates go much further. They insist that God has preserved His words and preserved them exactly in a singular, identifiable, and accessible form. So the question is whether the Bible contains a promise that God will preserve, word for word, the text of the original documents of Scripture in a particular manuscript, textual tradition, printed text, or version. As this book has shown, the Bible contains no promise whatsoever that includes the preservation of all the words of the autographa (without addition or deletion) in a single, publicly accessible source. Without such a promise, the appeal to faith does not rest in the promise of God, but in the untestable and unverifiable speculation of the King James-Only advocates themselves. Until they can produce a Scripture that (properly and contextually understood) does promise all that they assert, they have no legitimate right to appeal to faith.

(Bolded emphasis mine. Excerpted from pg. 158, One Bible Only? Examining Exclusive Claims for the King James Bible, edited by Roy Beacham and Kevin Bauder; Kregel Publications: Grand Rapids, 2001.)

?This is the rub in my opinion.  The various texts that apply to a doctrine of preservation, do not make the explicit claim that all the words of Scripture will be preserved in an accessible form.  For at least 1500 years, most KJV Onlyists allow that the words of Scripture weren’t together in a printed text or version that is accessible too.  Especially when one considers what E.F. Hills points out that several of the TR passages are preserved in the Latin language texts rather than the Greek language texts, and the New Testament was purified when the two streams were brought together.

We’ve been posting links to an excellent series on the Bible’s teaching on preservation, by Aaron Blumer over at SharperIron.org. The last couple installments in this series, have looked closely at Thou Shalt Keep Them: A Biblical Theology of the Perfect Preservation of Scripture, edited by Kent Brandenburg.

Here is an excerpt from today’s article by Blumer. I encourage you to go over and read the whole thing.

This series has not aimed to examine the case for perfect text preservation (PTP) comprehensively. Rather, my aim has been to scrutinize the biblical facts and identify what believers may properly term “doctrine of preservation.” Do we have biblical statements that say, or clearly imply, that believers will always have access to every word of Scripture in the form of a text they know is flawless?

Please note what the question is not. It is not, “Do verses indicate God’s Word will last forever?” It is not, “Do passages teach that God has tasked His people with maintaining written copies?” It is not, “Do verses emphasize that the words of Scripture are vital for Christian doctrine and Christian living?” Nor is the question, “Do people try to distort and sabotage the words of God?” Finally, the question is not, “Is God able to overcome human nature so that those He chooses perfectly preserve the text?”

The answers to all of these questions is yes. But if we look closely at what Scripture claims regarding the how-and-what details of preservation—and read the relevant passages with a scriptural view of human nature in view—what we see over and over again is that PTP is neither stated nor clearly implied.

My friend John Chitty asks a question of those familiar with E.F. Hills and his book The King James Version Defended.  The question centers on Hills’ use of the “logic of faith”, and the idea of presuppositional apologetics.

I’m sharing the question to let our readers chime in, here or over at Chitty’s blog.

…since Edward F. Hills, author of The King James Version Defended is a graduate, not only of Yale, but also of Westminster Theological Seminary, and that much of Hills’ defense of the Textus Receptus (the popular name of the Greek text that underlies the King James Version New Testament) is written from a characteristically Reformed standpoint… when he further makes his defense from what he calls “The Logic of Faith,”… this must be his way of applying presuppositional apologetics to the defense of the superiority of the Greek Text underlying the King James Version, as well as that translation itself.

My question for presuppositionalists who’ve read The King James Version Defended, therefore, is: Am I right? Was Hills a presuppositionalist, and is his so-called “Logic of Faith” a fair representation of the presuppositionalist apologetic, and is belief in the inherent superiority of the Textus Receptus therefore the consistently Reformed answer to the question, “Which New Testament text is closest to the original manuscripts?” [emphasis mine]

If you are familiar with presuppositionalism or with E.F. Hills, please feel free to chime in. John would appreciate your interacting with the comments already over at his blog. Or feel free to leave your thoughts below. I will post my reply under this post here, as well as on Chitty’s site.

For the last several years, I have considered One Bible Only? Examining Exclusive Claims for the King James Bible to be the best book on the King James Only debate, period.  Kevin Bauder and Roy Beacham, the editors, are fundamentalists.  All the authors were professors at Central Baptist Theological Seminary in Minneapolis, a fundamentalist institution.  They understand the issue from the inside out.  Their circles have been most affected by KJV Onlyism and so their book is extremely helpful.

Perhaps the best chapter in the book, is Kevin Bauder’s conclusion: “An Appeal to Scripture”.  It is full of so many excellent quotes that I plan to share bits and pieces from the chapter over a series of posts.  Of course, you need to get the book to get the full effect, but I hope this whets your appetite for the real thing.

Bauder sets the stage for his discussion of KJV-Onlyists’ appeal to scripture by presenting the quandry that King James onlyists face.

If the preservation of the Word of God depends upon the exact preservation of the words of the original documents, then the situation is dire.  No two manuscripts… [no] two editions of the Masoretic Text… [no] two editions of the Textus Receptus… [no] two modifications of the King James Version contain exactly the same words, and the Bible nowhere tells us which edition, if any, does contain the exact words of the originals.  These are not speculations; these are plain facts.

Confronted with these facts, King James-Only advocates are faced with one of two choices.  Either they may specify, a priori and without biblical evidence, a single manuscript or edition of the Bible in which the exact words are preserved, or they may begin to qualify their insistence upon exact preservation….

If they are pressed, they will admit that they do not have all the words and only the words of the original in a single place.  Instead, they will point out how similar most of the manuscripts are…. most King James-Only advocates are eventually willing to admit the possibility of an acceptable range of variation.

These King James-Only proponents, therefore, wish to have it both ways.  They insist upon condemning the Ben-Asher Hebrew text, Codex Sinaiticus and Codex Vaticanus, the contemporary eclectic Greek texts, and the New American Standard Bible because they only contain some (not all) of the words of God.  But they are willing to accept differences in the various editions of the Ben-Chayyim Hebrew text, of the Textus Receptus in Greek, and of the King James Version in English, even though no more than one edition of one of these documents can conceivably contain all of the words and only the words of God….

In other words, if the King James-Only advocates were candid, most of them would have to admit to holding precisely the same theory of those whom they oppose.  They would have to admit that the whole debate is merely an academic quibble over the percentage of acceptable variation.  …they would have to admit that their preference was based on a difference of degree and not a difference of kind.

Of course, such an admission would be fatal to the King James-Only movement.  If its leaders were so candid, people would recognize that the whole debate amounts to a cyclone in a coffee cup….  The movement survives, but only by clouding the issues and distracting people from the main point.  It protects itself with an elaborate structure of theological illusions.

(Bolded emphasis mine. Excerpted from pg. 155-158, One Bible Only? Examining Exclusive Claims for the King James Bible, edited by Roy Beacham and Kevin Bauder; Kregel Publications: Grand Rapids, 2001.)

It seems this has been a recurring theme on our blog of late, but discussions here and elsewhere have been focusing in on this point: Did Jesus and the Apostles use the Septuagint in their ministries and in quoting from the Old Testament? I was recently reminded that the translators of the King James Bible, themselves would answer “yes”. See their words below from “The Translators to the Reader“.

While God would be known only in Jacob, and have his Name great in Israel, and in none other place, while the dew lay on Gideon’s fleece only, and all the earth besides was dry; then for one and the same people, which spake all of them the language of Canaan, that is, Hebrew, one and the same original in Hebrew was sufficient. But, when the fulness of time drew near, that the Sun of righteousness, the Son of God should come into the world, whom God ordained to be a reconciliation through faith in his blood, not of the Jew only, but also of the Greek, yea, of all them that were scattered abroad; then lo, it pleased the Lord to stir up the spirit of a Greek Prince (Greek for descent and language) even of Ptolemy Philadelph King of Egypt, to procure the translating of the Book of God out of Hebrew into Greek. This is the translation of the Seventy Interpreters, commonly so called, which prepared the way for our Saviour among the Gentiles by written preaching, as Saint John Baptist did among the Jews by vocal. For the Grecians being desirous of learning, were not wont to suffer books of worth to lie moulding in Kings’ libraries, but had many of their servants, ready scribes, to copy them out, and so they were dispersed and made common. Again, the Greek tongue was well known and made familiar to most inhabitants in Asia, by reason of the conquest that there the Grecians had made, as also by the Colonies, which thither they had sent. For the same causes also it was well understood in many places of Europe, yea, and of Africa too. Therefore the word of God being set forth in Greek, becometh hereby like a candle set upon a candlestick, which giveth light to all that are in the house, or like a proclamation sounded forth in the market place, which most men presently take knowledge of; and therefore that language was fittest to contain the Scriptures, both for the first Preachers of the Gospel to appeal unto for witness, and for the learners also of those times to make search and trial by. It is certain, that that Translation was not so sound and so perfect, but that it needed in many places correction; and who had been so sufficient for this work as the Apostles or Apostolic men? Yet it seemed good to the holy Ghost and to them, to take that which they found, (the same being for the greatest part true and sufficient) rather than by making a new, in that new world and green age of the Church, to expose themselves to many exceptions and cavillations, as though they made a Translation to serve their own turn, and therefore bearing witness to themselves, their witness not to be regarded. This may be supposed to be some cause, why the Translation of the Seventy was allowed to pass for current. Notwithstanding, though it was commended generally, yet it did not fully content the learned, no not of the Jews. For not long after Christ, Aquila fell in hand with a new Translation, and after him Theodotion, and after him Symmachus; yea, there was a fifth and a sixth edition, the Authors whereof were not known. These with the Seventy made up the Hexapla and were worthily and to great purpose compiled together by Origen. Howbeit the Edition of the Seventy went away with the credit, and therefore not only was placed in the midst by Origen (for the worth and excellency thereof above the rest, as Epiphanius gathered) but also was used by the Greek fathers for the ground and foundation of their Commentaries. Yea, Epiphanius above named doth attribute so much unto it, that he holdeth the Authors thereof not only for Interpreters, but also for Prophets in some respect; and Justinian the Emperor enjoining the Jews his subjects to use especially the Translation of the Seventy, rendereth this reason thereof, because they were as it were enlightened with prophetical grace. Yet for all that, as the Egyptians are said of the Prophet to be men and not God, and their horses flesh and not spirit [Isa 31:3]; so it is evident, (and Saint Jerome affirmeth as much) that the Seventy were Interpreters, they were not Prophets; they did many things well, as learned men; but yet as men they stumbled and fell, one while through oversight, another while through ignorance, yea, sometimes they may be noted to add to the Original, and sometimes to take from it; which made the Apostles to leave them many times, when they left the Hebrew, and to deliver the sense thereof according to the truth of the word, as the spirit gave them utterance. This may suffice touching the Greek Translations of the Old Testament.

So we have a clear admission by orthodox Protestant scholars of the early seventeenth Century, that the LXX was used by Christ and the apostles. Subsequent scholarship has given additional insights into this, and confirms the notion that Greek translations of the Old Testament books were often used by the Apostles and quoted from in the New Testament. For more evidence on this point, see this comparison of NT quotes and the LXX vs. the Hebrew. See also this Trinitarian Bible Society (which incidentally only publishes the KJV for its English Bible) article on the value of the Septuagint [HT: Pavlos].