Hello, this is Pastor Steven Anderson from Faithful Word Baptist Church in Tempe, Arizona,
and I just wanted to make a quick video in response to Dr. James White's video, "What's
the Big Deal About King James Only?" as in part four.
Let me start out by saying that I'm no fan of Sam Gipp, but this video that Dr. James
White has put out is so filled with error and inaccuracy, I feel that it needs to be
responded to.
This man is someone who puts himself forth as a scholar.
People look up to him as being very intelligent, very educated, and an expert on matters of
the English Bible as he fights against King James onlyism and defends the modern perversions
of the Bible.
Well, in this video, he rattles off a list of words that are supposedly archaic words
that the King James uses because he's trying to make the point that the King James is totally
outdated.
We have abjects, a jur, a doe, ambassage, a merce, a stonied, axeltrees, beavs, besom,
beret, blanes, bray, brigandine, bruit, call, seal, chapiter, and choler.
Well, what's funny is that in this list of words that he rattles off, there are some
words that are actually pretty commonly used modern words, but the problem is that James
White is pronouncing them wrong.
Now, I find it bizarre that he doesn't know how to pronounce the word "a do."
He pronounces it "a doe."
Well, obviously, if you say "a doe," no one's going to know what you're talking about, but
if you say the word "a do," that's a common word that people have heard all the time.
For example, "much a do about nothing."
For example, you might go to an event and they'll say, "Without any further ado, let
me introduce to you our next speaker."
"A do" is a pretty common word, but James White thinks it's pronounced "a doe," and
therefore, it is, to him, archaic.
Another word that he mispronounces is the word "color," and you've probably heard people
refer to as being choleric, someone who's choleric is a very angry person.
Choler is a word that I actually learned, I can't remember if it was fourth grade or
fifth grade English, I learned the word choler, it's spelled c-h-o-l-e-r, he pronounces it
"choler."
Well, obviously, if people hear the word "choler," they're going to think it's archaic, but the
word "choler" is not archaic at all.
Another one's "sealed."
"Sealed" is not an archaic word.
We use the word "sealing" all the time.
Sealed is a derivative of that.
And I don't think anybody would have any trouble understanding the word "sealed" in the King
James Bible.
And not only that, but every single one of these words that people accuse the King James
of using that are archaic words, every single one of these words is in a modern English
dictionary.
I mean, if you get the most current modern Webster's dictionary, and it doesn't have
to be the gigantic version, just a somewhat complete basic modern English dictionary will
contain every word that's found in the King James Bible, and yet these words are supposedly
archaic.
For example, later on in the video, he talks about the word "shambles," and he goes on
and on about how this is just a perfect example of a word that has completely and utterly
changed in meaning, because in 1 Corinthians 10.25, Paul is referring to meat that is sold
in the shambles, and he says this word means something completely different today than
what it meant back then.
I mean, saying my library was in a shambles today has nothing to do with how much meat
is in my library.
It has a different meaning.
Folks, it's tough enough to learn English.
Okay, well let me read for you from Dictionary.com, because as I was watching James White's video,
I just went over to Dictionary.com and just typed in shambles.
Here's the first definition that came up.
Definition number one, a slaughterhouse.
Check it out yourself, Dictionary.com, I typed in shambles, the very first definition is a
slaughterhouse.
But James White is just unfamiliar with that definition, so because he's ignorant of words
like adieu, collar, sealed, shambles, that means that they're archaic because he doesn't
know them.
Even though in a modern dictionary, definition number one of shambles is a slaughterhouse.
Definition number two, any place of carnage.
Definition number three, any scene of destruction.
Definition number four, any scene place or thing in disorder, for example, her desk is
a shambles.
Okay, so the definition that James White is familiar with and uses in the video is actually
definition number four in a modern dictionary.
The definition that the King James Bible uses is definition number one.
In addition, there's a second entry for the word shambles that says in British dialect
it means a butcher's shop or stall.
So both the number one American definition and the number one British definition of shambles
in a modern dictionary on Dictionary.com is either a slaughterhouse or a meat shop or
a butcher shop.
So again, this is just not true what James White is saying, that this word is archaic.
It's not an archaic word.
Not only that, but he uses an example about an Ethiopian immigrant saying, you know, this
poor Ethiopian, if you give him, you know, the King James Bible and he's just struggling
to learn English, how's he going to understand the King James Bible with all these difficult
words?
Some new believer from Ethiopia that lives in Minneapolis, you give him a Bible and he
wants to understand what Paul's saying, but English is not his first language.
Are you going to give him a translation that will actually communicate to him or are you
going to give him a translation that's going to leave him completely befuddled and maybe
even just depended upon you?
Well, first of all, I could show you a list of all the difficult words in the new versions.
You know, I could show you in the New King James words like "satrap," "rock-high-raxed,"
"harabent," "sistrum," "sirtus," words that people are totally unfamiliar with.
But what's so ridiculous about this story about the Ethiopian guy is that if the guy
is from Ethiopia and the guy doesn't speak enough English to read an English Bible, maybe
the guy just needs to be given a Bible in the tongue wherein he was born.
Maybe he just needs to read the Bible in, you know, I guess, Amharic, whatever language
he speaks, probably the main language of Ethiopia.
You know, if a guy comes from Africa and he speaks Swahili, he needs to be given a Bible
in Swahili if he's not proficient enough to read it in English.
I mean, do we actually have to gear our Bible translation toward foreigners who don't speak
the language?
Wouldn't it make more sense to just translate the Bible into all languages of the world?
And in fact, a lot of the people who come over here from another country who are not
that proficient in English, you know, they'll go to an English speaking church, but in their
personal Bible reading, they'll read it in their own language, which makes perfect sense.
They're reading it in the language that they know the best.
So that's ridiculous to attack the King James because it can't be understood by foreigners
who don't speak English.
Well, it was never designed to be read by foreigners who don't speak English.
It's an English Bible for English speakers, okay?
But not only that, one last thing I want to point out is that James White says that in
order to understand the King James Bible, you'd have to carry around with you a dictionary
of Old English or Middle English.
Now, if we want to communicate the scriptures clearly, we will not force the reader to carry
around Oxford's unabridged dictionary of Old English in the process, or Middle English
or whatever else.
Because these words are so archaic, they're not in modern English.
First of all, I already mentioned, and it's a fact, that a modern-day Webster's Dictionary
will have all of these words in it that he claims are archaic.
In a modern dictionary, it doesn't have to be a dictionary of archaic words.
But secondly, he's basically just showing that he's completely ignorant of what Old
English and Middle English are.
You see, the fact is that the King James Bible is written in modern English.
What we speak today is known as contemporary English, whereas what the King James is written
in is an example of modern English.
Now, James White, supposedly a scholar, supposedly an expert on English translation, actually
accuses the King James Bible of using Old English and Middle English.
Just to show you how ridiculous his claims are, let me just give you a sample of Old
English.
This is the opening paragraph from Beowulf.
Beowulf is an example of literature in Old English.
Do you get the idea that Old English is a lot different than the language of the King
James Bible?
Middle English is a completely different language.
It's completely unintelligible to an English speaker.
Now, I don't have a sample of Middle English memorized, but you can easily go online and
look at some samples of Middle English, and you'll find that they're completely unintelligible
or mostly unintelligible to us today, whereas the King James Bible is written in Modern
English, which is why we're able to understand it.
So again, I just wanted to point out the fact that Dr. James White's video is very inaccurate.
His grasp of the English language leaves something to be desired.
If he doesn't know how to pronounce words like adieu, caller, he doesn't know the difference
between Middle English and Modern English, and he doesn't know these basic words that
are found in a modern dictionary, so he basically just says, "We need to throw out the King
James and get a version that's modern."