a bottle where the guests can engage each other's points
from the opening statements for eight minutes.
Then we're gonna have more of a free flowing discussion
rather than a real strict cross exam for 45 minutes.
Then we'll have concluding statements of five minutes
where the debaters can wrap up their thoughts and points.
And then this is where we get you guys in the audience
involved, we'll have a roughly 25 to 30 minute
audience Q&A, so please, if you do have a question
on Bible translations and the King James only controversy,
do your best to tag me @eitherdonnie or youngearthcreation
and that way I won't miss your question.
Okay, Pastor Jonathan Shelley, whenever you're ready,
we are going to give you the floor for up to 12 minutes.
Go ahead.
- Great, thanks again.
I think before we answer the question
of whether the King James Bible is uniquely preserved,
we must first recognize what the King James Bible is.
It is an English translation of the Bible
from the Masoretic Hebrew for the Old Testament
and the Greek works of Erasmus, Stephanus,
and Biza for the New Testament.
King James Bible comes on the heels of other English works
such as Tyndale, Geneva, and bishops,
but is the final product for the English tongue.
According to the translators,
King James desired a translation that would be, quote,
out of the original sacred tongues, end quote.
And, quote, there should be one more exact translation
of the holy scriptures into the English tongue, end quote.
They believed this would be the final work.
If the Masoretic Hebrew of Bomberg is the preserved Hebrew
and the Greek New Testament coalition of Scrivener
is the preserved Greek,
the only option for English speakers today
would be the King James Bible.
It is by far the most faithful translation
of the corresponding documents,
making it one of a kind.
All modern English versions
deviate from the underlying source texts
and reject the providential preservation
handed down through the centuries.
The translators were adamant
at explaining how previous works relied
on the Hebrew and Greek by saying, quote,
"If you ask what they had before them,
truly it was the Hebrew text of the Old Testament,
the Greek of the New,
these are the two golden pipes or rather conduits
where through the olive branches
empty themselves into the gold.
St. Augustine calls them precedent or original tongues.
St. Jerome fountains.
To deny the King James Bible is to deny the history lineage
and preservation of the Greek and Hebrew
which had been received through the ages.
Yet the doctrine of preservation outlined in the scripture
and by Jesus Christ himself plainly state that, quote,
"Heaven and earth shall pass away,
but my words shall not pass away."
Matthew 24 verse 35.
Christ also said in Matthew 518,
"Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle
shall in no wise pass from the law till all be fulfilled."
Additionally, in Matthew 4, Jesus said,
"Man shall not live by bread alone,
but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God."
Peter declares that we have also a more sure word of prophecy.
Even the Lord said through the mouth of Isaiah,
"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 seed,
sayeth the Lord from henceforth and forever."
And famously, when David tells us
that the words of the Lord are pure words,
as silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times,
thou shalt keep them, O Lord.
Thou shalt preserve them from this generation forever.
I believe the Bible demands a preservation
of the Hebrew and Greek text, from which all translation
should emanate, thus making the King James Bible
the only faithfully preserved translation
for English speaking people.
When it comes to the idea of preservation,
many different ideas come to surface, but in my opinion,
only one that fits the narrative espoused in scripture.
I believe there are five major views
that people will hold to.
The first group is the King James only position,
which I hold to, and believes that the Texas Receptus
is the preserved words of God,
and that the King James Bible is a faithful
and accurate preservation of God's word in English.
The second group is what I would call
the every Bible is preserved position,
which basically believes all Bibles are generally preserved.
Yet another major problem with this idea
is the unwillingness to address the various differences
between English translations.
A third group is one which I would include
even my opponent in is the critical text position,
which does not hold to any specific text
as being the preserved,
but believes that we're still piecing it together.
Yet again, this position summarily dismisses
the differences in translation
and denies the received text as the final authority,
providing us with no truly preserved text.
Fourth, I would group some into a Catholic position,
which holds that the Bible, Apocrypha,
and their traditions have generally been preserved,
but they do not believe in a perfectly preserved scripture.
They emphasize tradition over the preservation
of the text of scripture.
And lastly, I would say there's a position
that I would call the Rukmanite position,
one which does not believe, again,
that the text was preserved,
but rather needed to be re-inspired or re-delivered.
I believe, therefore, that the King James-only position
is the correct and superior view
because it accepts that the King James Bible
and the underlying Greek and Hebrew
have both been preserved,
whereas other views undermine
or deny the doctrine of preservation.
These alternative views are evidenced
by their ever-changing Nestle Elan,
which is on the 28th edition.
Whereas the King James Bible's built on a firm foundation
and not the shifting sands of textual criticism.
An important verse to consider says in Luke 6, 48,
"He is like a man which built a house and dig deep
"and laid the foundation on a rock.
"And when the flood arose,
"the stream beat vehemently upon that house
"and could not shake it for was founded upon a rock."
Jesus Christ wants us to build our house on a rock
and that rock is the Bible.
And I believe the King James Bible is that rock
which Christians can faithfully build upon
because it doesn't change, it is settled.
Whereas the modern versions are ever evolving
and provide no reliable base
for doctrine, memorization, and certainty.
Many Christians simply do not understand or recognize
that the modern English Bibles
do not follow the same lineage.
The modern versions use different underlying documents
for their translation work,
which causes them to have missing verses, missing phrases,
a litany of marginal notes discrediting certain passages,
and ultimately, they say different things.
Of course, there are places
where all Bibles generally agree,
but what makes the King James Bible unique
is the differences.
For example, the NIV takes out 16 whole verses,
places doubt on 40, and even alters hundreds of phrases.
The modern versions truly speak for themselves in Luke 4:4
when they remove the phrase, "Every word of God."
There is no other book on the planet
like the King James Bible
that has such majesty, prestige, and fruit.
The King James Bible has remained virtually unaltered
for over 400 years.
It is the most read, published, and used book of all time.
It has changed millions of lives
and is the product of many martyrs who died
to give us an opportunity to hear the voice of the shepherd.
I have seven reasons why the King James Bible is unique.
Number one, is it the most popular book in human history.
Number two, its history matches the doctrine
of preservation.
Number three, it has a lineage of martyrs
who died to preserve this text.
Number four, it has the most prestigious translating
committee to ever be assembled.
Number five, it survived the test of time.
Number six, the fruit emanating from the King James Bible.
And number seven, the doctrine, which is rock solid
from the King James Bible.
The doctrine and fruit of the King James Bible
speaks for itself when today we can see
the colossal difference between modern version
churches today and the fundamental Baptists
who are dedicated to the King James Bible.
From soul winning to traditional views,
to dress standards, to the style of service,
there is an evident contrast from the fruit
of the King James Bible and what is being produced
by these modern versions.
As Luke 644 says, "For every tree is known by his fruit."
There's absolutely no doubt that the King James Bible
is the preserved word of God that has been blessed by God
and truly is uniquely preserved.
I'm gonna yield back my time.
- Pastor Shelley, thank you very much
for that opening statement.
I do appreciate it.
A reminder to the audience that we are going
to be having an audience Q and A.
So again, if you do have a question on topic,
please let me know who the question is for
and do your best to tag me.
We'll have some fun with those.
And so Turreton fan, we're now going to hand it over to you.
Allow me to restart the timer.
And whenever you're ready, you have 12 minutes.
The floor is yours.
- Thanks, can you share my slides, please?
- Yes.
- All right, the topic is the preservation of scripture.
I'm not going to use this time as a rebuttal,
but to focus more on my positive case.
The planned points are to affirm the doctrine of preservation
based on the purpose of scripture,
the permanence of scripture, commands of scripture,
direct preservation as taught in scripture,
indirect preservation through finds in scripture,
and the implications of preservation as found in scripture.
I'm going to, secondly, I'm going to argue
that the King James translators themselves took my position
and then I'm going to have some further conclusions.
That's at least my plan.
So the doctrine of preservation affirmed.
The grass withers, the flower fades,
but the word of our God shall stand forever.
If, even if this is not specifically talking
about the Bible in context, as understood by Peter,
where it seems to be at least somewhat
applying to Jesus himself, this seems to be true.
And we could cite other verses.
In fact, we could cite many, many verses.
I've listed a few here about the purpose of scripture.
And let me focus on this one.
Exodus 17, 14.
When the Lord said to Moses, "Write this for a memorial in a book."
This is a general reason why things are put in a book in the first place, is to memorialize
them.
And 2 Peter 1, 15, "Moreover, I will endeavor that you may be able, after my decease, to
have these things always in remembrance."
So again, that's the reason why the apostle Peter wrote 2 Peter, is so that we can have
these things in our memory.
We're not relying on human memories or human tradition or oral tradition passing these
things down.
We have scripture, a concrete, unchanging witness to the truth.
And the purpose of scripture is also outlined in Isaiah 55, 11, "So shall my word be that
goes forth out of my mouth.
It shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall
prosper in the thing whereunto I sent it."
So God's word has a purpose in this world, and it's not just going to return back to
him with no effect, it's going to accomplish the things that he sent it to do.
And among those things, this will be written, Psalm 102, 18, "This shall be written for
the generation to come," so for the future, not just for the generation in which it was
written, "and the people which shall be created shall praise the Lord."
So there's a witness that it's giving forward in time, something that's going to be preserved
in time, and it's going to accomplish that purpose.
Isaiah 38 says, "Now go write it before them in a table and note it in a book, that it
may be for the time to come forever and ever."
Now I know this is not a point of disagreement between Pastor Shelley and myself, and I may
not use the word pastor every time, but it's not meant as disrespect, just briefly.
The permanence of Scripture is illustrated by the fact that when God gave Moses the law,
first of all Moses wrote the words down, but then even more permanently, God put the law
in tables of stone, which he wrote with his own hand.
So writing it down is important to God, and it should be important to us.
And he's writing it in stone to illustrate permanence.
There are commands in scripture as well that imply the preservation of scripture, such
as commands not to add or diminish.
How could you add or diminish unless the word of God has content that goes on through time?
Overtime has to be there for you to be either to add something to it or to take something
from it.
And we're told to do everything that's commanded.
Joshua 1.8 says, "Do according to all that's written therein."
Well, if we don't have all of it, then we can't do all that's written in it.
And also there's a command in scripture to make copies of the scripture.
So in fact, the king, Deuteronomy 17, is said that the king, when he sits on the throne
of his kingdom, shall write him a copy of this law in a book out of that which is before
the priests, the Levites.
So the priests and the Levites are maintaining a copy of the book and the king himself is
supposed to maintain a copy of the book and so this is how God has ordained for scripture
to be preserved.
It's through making copies.
There's also additional direct preservation of scripture in scripture.
So when Moses broke the first tables of stone, God replaced them with new tables of stone.
When the king Jehoiakim, the king of Judah, burned the role of Jeremiah, Jeremiah took
another role, gave it to Baruch the scribe and wrote the words of Jeremiah in that book
and added additional words to them.
So God has preserved his word even when people tried to and successfully did destroy originals.
When Moses destroyed the original of the Ten Commandments, when Jehoiakim destroyed the
original of Jeremiah, nevertheless God preserved his word.
There's also indirect preservation illustrated through finds in scripture, Hilkiah, in the
time of Hilkiah the high priest, the book was found in the temple.
This book that was maintained through centuries by copies was found in the temple and then
it was read and it was preserved in this way through God maintaining the book, even though
it had been out of the memory of people, it was found and it was read then.
And again, after the exile, Nehemiah went to the Book of the Law of Moses and read out
of it and people were not familiar with it at the time, the contents surprised them,
but nevertheless, God preserved his word and actually, from the time of Nehemiah, the people
of Israel had a much higher esteem for God's word, even unfortunately though, not a saving
knowledge of the word.
Implications of preservation, John 10, 34 to 36 says, "Scripture cannot be broken."
And this one, Pastor Shelley already mentioned, "But one jot or one tittle shall no wise
pass from the law to all be fulfilled."
At least I think he did.
I hope I'm not misremembering.
The King James translators, however, moving from the general doctrine to the King James
translators, I want to point out they took the position that translations aren't necessarily
perfect, and yet they are the Word of God.
So they took the position that the subduigent was not so sound and so perfect, but that
it needed in many places correction.
But it seemed good to the Holy Ghost and to them, namely to the apostles, to take what
they found rather than coming up with a new apostolic translation into Greek.
They could have done so.
They had the Holy Spirit to do so, but they didn't do so, even though they were working
with an imperfect translation.
Then they still treated it as though it were scripture.
And notwithstanding the fact that it was used by the apostles, retranslation continued
to occur and not long after Aquila tried his hand at Theodosian and others, they're referring
here to Origen's Hexapla, which had six versions altogether, one of which was Hebrew, I think.
So perhaps Hexapla, they may have not numbered things correctly there.
The King James Version is itself a better translation.
In fact, this is from the To the Readers section, which I think was also quoted from earlier.
But this says, "Building upon their foundation that went before us, speaking of people like
Tyndale, who was martyred for his translation work, building upon their foundation that
went before us, endeavor to make that better, which they left so good."
And they say, "We persuade ourselves if they were alive, they would thank us."
So I feel the same way.
I think that the position I'm advocating for today, which is that we should improve the
King James Version where we can, is a position that the King James translators themselves
would endorse.
And if they were alive today, they would thank us for our efforts.
Now, maybe they disagree on some details, but in principle, they thank us.
Imperfections are not a reason to reject translations.
They say, "No cause therefore why the word translated should be denied to be the word,
or forbidden to be current."
Both of these things, the idea of it being current is important, "Notwithstanding that
some imperfections and blemishes may be noted in the setting forth of it, for whatever was
perfect under the sun where the apostles or apostolic men, that is, men endued with an
extraordinary measure of God's Spirit, and privileged with the privilege of infallibility,
had not their hand."
In other words, their comment is that because there's no re-inspiration, no Rachmanism,
Rachmanism is ruled out, which Pastor Shelley also says we should not follow that position.
So since that position is ruled out, every translation, according to the King James Translators,
every translation will have some imperfections and blemishes, they're not excluding their
own from that.
It's okay to improve the King James Version, and in fact, they say, "For to whom was it
ever imputed for a fault, by people who are wise, to go over that which he has done and
to amend it where he saw cause."
So in other words, according to the King James Translators, we ought to amend the King James
Version if there's a good cause to do so.
That doesn't mean just freely, you know, build your own Bible, but where there's appropriate
need to change.
The King James Version itself has been improved already over time.
Unless you're going to define the King James Version as strictly either the he or she printing
from 1611, there were kind of two very, very small differences, one word in Route 315.
Unless you're going to define the King James Version in terms of that edition and not accept
any of the changes, then if you take the Pure Cambridge edition, your edition finalized
in the early part of the 1900s.
If you take the Oxford Blaney edition, it's in the second half of the 1700s.
But either way, there were generations of improving and improving the King James Version.
Now you might say, "Well, they're not improving based on the Greek, they're just improving
based on other things."
We may or may not disagree on that point, but ultimately the point is that you can make
improvements and the issue is not the extent of the improvements, it's the fundamental
question of whether it can be improved.
And the short answer is the King James translators were okay with improving it, and if I recall
correctly at least one or two of their members of the translation committee were involved
in the subsequent improvements.
It does need additional improvements today though.
There's verses like Ephesians 3.9 or Revelation 16.5 in the New Testament, which should be
corrected according to the original Greek, and there's verses like Deuteronomy 33.17
and Isaiah 34.7, which should be corrected according to the original Hebrew.
And since our standard should be the original Greek and the original Hebrew, we should follow
those.
So, the King James Version is an amazing translation and an improvement in the translation family
that started with the Tyndale, but there's nothing unique about the preservation of the
King James Version.
It needed and still needs improvements according to the standard of the Greek and Hebrew originals.
And it's important to distinguish between God's Word as preserved versus the King James
Version.
So that God's Word has been preserved all along in the Hebrew and Greek through copies.
But the King James Version is like other printed translations in that it is a translation, not
the Greek or Hebrew, and in that it can be and has been improved.
And then finally, my own position, which is the true confessional text position, is that
the Old Testament in Hebrew and the New Testament in Greek are immediately inspired by God and
kept pure in all ages and are the rule of faith.
But because they can't be understood by all, translation is proper.
We distinguish between the originals and the translations on that basis.
And I think I yield back the last 10 seconds, if that, of my time.
All right.
Thank you very much, Turriton fan, for that roughly 12-minute opening statement.
Gentlemen, that concludes our opening statements and opening arguments for tonight's event.
I do appreciate it.
We got lots of points on the table to engage in our eight-minute rebuttal or response.
So Pastor Jonathan Shelley, we are going to hand it back to you and whenever you're ready,
you've got eight minutes.
Go ahead.
Well, I'd first like to say that, of course, I agree with Turriton fan on the idea of the
Bible being preserved and that being an important doctrine.
I find that the modern version position does not really hold to a very strong idea of preservation
considering that they never seem to be able to hand us what they believe is perfectly
preserved.
He did point out some really great verses, specifically in Exodus 17 where it talked
about the Word of God being memorialized in a book.
In Isaiah 30, I thought it was interesting, verse 8, he brought up this verse where it
says, "Now go write a before them in a table and note it in a book that it may be for the
time to come forever and ever."
In Isaiah chapter 30, it's actually making reference of the importance of this scripture
being written down, not just for the present, but even for the future and not just the immediate
future or some period of time limited within the canon of scripture, but rather for the
time to come forever and ever, making it so important.
The word of God is not just for that time or just for the time period of the Bible itself,
but rather for all ages.
And I believe it's just as important for me to have Isaiah 30, as it is for those who
are as contemporaries when he actually spake by the Holy Ghost and had these words flowing
through him.
He brings up the idea of Moses replacing tables of stone and Jeremiah also receiving scripture
again.
And those are very unique events.
I would never appeal to those as some idea as like Rukmanites would take maybe that God
is re-inspiring the text.
But I do believe, you know, when Moses got the table of stone, that it was the exact
same scripture.
It was the exact same text that he had received before.
Jeremiah got the exact same text and then additional maybe chapters or more information
from the scripture.
But it was the exact same.
It wasn't anything new.
It wasn't anything different.
It was God wasn't going to diminish a word or take away from the word.
So I think the very beginning of my opponent's viewpoint here I very much agree with.
Where I do differ strongly though is in the section where he brought up the translators
to the reader.
Now in the translators to the reader he brought up the idea of how they made mention of the
Septuagint not being so perfect.
Well I've preached a whole sermon series on the translators to the reader which you
can go and check for yourself.
That what's very abundantly clear from the context of the translators to the reader is
that they do not have a high view of the Septuagint, that they look at it as being inferior to
the original Hebrew and the original Greek.
And so of course they're going to appeal to the idea that the Septuagint is not always
accurate and is not always the word of God.
And really to me that completely undermines the viewpoint that my opponent has and those
who subscribe to the modern textual critic position, because many times the modern versions
in the Old Testament specifically will deviate from the Hebrew and they'll use the Septuagint.
And as he pointed out, the translators of the reader themselves made reference to the
fact that the Septuagint has issues, has problems, and is not always accurate.
And I agree with them.
I've read the entire translators of the reader and I do agree generally with virtually everything
they said.
The only real point of disagreement I'd say is they were a little nicer to the Catholic
Church than I probably would have been.
But considering their position and the idea that they could be killed, I will give them
grace there because I don't know what I would have really said.
But I do want to read something from the translators of the reader.
It says this in that particular section, "Now to the latter we answer that we do not deny,
nay, we affirm and avow that the very meanest translation of the Bible in English set forth
by men of our profession, for we have seen none of theirs of the whole Bible as yet,
containeth the word of God, nay, is the word of God, as the king's speech which he uttered
in Parliament, being translated in a French, Dutch, Italian, and Latin, is still the king's
speech, though be not interpreted by every translator with the like grace, nor peradventure
so fitly for phrase."
The translators of the reader made it abundantly clear that they believe that the word of God
is not taken away from when it is translated in maybe a crude or a rude way in the sense
that it's not the most elegant way it's worded, but if it says the same thing, they're saying
it's not just containing the word of God, it is the word of God.
But we also see them contrasting this with the Septuagint and saying, "Well, in some
places it doesn't contain the word of God," showing that they clearly did not believe
that the Septuagint was always accurate and was not reliable, and they chose not to use
it purposefully.
They used the Hebrew, they used the Greek as their sources for truth.
As I referenced earlier, the two golden pipes, they referenced them as the fountains, they
referenced them as the starting point.
And I believe that the King James Bible, the reason why it's a preserved inspired text
is because it is coming from the Hebrew and coming from the Greek, and it is the word
of God.
That doesn't undermine the fact that the Bishop's Bible, the Geneva Bible, the Tyndale,
where it says the same thing is still not the word of God, it is the word of God.
And I would even argue that the modern versions and places where they don't alter the meaning
whatsoever, that it's still the word of God.
My contention is the places where it disagrees, my contention is the place where it doesn't
say the same thing, it's all over the place.
Additionally, he brought up something else about the translator where they said, you
know, the King James may need to be amended.
And of course, I agree with them that the King James Bible did go through several editions.
I believe that one statistic I found is that the King James Bible went through over a thousand
different editions until the 1769 Blaine edition.
And I have no problem with the King James Bible going through edition processes where
they're fixing printing errors, mistakes, or even updating spelling of words.
I mean, a lot of things have changed from the King James Bible 1611 to today.
But what has not changed is the meaning of the text.
What has not changed is the words used.
There's almost nothing that's been altered.
Very, very minimal amount of things have been changed whatsoever.
And so I believe if we're going to really take that approach, yeah, I'm fine with scrutinizing
the King James Bible, which edition is the most accurate and dialed-in edition, to make
that leap to the NIV, where they're just taking whole verses out, or the ESV, or these
modern versions, which are not based on the same underlying Greek and Hebrew, which do
not have the same underlying text, is just really a category issue.
It's a logical fallacy because, of course, the King James Bible translators had no problem
updating the bishops of the King James, and they would have no problem fixing the printing
errors.
But to say that they would now jump to the Septuagint, which they already dismissed,
which they already didn't want to use, is really just to totally misunderstand everything
that the translators of the reader said and believed.
The Bible could not be clearer that we need to preserve every word of God.
And when we look at the difference between a King James Bible and the NIV today, this
is not the same text.
There's a vast difference between them.
Whereas if you check the King James Bible to a bishop's Bible, it's virtually the same.
I mean, if you read John 3, the chapter 3, in a bishop's Bible out loud, and you weren't
looking at the words, you would hardly tell that it's even a different book whatsoever.
Because of course, these are all using the same underlying Greek and Hebrew.
They follow in the same lineage and the same history, and we can see the preservation of
God's word.
But the modern versions are a complete perversion.
They've really deviated from that.
And you know, honestly, I just don't see how someone could hold to a position of preservation
with the modern version because they don't have a bishops.
They don't have a Geneva.
They don't have a Tindal.
They can't trace back this lineage of English translations that go back to the test of time.
No, these are based on more modern works.
So I would like to hear how my opponent could explain his doctrine of preservation with
the modern versions.
All right. Thank you very much, Pastor Jonathan Shelley, for that fast-paced eight-minute uninterrupted
rebuttal.
We're now going to hand it over to T-Fan.
Turjan, whenever you're ready, you got eight minutes as well.
The floor is yours.
Go ahead.
Thanks so much.
It's hard to make good use of the time, but I'll do my best.
So in terms of the King James and the doctrine of preservation, I'm glad that a lot of what
we said were in agreement with each other on, but for the sake of the debate, let's focus
on the disagreement portions.
The question that was raised in Jonathan's opening, "If Scrivener is the standard, then
the King James is the best."
And it might be the case that if Scrivener is the standard, the King James is the best
major printing, although I think that there are some additions out there that even now
among King James-based texts are improvements.
But if Scrivener is the standard, it's a big if, because why should Scrivener be the standard?
Scrivener's Greek text sometimes departs from the copies that we have, and the copies are
how the New Testament was preserved.
The copies, the Apocrypha, are what the King James translators understood to be the standard,
and they hoped and they believed that their printed text they were working from were faithful
representations of it, but they were aware that there were differences among their printed
texts, just as there are differences also among the manuscripts, and they were aware
that there were differences among the manuscripts.
So the manuscripts are the standard, not Scrivener's attempt to represent a theoretical
text behind the King James version, which is what he prepared long after Blaney's edition
was complete.
So and he was, it's hard to say, but it seems as though he was trying to aim for the 1611
text.
But in any event, the next issue was that there's five views of preservation, and then
there was a claim made that my position, George's advanced position, is kind of in group three
with the critical text view, in the sense that the critical text view is saying that
the Greek copies of the New Testament and the Hebrew copies of the Old Testament are
the standard, then fine, although there's lots of people who are critical text who think
that they're not the standard and are willing to amend it to align with the Coptic instead
of the Greek, or with the Latin instead of the Greek, or with the Greek in the Old Testament
instead of the Hebrew. So there's a lot of, it's a broad category, and the King James
translators themselves would fall in that category because they weren't, of course,
not aligning their own translation to their own translation, they were aligning their
translation to the Greek and Hebrew copies that they were aware of through, primarily
through printed texts.
What about the idea that the King James is a rock and foundation? Well, to the extent
that's true at all, that's only true for the last 400 years and not for the previous
1600 years. And yet, the scriptures teach that God preserves his word. So if God's
word has been preserved from the time it was written until 1600, then the King James isn't
the rock and foundation during that time period. It may be quite similar and I hope that it's
very similar. I use the King James as my primary translation in English all the time. Everyone's
who's heard my other debates, whether it's with Roman Catholics or Greek Orthodox, whoever
it is, you'll constantly hear me going to the King James version for my English translation.
But the question isn't whether it's a very good translation. It is. The question is whether
it can be made better. Can it be improved? And the answer I'm saying is yes, it can.
And the fact that it's existing now with some improvements for 150 years of improvements
until Blaney or more, if you go with the Pure Cambridge Edition, that's just saying that
you can improve and should improve, but why stop in 1769? Why stop in 1900, whichever
point you take? The answer would be only if you thought that it's a bad idea to try to
improve something, and the King James translators themselves stand against that idea. There
may have been some misunderstanding of my point about the Septuagint. My point was that
the King James translators pointed out that the apostles used the Septuagint as though
it were scripture, even though it was imperfect, and surely they knew it was imperfect, that
it wasn't a perfect translation. And so the apostles didn't seem to think that it was
necessary to have an absolutely perfect Greek translation, otherwise they would have provided
one, one would assume. So the point is not that Septuagint is somehow perfect, absolutely
not, it's not perfect, it has mistakes, and one of those mistakes actually has impacted
both of the Old Testament verses I mentioned in my opening. The issue is that the doctrine
of preservation doesn't require a perfect translation through all of history. If it
did, the only perfect, the only potential candidate for that would be the Septuagint,
but it has mistakes. The Latin Vulgate also is a long time, it's lasted for longer than
the King James Version and yet it has full of mistakes. We know this. Most people will
admit it. Even Roman Catholics have revised their Vulgate to the new Vulgate trying to
follow our texts. So we have that issue, the issue of the other, the worst translations
or the meanest translations also being the Word of God. That's not a point of disagreement
between us. But of course we shouldn't strive just to be the meanest or the lowest translation.
We should strive to have the best, which means we should take what's good, like the King
James Version, and make it better, improve it, fix the small mistakes it has. I agree
that it's a category error to say, "Well, the King James has some minor flaws, therefore
the NIV." But I'm not suggesting that we should do that, that we should just set aside
the King James Version and use the NIV. I'm suggesting we should improve the King James
Version. So I agree that it's a logical conflation, but it's not one that I'm making. The idea
that the modern versions are complete perversions, I think it's a rhetorical flourish. There
are problems in some of those modern translations, like the way that the Judaizers should be
cut off and then they make it weird, let's put it like that. So there's things like that
in some of these modern versions, no doubt, but the question isn't whether the modern
versions are better than the King James version. The point is whether we can improve the King
James version and it's that position I'm arguing for. I'm not arguing for the NIV is better
or something like that. There was also a comment that I should answer, which is what about
having a perfect copy? So the idea is, well, I'm saying with the King James translators
and the Westminster standards and so forth, that the originals are preserved in copies
of the Greek and copies of the Hebrew. So where's the perfect copy? And the answer is
we don't claim that there is one specific copy that's the perfect copy, and therefore
there is the necessity of doing collation, taking the copies, comparing them, and identifying
where there's an inconsistency, which is the original reading, as opposed to which is the
error that crept in through copyist mistakes. So hopefully that has clarified some of the
distinctions between us and will therefore lead to a profitable discussion in the next
section. Thank you, T-Fan, for that eight minute rebuttal.
Gentlemen, that concludes our opening statements and also our rebuttals for tonight's debate.
Again, we got lots of excellent points on the table to discuss. Everybody's favorite
portions of these debates is the open discussion. So we got about 45 minutes on the table. It'll
be more free flowing and laid back as compared to a real strict cross exam. To the audience,
I am all caught up on your questions. I appreciate how engaged everybody is in tonight's important
debate on King James only. So, okay, pastor, what we'll do is hand it to you. And since
Turriton fan just ended with his rebuttal, we'll give you the opportunity to pick the
first point or ask the first question for discussion. Go ahead.
Yeah, I'd like to understand better when you say we should improve the King James Bible.
What do you mean by that? Well, one example is in the Old Testament,
in two places that I mentioned in my opening, the Old Testament texts the King James translators
provided says unicorn or unicorns. And that's a translation that they based on the subdued
reading of Monoc monoceros, but that's not an accurate translation of what the Hebrew
says the Hebrew has ream and ream means a wild bull. And that would be a much better
translation. Doesn't have to be that exact word. I'm not saying it has to be that or
it could be a transliteration reams, but somehow we should improve it because not only are
there no such animals as unicorns. In reality, it's also a misleading way of describing
a bull to call it a unicorn because people are going to associate it with either a rhinoceros
or with the mythical creature. Should I just keep asking questions or should
I go back and forth? I just want to make sure for the structure.
If you'd like, we can go maybe more back and forth if you'd like to. Feel free to respond.
Of course, I think that unicorn is the right word there. I think that sometimes we maybe
put too much trust in modern dictionaries or our understanding of words, whereas we
may not fully understand ancient words. And again, even the translators themselves made
mention of there's certain animals or creatures that we're not exactly sure of. And so in
their choice of wording, they may have used things like Leviathan or Behemoth, which
are not creatures that we see today. So there's definitely multiple reasons why the unicorn
could exist in the text, could be a creature that we're not familiar with, or could just
be simply a single horned beast, and unicorn would be the right translation. It wouldn't
be a just wild bull. That wouldn't be accurate necessarily. I've heard your point on this
before. I think you maybe have debated on that topic specifically again, but are you
really suggesting that the underlying Hebrew definitively proves that the word should not
be unicorn? I would want to make sure I understand your position there.
Yes, the underlying Hebrew definitively proves it can't be a unicorn. For example, in the
Deuteronomy text, it says the horns plural of the ream singular. So it can't be a unicorn.
Well, again, I'm not going to comment on specifically, you know, how to interpret the Hebrew there
because I'm not a Hebrew expert. But, you know, at the end of the day, we have to put
our faith in something because I'm assuming you don't speak Hebrew either. Is that correct?
Yes, I don't claim to speak Hebrew. So we have to trust a lexicon or a dictionary
or somebody else to interpret this for us or to tell us what the potential errors are
in that, in that text. And, you know, at the end of the day, I just don't understand how
the Hebrew scholars of the King James Bible, not necessarily having a controversy here
with what the Hebrew is saying, to just randomly choose the wrong word. I believe that they
would have been careful. And so to me, I'm trusting their opinion over maybe someone's,
someone else's opinion here. I think that that's just kind of a misnomer that the King
James Bible has a mistake here because don't some of the modern versions even use unicorn?
I don't think that we should make the modern versions are standard for what's best. I think
the Hebrew is-
But I'm saying that multiple people that have translated the Bible have all agreed
that unicorn can still be a valid translation there. Is that not correct?
I think since the second half of the 1600s, scholars have been pushing back on this as
being the wrong translation. And the basis for this translation is that the Septuagint
uses monoceros, which sounds like the word for unicorn means one horn. And the Latin
Vulgate follows that and either translated in some places the word with unicorn and
in some places the word with rhinoceros, but the Septuagint is the underlying source of
this particular error. And rather than revise our text according to the Septuagint, we ought
to follow the Hebrew.
Well, again, you know, I think that there's a lot of explanations here. I mean, it's
feasible that there could be a specific animal called a unicorn that has maybe two different
mini little horns or something. There could be some other explanation, I think, that's
plausible here. I think that, you know, to try and say that the King James definitively
wrong is more of an opinion. But I want to ask a broader question here, because we're
on a nuanced point. How many of these changes, let's say, you know, let's just let's just
say you believe this should be changed from unicorn to wild bull or some other similar
syntax. How many changes do you think there really should be made in the King James Bible?
Just a rough number, like dozens, hundreds, thousands. I don't have a specific number
of changes that we make a target number, we need to make 10 changes, 1000 changes. I think
that the number is going to be a small percent of the overall text. Because if you take even
the most, I guess the most divergent critical text so called, the difference in the Old
Testament is quite small. And it's somewhat larger in the New Testament on the order
of something like two to six percent, depending on how you count differences. But even so,
that's like the worst case scenario of if we adopted all of these other techniques,
we'd have a lot of those changes. Now, in addition to those, you'd have some other changes
that are not based on the underlying text. Like, there's some words that are just hard
to understand in the King James today that they give people a confused, people get confused.
Like when this says the Word of God is quick and sharper than a two-edged sword, a lot
of people think that means it's fast, but of course it means it's living. And quick
could mean living. It's not like it's a wrong translation. It's just that in today's parlance,
we seldom use quick like quick in the dead. We seldom use it that way. So there's probably
some room to make it a more understandable translation. But my priority would be on things
where the King James just gets it wrong and where it's more seriously misleading. And
my lower priorities would be things like, how do we make this smoother? How do we more
carefully match the underlying Greek word order or something like that?
How do you determine if it's right or wrong?
By the Hebrew or Greek.
Okay. But when it comes to the Hebrew, what if you have multiple scholars disagreeing
on that point?
Well, the scholars aren't really supposed to be the standard. The Hebrews is supposed
to be the standard.
Right, but you don't speak Hebrew, and I don't speak Hebrew, so I'm saying just practically
speaking, how do we update the... if you think we should update the text, how would that
be done?
So, I mean, of course, one uses tools to accomplish something like that. So if you and I are trying
to evaluate whether some Hebrew scholars claim that this needs to be adjusted is correct,
then we probably have to enlist the help of other scholars of the language, like the King
James translators themselves did. So they themselves knew the languages and they reached
out to other people who knew the languages.
But if I go out and I use a tool, if I go online and I say, "Oh, this doesn't really
mean unicorn, this means wild bull or something," have I not just shifted my trust from the
King James translators in the King James Bible to that particular individual?
I suppose you've shifted your trust from the King James translators to some other experts
to that extent, but the question, we shouldn't have an implicit trust in the King James translators.
We should have an implicit trust in God's word, but not in the human translators.
Sure, but if the King James Bible has stood the test of time and has evidenced the fruit
which I believe is unparalleled, then I'm not necessarily putting my trust in those
specific individuals.
I don't even know if they're saved.
I don't even know what they necessarily believe about everything, but they made those word
choices, and for me to go with someone else, I'm putting my faith in someone that I would
say was probably a blind faith.
How can I trust somebody to come along and tell me what the Hebrew really means when
I don't have any history with that, or it hasn't stood the test of time?
I mean, what's going to make me confident as an English speaker that some Hebrew scholar
is going to come along and prove to me that somehow the Hebrew says something different
than what the King James translators translated?
So you don't get, you can't escape from the problem of epistemology by just latching onto
the King James version on the basis of this seven-part test you offered, because you came
up with a seven-part test.
That's something you yourself came up with, but you can't, if you trust in yourself, what
does, Proverbs tells us the person who trusts in themselves is not wise, right?
So if you're just placing your trust in your own standard of I made up this list of seven
things and I'm just going to follow whatever version meets this criteria, then you've now
made yourself some kind of infallible standard.
So when I'm making myself the standard, I'm saying the bot, the King James is the standard.
And then from your perspective, it seems like you're putting yourself as the standard by
saying, no, this is wrong.
I think that it's different.
You're saying that you think that that's the, the Hebrew is saying something different and
it's based on your standard or your opinion of what that means, right?
So the, the part of that, that's correct is I'm using the Hebrew as the standard, let's
say in the Old Testament, I'm using the Hebrew.
The fact that the Hebrew says the word Reem, the fact that it says the word Reem is not
disputed.
There's not, it's not, that's not a particular question.
Sure.
So then the only question is whether the correct translation of that is one thing or another,
but whether you say that I'm going to trust the King James translators and just go with
what they said, or you're going to say, I'm going to trust the people who have studied
Akkadian and Assyrian and all the other cognate languages of Hebrew and I've discovered that
there's all in all those other languages, the same word ream refers to a wild bull.
You could trust you can trust the King James translators and their six 17th century knowledge
of Hebrew, and they have acknowledged that there's certain rare animal names that they're
not sure about, or you can trust people have done more yet more study and you know they
started with the foundation of the people from the 1600s and built on it since then.
And there's a certain logic to suggesting that people understanding of Hebrew could
grow over time and not necessarily shrink over time.
So it doesn't involve me becoming the new pope of the Hebrew language or something like
that.
But would you say there's any is there any problem with someone coming along and saying
I think the King James Bible has an errors here.
I think we should change it.
Who's going to validate that?
Who's going to make sure that that's right?
Well the people that should be checking it would be other Christians should be checking
this because fundamentally the word of God is for it's for evangelization but it's primarily
for the church.
So the people of God should be reviewing and checking and seeing if the things that the
claims are true.
Well I want to I want to ask a similar question but let's change a different passage what
about first John five seven what do you what do you believe first John five seven should
read.
Well I should read what the majority of Greek manuscripts say that it reads.
Which would be what I just want to make sure I understand your position.
So the majority of Greek manuscripts have the three witnesses and they don't distinguish
between the heavenly and earthly witnesses so the King James has an insertion there in
addition to the original text it also has a comment about the father the father the
word and the spirit.
For they read the bear record having the father the word and the Holy Ghost and these three
are one.
Are you saying that whole verse should not be there or are you saying like part because
I've seen some versions say like there are three that testify and then they kind of like
roll into verse eight so I'm just curious like what do you think that the Bible should
read there?
As I said my standard is the what the original Greek was and what the original Greek is based
on the manuscripts that we have that have been preserved for us by God those manuscripts
show us that the three heavenly witnesses is a insertion not part of the original therefore
we shouldn't print it in our Bibles where if somebody wants to print it it shouldn't
be listed as actual text of the Bible I can put it note some late manuscripts have this
or a lot of the manuscripts of the Vulgate have this but not don't claim that it's what
John wrote.
Well I would say that from a King James perspective if someone came to me and said I want the
Bible I want to know what God said I would hand them the King James Bible and say I believe
this is what God said and I think that King James Bible believers have taken seriously
that there could be errors or issues that's why we do have printing edition corrections
so it's not like they didn't have the idea that there couldn't be something wrong they
thought if they thought there was something wrong they literally fixed it they literally
printed a new version they printed a new I'm not a version that's the wrong word a new
edition and essentially handed them this is what I think exactly is right.
Why not you why don't you print a Bible that has all of these changes so that you could
hand it to me or do you believe there is a text do you think there is a text where literally
all of these problems have been solved and you could hand that to me I'm not I'm not
suggesting that all the problems have been solved by one specific person and so no I'm
not suggesting that but I am suggesting go ahead so if I asked for you know hey I want
to know exactly what the Bible says you would say you don't necessarily have a physical
document you could hand me right same as if if you're talking about people before 1611
the same thing yeah well I think that you could argue that you could hand them the bishop's
Bible and that's basically the same as the King James or you could hand them the Greek
New Testament from Stefanus Visa and Erasmus you could hand them the Bombergo you know
Masoretic text so I don't think the Bible came into existence in 1611 I do think that
the King James is even the 1611 edition had printing errors right so even in the 1611
you wouldn't necessarily be able to just hand them a physical copy necessarily of what I
believe the text should say that's why they then made more printing editions right they
kept revising and editing and kind of fine-tuning that work if I took your position I would
think that would make sense that I would literally make all of these changes so that I would
literally have the text and then I could hand it out to others I mean what's stopping you
from making all these corrections and and showing us what the text should really say
well I think it's good to have the consent of the body of Christ in making some changes
I don't think it's a proper I don't think individual translation versions are a good
idea I'm not saying that they're necessarily wrong but if you're just talking about in
terms of that this if someone asked me can I have the word of God would you give me the
word of God in a bound copy I will if the person speaks English well I'll probably give
them the King James version if they speak it not as well I'll probably give them some
person it's easier to read that's largely the same as the King James version like a
different well I guess it may be like the ESV or the LSB one of those versions despite
some problems that I have they're being you don't see there being a difference between
the ESV in the King James as far as what they say textually of course there's a difference
but it's not a huge difference it's a small difference it's maybe I know it's very important
to people who advocate for the King James I'm not saying it's not important but I am
saying it is a small difference and it's still the word of God again I want to revisit this
question because I just want to make sure I understand if you if you believe that there
are issues with the King James Bible and maybe all Bibles that there's you know things need
to be smoothed out and fixed why not change them why not make that addition Tyndale did
so I mean if we talk about single men translations Tyndale did Wycliffe did I mean that's why
the Bible is literally called the Tyndale Bible that's why it's literally called the
Wycliffe translation it's obviously the King James again is unique that it had 54 brilliant
scholars all working together and agreeing and I think that there is an advantage to
having a multiplicity of people working together that would just be a point for the why we're
having the discussion why the King James is unique but at the same time if there really
is an issue I don't see why someone wouldn't just correct the whole thing and if it is
of God then I don't think you could ever stand again it's just like the Tyndale Bible you
know the Catholic Church persecuted him heavily for it there was a lot of political pressure
for that not to go forward the King of England specifically said that no one is allowed to
use the team Tyndale Bible it's a quote that we have in our film so I'm saying why why
not make the turret and fan version I'd much rather not have a version named after me it's
God's Word I don't want it to be named after me yeah the idea of the fact you're quite
right that Wycliffe was a as far as I'm aware solo translated the Bible from Latin to English
and that tintale similarly solo translated the New Testament from Greek and part of the
Old Testament from Hebrew and the justification in both cases was that there wasn't another
English translation available they were doing original translation work in both cases now
there had been earlier translations of part of the Bible into English before Wycliffe
like but it's quite a long time and there weren't very many copies if any available
at that time to normal people similarly with Wycliffe he was translating for the first
time from Greek into English so there wasn't some other option we have a lot of excellent
Bibles and even with the flaws that I'm pointing out it's much easier for people to do what
folks like D.A. Waite have done where they just give you a list of just reinterpret these
words this reinterpret satyr as he is goat reinterpret the unicorn as a wild bull if
you just give the people a list of errata and you put that in the back and people have
a way of using the existing Bible that having to go through a process of drastically changing
it and you know it's one thing to say well I found a few small mistakes in an excellent
translation and it's another thing to say well I'm going to try to take over the entire
job of retranslating the entire text or trying to guarantee that there's no errors or something
like that. Don't you see the King James you know club or loose the community constantly
evolving the King James Bible in the sense that from 1611 to 1769 you have a lot of people
revising it and then even past that you know you pointed out the pure Cambridge edition
and other things I mean it doesn't seem like people who believe strongly for the King James
Bible are unwilling to fix what they believe are errors it's just that for the vast majority
of people who use the King James Bible they don't think that it has errors apart from
obvious spelling printing issues I mean why why is it that the King James crowd just wants
to stubbornly hold on to the text and just ignore it like you really believe that the
King James community is just kind of ignoring obvious issues here so I would distinguish
there are people like Matthew Poole who use the King James version it's his English translation
that was the standard English translation at that time and yet would comment on places
where it was not correct and that was in the late 1600s there have been people who have
been using the King James version during that 400 years of use who have used it and yet
have pointed out places where the wording could be improved or is not ideal that's
different from saying that we're just going to throw it all together out and adopt a
brand new revised standard version or something or English version or something like that
and meanwhile there were people like Webster and others who tried to come out with their
own individual translations while sticking largely to the King James version so various
things have been tried I don't I'm not sure even within today's King James community you
see people like Nick Sayers has his 2016 King James version which is a he aims to keep the
same text but make it more readable or more easily readable for people who don't speak
English as a first language I don't have a print copy to hand out to people but I would
be an example of something else I would probably be comfortable handing out to people saying
this is God's word even though it's not exactly the same as the King James version when it
when it comes to clarity I just want to make sure you do you believe there is a preserved
English translation where it's you know perfectly preserved and dialed in or would you say they
all have issues I just want to make sure I understand there's always some differences
between the English language and the Greek language. Some things that are impossible
to capture in translation like an example that came up in a recent debate was the issue
of whether or not the Greek original should be Ahagios or Hoseos in Revelation 15 4. So
you can't tell from the English if you have the English that says holy well you don't
know what's the original Greek now Scrivener has a decision that he made as to which it
is but how does Scrivener know which one that the King James translators meant he doesn't
know he's guessing that they went with Beza but that they could have been going with the
competence in polyglot which has the other reading so he doesn't it's there are limitations
to having English as the standard in the sense that you can't go back to the Greek just want
to make sure I understand your point you're saying that it would be impossible to have
a perfect translation I'm saying that it would be impossible to capture everything of the
original in English in terms of what the Greek has yes what about when it comes to the Greek
do you believe that we have a perfectly preserved Greek I believe that the Greek has been perfectly
preserved for us in a multitude of copies not as a single copy so again like to me it
makes sense like I kind of have more respect for someone like Scrivener's view who literally
collated the Greek text for what was underlying the King James and then in that particular
text highlighted all the differences that were coming out from the Westcott and Hort
revision and saying here's all the differences so to me at least he's trying to say here's
my opinion on the Greek text I don't think he held to the King James only position I
think he was either majority text or maybe a mix of that in the critical I don't know
exactly the right opinion there but to me it makes sense if you don't believe that
the Greek is been collated why not collate a Greek text and hand it to us I mean do you
think the Nestle Alon 28 is the best or do you think what's your view on the Greek text
itself gentlemen and T-Fan before you answer it's been a great first 25 minutes and so
what I'd like to do is Turriton feel free to respond to pastor Shelley's question and
then we will change it up for the last 20 to 25 minutes where we can have you T-Fan
lead the way and ask some of your questions so T-Fan real quick answer to pastor's question
and then feel free to lead the way for a bit.
Sorry, could you reiterate the last piece of the question?
No, I just wanted to basically understand, you know, I hold to the fact that the Scrivener
is I think the Greek text.
So I'm just kind of trying to understand, do you think that the Nestle Elan is the best
that we have as far as Greek or do you think that we're still trying to figure that out?
I suspect I would probably agree more with the Tyndale House main text than the Nestle
Elan 28 main text in terms of that partly because the Nestle Elan 28 committee is open
to the idea of using conjectural amendations.
And from my standpoint, conjectural amendations are a rejection of the idea that God has preserved
His word in the original languages because you're now going outside.
An example is one place the Nestle Elan 28 uses the Coptic instead of the Greek.
Now I know that there were people in the 1600s who were open to using conjectures to correct
the text and that people like, as you mentioned, Erasmus used conjecture, Beza used conjecture
rarely.
Beza thought that conjecture was a bad idea and rarely used it.
I'm not sure about Stephanus using his own conjecture, but certainly Erasmus did use
conjecture as a way of doing his textual criticism.
But I don't accept that.
I think it's something you could only really do if you have a limited number of copies.
Now that we have access to a vast amount of copies, we don't need to use conjectural
emudation to try to guess what the remainder of the copies would say.
All right.
So questions from my side of the debate octagon or whatever the right term is.
I can't remember how we describe it here.
But an example question for you would be in Scrivener's TR, at the end of Ephesians, there's
no Ahmed.
And in the end of Ephesians in the King James Version, in the, I believe, in the Blaney
edition, I think that the last word of Ephesians is amen.
And the 1611 itself doesn't have the amen.
I think that's the reason Scrivener didn't put it there.
But my question is, if you're trying to decide on that particular point, can you revise
the King James Version to Scrivener's Greek, or do we need to revise Scrivener's Greek
to the King James Version?
Well, I wouldn't make Scrivener's Greek the final authority.
I do think that the King James Bible is the final authority.
And I think that it's pretty clear that it was a printing error from the King James
Bible 1611, and that, you know, I think it's reasonable to think that Scrivener just left
it off because the 1611 originally did not have that.
And he was just trying to, I mean, that's kind of a tough question for him.
He's like, does he does he stick to the printed edition or just make a change there?
It could have been confusing.
And I think from his perspective, he wanted to make sure that it was clear he was only
going with what that printed edition said.
So I think he was just following that error.
Maybe he should have put what we call in modern days a sick next to that saying like, I think
this might have been a mistake or maybe a footnote.
But yeah, I do think the King James Bible should be the final authority.
And that, you know, the Scrivener, the only reason why we put an authority in it is just
simply because it aligns with, you know, the King James, and it's a collation of the underlying
Greek that was used to translate it.
So what about in places where we don't know which Greek, like, in other words, Scrivener
has to sometimes, in the example of Revelation, let me make sure I'm saying the right verse,
but I believe it's Revelation 15.4, I'll know in just a second, yes, it says, "Who shall
not fear thee, O Lord, and glorify thy name?
For thou only art holy, for all nations shall come and worship before thee, for thy judgments
are made manifest."
That's what the King James has, at least that my copy has, I assume yours has the same.
So in mine, the thou art in the second, basically second sentence, the thou art are in italics.
And if you follow the italics as meaning that it's added by the translators for clarity
or something like that, then we would assume that the underlying Greek doesn't have the
thou art.
But if you assume that the King James translators were giving a literal translation of the Greek,
then we would assume the Greek has the thou art.
And in this case, the Basis text doesn't have the thou art in the Greek.
It does have it in the Latin.
And then the Complutensia has it in the Greek.
So the question is, if we're trying to know what John wrote, what he was inspired to write,
was he inspired to write the Greek word thou art or not?
Or can we just not know?
Well, I think, again, when we look at, like you said, with the translation itself, sometimes
there's words that are implied from a crossover.
And that's why sometimes words are put in italics in the Bible.
So the words implied there, but it's not directly stated, maybe in the underlying text, or there's
no word to trace that word directly back to.
But it's there.
And of course, this is obvious, you know, in any kind of a translation, you know, if
I said, "Mayama Wan," that's saying, if I was to translate that directly from Spanish,
it would be like, "My name is Jonathan."
But that's not really what it says.
It says, like, "I call myself," if I was going to, like, Google translate, it would
be like, "I call myself John."
And in fact, that's three words to four words.
So sometimes you may not even have a direct word tie, or it may not necessarily look a
certain way.
And I think when it comes to these translation concepts, like, I would have to be fluent
in Greek and fluent in English, in my opinion, even provide any kind of a reasonable explanation.
And I'm not.
And additionally, even if I was, there may be something still that I'm missing or not
understanding.
So I think that it's totally reasonable to believe that just because we look back at
the Greek and maybe it doesn't necessarily have a direct tie to some of those words that
it couldn't have been applied.
That's what it is saying.
And you know, I wouldn't want to skip words because you have to ask yourself this question.
Am I going to translate the Bible in such a literal strip Google Translate method or
am I going to try and communicate the exact meaning?
And I think that when it comes to the translation process, obviously there's going to be times
where the way you word it in a different language has words that aren't necessarily a direct
tie.
And I think the King James translators were very careful.
They feared God greatly, didn't want to be adding to God's word.
And so in places where there was even a hint of uncertainty, they put words in italics.
But I don't put any doubt on italicized words.
I think it's still the word of God.
I still think that's accurate.
And I think you pointing out the Latin having the same is probably just another indication
that when translated from the Greek, it implies that.
I mean, Jerome obviously was coming from the underlying Greek and to Latin, which is a
little bit more similar to English.
And so I think it makes sense that there's going to be some of those idiosyncrasies.
But what's funny to me is to make a big deal about just that slight wording difference.
When we have the modern translations making huge changes in the text, taking out whole
verses and whole sections, there's always going to be a few places in scripture where
we have to put our faith in maybe a minority reading or the understanding of the translator.
And I think that the minimal faith required to put trust in something like this is way
more easy to do than the giant leap of what one of these modern versions are doing in
the text.
I imagine you're probably more familiar with people who are like advocating for the modern
versions as opposed to ones who are just suggesting that we should improve places where the King
James has fallen short of the mark.
But my concern behind this is actually a little bit different.
My concern behind this is if you make the King James the standard, it seems as though
you don't have a reliable way to recover the Greek original because of things like it's
hard to know whether they were trying to literally translate something or whether they were giving
a paraphrastic translation.
We know there are cases where things like "God forbid," the word "God" in Greek is
not in the text.
"Forbid" in Greek is not in the text.
It's just an idiom-for-idiom expression.
"Egenotoi," or however it's pronounced, is the Greek and "God forbid" is an English
idiom that has a similar meaning and is used to convey that thought.
Some modern translations will put "may it never be," which isn't an English idiom,
or as far as I know, it's not an English idiom, but it's supposed to be supposedly
more literally a translation.
But if we didn't know what the Greek was and we came across "God forbid," all we had
was the English and there were no Greek copies.
We didn't have Scrivener's work, and we were going to write a Greek Bible, we'd probably
put in the Greek word for "God" and the Greek word for "forbid" if we're making a literal
translation.
So the question really is, it seems as though if we are going to make the King James the
standard, we essentially for, in many cases, we're going to just lose access to the original
Greek.
Is that?
I think that's a faulty analogy because number one, I didn't make the King James Bible the
standard.
The King James Bible is the standard because frankly speaking, it's 400 years old.
It hasn't been changing whatsoever.
All the other versions compare itself to it.
It's the most read book in the history of humanity.
So I think the standard is just what's being used and what's looked to as being the most
popular and the most standardized version, which is the King James Bible.
It's not really even my opinion.
That's just the facts of the world that we live in.
When it comes to translation changes, if someone made a Bible translation and they said, "May
it never be," as opposed to "God forbid," I'm not going to be able to throw stones at
them and say, "Well, that's not the word of God," or "That's not what the Bible says."
And again, my contention is not with alternative words, synonyms.
The King James translator said, "Let's not be superstitious over the words that they
chose."
And I agree with that.
I'm not a Rukmanite here.
And I can appreciate that your position may be slightly nuanced as well from many people
advocating for the modern versions.
But at the same time, earlier in the debate, you said that you would in some situations
literally hand someone an ESV.
And I'm saying the ESV has major issues, major deviances from the King James text.
And I believe that when you look at churches that use the ESV or other versions, you can
see an obvious difference.
Of course, if I ran into somebody and they say they use the ESV, I would say, "Okay,
what Presbyterian church or what Reformed church do you go to?"
Because it's pretty obvious that there's a doctrinal slant to these modern versions.
And you can see that from the fruit of these versions.
So that was one of the accusations against the Protestant translations by the Roman Catholics
at the time.
And it continues to be a kind of accusation that they make.
They say that, you know, the Protestants are constantly dividing and there's all these
denominations and we have this one unified church.
And so everything about Protestantism must be bad because look at these so many myriad
of denominations.
I don't find that a compelling argument, partly because it doesn't come from Scripture.
It just comes from people's own intuition.
My intuition is that it's bad to have lots of denominations, or therefore Protestantism
is bad, or it's bad for the—or some churches that hold to this particular Bible are not
out there doing as much evangelistic work as churches that have the King James Version
and therefore it must be the fault of the Bible translation they're using.
So I'm not sure where that standard came from.
Where did you get it from?
Well, again, I'm not going to say that it's necessarily one cause or the other.
I think the point I'm trying to make is they're related.
I can see that people who maybe are doctrinally off or having a lot of issues or not necessarily
preaching the gospel the way that I think the Bible dictates, I think, and then using
a modern version, you can see there's some kind of correlation there.
I do think, specifically, that the version does make a difference because I've known
a lot of people in my personal life who went to lame churches, used modern versions, and
then after being confronted about what the Bible really says and seeing what the King
James says, they made changes in their life.
They actually decided to be more evangelistic, making standard changes, trying to get sent
out of their life.
And so I think you can see the power of God's Word.
I think whatever God's Word is, is going to be powerful.
And I think it's going to make a huge impact in this world for the positive.
And I see a vast difference between these churches.
Now again, sure, it's my personal opinion, but I would wonder, do you really not see
a difference between churches that are using the NIV and some of these modern versions
and churches that hold to a King James only position?
Would you not say that there's some objective differences between these churches?
I'm uncomfortable with making that kind of comparison, partly because the number one,
and I'm reluctant to fully call it a church, and even I'm reluctant to make the comparison,
but the number one group that comes around and knocks on doors and uses the King James
as their Bible, now they don't use it as their only Bible, is the Mormons.
Mormons.
Yeah.
But that doesn't mean anything.
The fact that the Mormons use the King James version shouldn't be a knock against the
King James version.
So from that same point, just because some false teachers use this, doesn't mean that
the Bible itself is bad.
By the same reasoning though, the fact that independent fundamentalist Baptists who also
evangelize use this Bible doesn't mean that that's the best translation.
And more importantly, it doesn't mean that that translation can't be improved.
So it's one thing to say, it might even be, you might even convince me that it's the best
translation that we have, the best widely printed translation or something like that.
But that still wouldn't bring me to the point of saying that it's been so uniquely preserved
that it can't be improved, especially if it has a history as you pointed out of being
improved in small ways.
Now, I think what you might be uncomfortable with is taking out the long ending of Mark
or taking out the story of the woman caught in adultery or removing the heavenly witnesses
and removing the discussion of the angel troubling the waters.
Some of these larger chunks of removal are disconcerting.
And then also things like in the some modern versions, I think the ESC is one that's guilty
of this, but I could be wrong.
There's like places in the Old Testament where they saw rain for one year and then they put
in an ellipsis as though part of the text is just gone, which is, you know, that's contrary
to the doctrine of preservation when you start putting in ellipses and saying that there's
no text there.
So I don't, I obviously don't accept that.
I might find that the ESC is more readable, but the trade off is, yeah, it's more readable,
but you have these other problems that you have to deal with as well.
So I'm not suggesting that just because the ESC is more readable, that therefore it's
in every way better than the King James Version.
There's a huge thing that you lose with the ESC, which is that singular and plural designations
in English are just gone.
Now, maybe a lot of people can't actually use that difference to their advantage, but
if you understand it and you know how to use it, you can use it for your advantage to understand
a little bit more about what the original language said.
So there's lots of trade-offs that are out there.
It also reduces readability, though, because the average person's like thee and thou and
makest and all these other words that they're unfamiliar to them.
But ultimately, it's not that big a deal to learn how to read King James English.
I don't know if you grew up with it or you adopted it later.
But I think most people can figure it out.
That's not my concern.
My concern is, can we improve it?
And I think there are some places where the mistakes are pretty glaring.
So another example is Revelation 16.5.
In Revelation 16.5, all the Bibles up till Beza changed the Bible had the word "holy."
Beza changed "holy" to "and shall be."
So instead of saying, "the one who was and is the holy one," it says, "who was and is
and shall be."
Even setting aside whether or not it's appropriate to call God the one who shall be, the question
is, if the Bible is preserved, if God's Word has been preserved in all ages and kept pure
throughout all generations, how can beza be justified in changing the text and putting
in something different?
And how can 400 years of usage make that okay?
Well, I want to respond to a few things before I answer that question.
I think it's clever to bring up the idea of Mormons using the King James Bible.
But again, I wouldn't hold against churches that use the NIV just because some random
cult uses the NIV.
And again, when it comes to the Mormons, they're not King James only.
They appeal to a completely other text, which is another testament of Jesus Christ, the
Book of Mormon.
And so it's not really a fair comparison if we're going to make that.
Just like I wouldn't hold any other cult group using the NIV and some other crazy text as
the reason why I don't use the NIV.
But I think it is certainly clear that there are major differences based on which versions
people use.
When it comes to Revelation chapter 16 verse 5, there's definitely a lot of contention
over the usage of "shalt be".
And frankly speaking, I'm sure there's plenty of articles out there that are going to better
explain a King James only position.
But I would just say simply, it sounds great, honestly.
And again, that's not necessarily the most textual critic response, but at the same time,
the Bible says, "My sheep hear my voice," and when I read that, it sounds great.
When I read it in the modern versions and they take it out, it almost feels like there's
something missing.
And you could say maybe that's confirmation bias, like obviously I'm used to a particular
reading, so it sounds different when it's not in there.
But at the end of the day, obviously, Biza made the choice that he did.
I don't think that these men who are translating the Bible or making changes were just doing
them willy nilly.
So from my perspective, while there may be a handful of places in the King James Bible
that have either a minority reading or an interesting translation technique, I'm going
to accept it by faith.
Just like I just don't understand how the modern textual critics or people that would
use an ESV or some of these other things take the idea that the long ending of Mark really
isn't the Bible.
Why in the world would I print a Bible?
Why would I print the NIV and literally include verse numbers to verses I don't think should
be there?
Like why wouldn't they just literally take those verse numbers out?
I mean if the Mormons start changing the text and adding all kinds of crazy numbers doing
things like I'm not going to abide by that.
So if the King James is wrong and not the standard, why are people constantly using
it as a standard by using the same numbering, by making reference to the fact that hey this
verse is missing?
I think it's pretty obvious because people have the Holy Spirit inside of them.
And when they actually look at these differences, they say well actually the King James actually
sounds right.
This kind of aligns with my spirit and I think that's what the text really should say.
And I believe our time is up.
Is that right, Donnie?
Yes.
So it looks like we got about 20 to 25 minutes each to lead the way in discussion and ask
the questions that hopefully we wanted to ask.
So, Jonathan Shelley and Turriton fan, excellent discussion.
I enjoy how professional it was and cordial and I think we touched on a number of important
and interesting topics.
So we do have, though, five minutes each for concluding statements and this way we can
wrap up our thoughts, wrap up our points, address anything we feel may have been left
hanging.
And to the audience, I am all caught up on your questions.
We have some great questions, all very much on topic on this issue of the King James only
controversy.
So with that, Pastor Jonathan Shelley, we are going to hand it over to you and you have
five minutes for a concluding statement.
The floor is yours.
Go ahead.
The topic of discussion is the King James Bible uniquely preserved.
I think it's evident from the facts that it's certainly unique.
It's the most popular book in human history.
It is the standard by which all other Bibles compare itself to.
It is the final product of a lineage of English Bibles that change the world.
You can see the evidence of the fruit of a King James Bible from the scale of soul winning
Bible reading, from the major church movements, the evangelistic movements.
But even just on a personal note, I've met so many people whose lives have been radically
changed by the King James Bible and by the power that it yields.
And I believe that God's word has power and there's nothing like the King James Bible
for majesty, for power, for effect.
We can see great doctrine being formed in the King James Bible.
The King James Bible specifically doesn't have, I believe, any error or issue when it
comes to doctrine.
It doesn't weaken doctrines.
It doesn't take away certain doctrines.
It doesn't put uncertainty in the text.
It's not filled with all kinds of commentary saying, "Well, this really isn't the oldest,
best and most reliable manuscripts," or "This verse really shouldn't be there," or just
skipping numbers.
I believe that destroys people's faith.
And I also believe that the King James Bible is not just the standard because I decided
so.
I believe it's the standard because it is the standard, very clearly evidenced through
everything that I just said.
Additionally, I didn't come to King James' only position because someone forced me to.
I simply saw the differences.
And that's what I would challenge the viewer to do, pull up the differences between an
NIV and the King James.
Notice that it takes out 16 whole verses.
Notice that the NIV says that Elhanan, the son of Jehoragam, slew Goliath and not the
brother of Goliath.
Notice that the NIV says that tail-bearing and being a gossip is like tasty trifles,
whereas the King James Bible says that tail-bearing is wounds.
And ultimately, I believe in 1 John 5, 7, there are three that bear record in heaven,
the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost, and these three are one.
There's a great and powerful verse on the Trinity, which has ancient witnesses, and
it doesn't matter to me if it's a minority reading of the text.
I believe that the Holy Spirit gives witness to it, and frankly speaking, many Latin versions
had that text in it.
But at the end of the day, the question is authority.
Where are you going to put your authority?
Are you going to put it in yourself, in some Hebrew scholar, in some online software somewhere,
or are you going to put it on a text?
Are you going to say, "You know what?
I think that this text is my final authority.
The Bible tells us to trust in the Lord with all thine heart and to lean not on thine own
understanding and in all thy ways acknowledge Him."
I hope that you realize the King James Bible is uniquely preserved.
It is the Word of God and we need to make it the final authority.
Thank you very much, Pastor Jonathan Shelley for that concluding statement.
Turreton Fan, we're going to hand it over to you and you also have up to five minutes
for a concluding statement.
Go ahead.
Thanks very much.
I appreciate this cordial interaction on a topic that's important to both of us.
I hear Pastor Shelley's concern that we should stick with the Bible.
My fundamental concern though is deeper, which is I think that what Pastor Shelley has offered
you is a standard upon which he's asking you to place your trust, which is a 17th century
revision of the Bishop's Bible plus some additional, another century of proofreading
and removing printing errors and so forth, or alleged printing errors and so forth.
By contrast, the position of the Reformation is that the Old Testament in Hebrew, which
was the native language of the people of God of old, and the New Testament in Greek, which
at the time of the writing of it was most generally known to the nations, being immediately
inspired by God and by his singular care and providence kept pure in all ages, are therefore
authentical so as in all controversies of religion, the church is finally to appeal
to them. And if you go down the path that Pastor Shelley is offering you, you can't
have the Hebrew and the Greek as your final authority. You have to depart from that. Even
though God has preserved them for us, you have to throw them out and go with the English.
Now maybe you can somehow come back to them if they agree with the English, but you're
no longer using as your standard what was actually inspired by God, what was actually
inspired by God was Hebrew, what was actually inspired by God was Greek.
That doesn't make the Hebrew scholars or the Greek scholars some kind of pope over you,
just as knowing English well doesn't make, or using the King James Version doesn't make
your English professor the standard over you in this, when you're using the English translations.
English is an important language, it's valuable to have a translation, and the King James
is an accent translation. And for someone who's unable to access the original languages, it's
great to have a translation in a language we understand, and thank God for this translation
and any other sound translations. But ultimately our standard must be the Word of God in the
original language in which it was written. And if we have to throw that out, we're not
just compromising the Reformation position. You know, someone might say, "Well, the reformers
were wrong. They shouldn't have said it's the Hebrew and the Greek. They should have
said the 1640s Westminster standards and the 1689 London Baptist. They shouldn't have said
the originals. They should have said the King James Bible. Since they were English speakers,
they should have gone with that." Someone might say that, but then the question is,
what's the reason for us to believe it? And the answer that we got were arguments from
intuition and standards in that intuition, which are not found in Scripture. Whereas
the standard of the Scripture itself, of course, is found in Scripture. But the idea that this
is the most popular book in human history, and therefore it's without errors, doesn't
logically follow. It might be intuitive, but it doesn't logically follow. Whether or not
the truth is popular is not the appropriate standard. Hasn't God's gospel always been
opposed? Of course. So why should we be surprised if the original Greek and Hebrew is not the
most popular? Of course, that's a terrible standard. What about the lineage of martyrs
who died for it? But martyrs have died preserving the Greek and Hebrew originals for us as well.
And the people who studied in the Reformation time, who studied Hebrew, did so at the risk
of their lives in order to translate that from Hebrew back to languages that the Europeans
could understand. In terms of surviving the test of time, the Hebrew has survived much
longer than the English. The Greek has survived much longer than the English. And even other
translations have survived much longer than the English, like the Vulgate as an example.
And that's not the only example. We could look at the Syriac. It survived longer than
the English. We could look at the Russian translation, the Armenian translation, the
Georgian translation. There's lots of translations out there that have lasted longer than English.
Not that they're better. I don't think they are. I don't think how long something has
been in use is the standard. It doesn't come from scripture. As far as the fruit of people
who hold to the King James Version being the more passionate evangelists, I don't have
actual statistics to verify that. If it's so, then shame on the folks who are less actively
involved in evangelism. But I don't think it's caused by the scriptures. I think it's
caused by the people themselves and they ought to be following their master and they ought
to be reaching the people with the gospel. I don't think I'm out of any more time, so
yield back my mic.
Turriton, five minutes on the dot. I appreciate it. Gentlemen, again, excellent exchange,
a really good professional debate. I've enjoyed this. We've engaged some important points
and topics and we have just a ton of really good questions from the audience. We've had
a solid audience with a diversity of views on this topic and therefore some great questions
to engage. And so I think a good way to interact with these questions over the next 25 minutes
roughly is let's say the question is for you Turriton, we'll allow you to respond. Of course,
Pastor Shelley will give you the opportunity for response. And then Turriton, we'd give
you the last word. So whoever the question is for gets the last word. That way we can
move on smoothly. So let's start right at the beginning. Got some interesting questions
here. This one comes in from SoCal Preston. And it is a question for Pastor Shelley. How
can you argue for the preservation of the King James Bible and yet leave out KJB Tobit
from your preaching and your King James edition? If Tobit was in the 1611 edition, it should
also be in the 2024 edition. What are your thoughts, Pastor?
Well, again, I want to make something clear. My final authority, while it is the King James
Bible, does not discount the fact that I believe God preserved the Hebrew and the Greek as
well. And I think if someone does hold to the Hebrew and the Greek, that they would
come to the King James Bible. Now, when it comes to the Apocrypha or these extra books,
they were clearly identified as not being part of the text. And that was explained by
the translators. They put it in their own section and they said it was only for historical
profit. And eventually, you know, it was just discarded. So, of course, really, the ultimate
test is just to read it. If you read these extra canonical books, I mean, it's very
clear it's not the Word of God. They have errors. It sounds weird. Just like the Book
of Mormon sounds weird. Just like the Qur'an sounds weird. And, you know, I do believe
in the litmus test of the Holy Spirit testifying with our spirit. And you can really see the
difference between a real tree and a fake tree. Just like I believe you can see the
difference between the real scripture and something that's trying to imitate it.
I appreciate it. Pastor Turton fan, floor is yours.
I can appreciate the rhetorical punch of pointing out that there's a chunk of 16 verses taken
out from one place by some of these modern versions and all together are so many verses
taken out. Yet, you know, from, I guess, from Sokal Preston's standpoint, the majority of
King James advocates are throwing out seven books of the Bible, something like that. It's
a big number. It sounds like a big deal. The question is throwing out the apocrypha, and
in the King James, it clearly says apocrypha, apocrypha, apocrypha. It's not ambiguous
that this is apocrypha. But if someone was really, I take it that Sokal Preston sincerely
thinks that it should be included in the Bible, although it blows my mind. But if you think
that you're throwing out seven books of the Bible, I can see why some will be upset. But
the question is whether it's true, whether those were inspired by God. And Tobit, as
an example, starts off with a historical blunder. It's not God's word. It's not inspired scripture.
And the sheep hear the voice of the shepherd. There is a reason why the Protestant churches
have rejected these books and why, even before the Protestant Reformation, Western tradition
rejected these books as inspired scripture, maybe as useful, maybe as edifying, maybe
as to be read in the churches, but not as inspired scripture. So the fact that I have
to throw out seven books from the King James Bible in order to improve it in the sense
of not including things that aren't the original in the text, I'm okay with that when it comes
to those. If I were persuaded that the long ending of Mark wasn't original, I would be
okay with getting rid of that too. I'm not persuaded that it's not original, but if I
were, then I would say that would be an improvement. But anyway, the fact that something's a big
chunk that's been added into the Bible, that did happen with the Old Testament when people
were using the Septuagint. Big things were added in that shouldn't have been added in,
like the apocryphal canonical or apocryphal sections of Esther. That's an addition that
was inserted into God's Word and used for a long time, but it wasn't original. I'm probably
out of time. I don't remember what's the time limit on these responses.
You're good, Turretin. Thank you very much for that response. Pastor, the question was
for you, and therefore you can have the last word. Go ahead.
Yeah, I just want to make it clear. Obviously, the Apocrypha is rejected by everyone. I mean,
it's not like the NIV has the Apocrypha slapped in there or something like that. Apart from
Catholics, there's pretty much no one that's even embracing the Apocrypha whatsoever.
The word Apocrypha in some sense means hidden or lost, which totally negates the whole point
of this discussion, which is the idea of the Bible being preserved. I do not believe that
God has hidden the scripture somewhere and we have to go find it or that it can't be
readily available. That's why I use the King James Bible and the modern versions do appeal
to text and manuscripts that have been dug up, found, that were missing, hidden. The
Septuagint obviously included a lot of extra stuff in it that's not found in the Masoretic
text. But when it comes to the Apocrypha specifically, it was never designated as part of scripture.
They wholly rejected it. So I think it's a faulty argument to suggest that somehow
I'm rejecting something that the translators gave me as the Bible. They said it wasn't
the Bible, therefore I have the same opinion. In the 1611, it had the translators to the
reader appended at the very beginning. And mine, the one that I'm holding in my hand
right now, it doesn't have it. I wish it did. I'm not against that being included. People
have maps of Paul's journeys and things like that. Of course, there's going to be, when
it comes to a printing edition, all kinds of various things attached and included. I
don't think the maps are inspired. I don't think that the name of the publisher is inspired
or something like that. Of course, those are evidence that they're not part of scripture.
In the same way, if anybody in a translation includes... I think Donald Trump's selling
like a Bible with the constitution in it or something like that. I'm not against that,
but I don't think anybody's going to then accuse me of saying, "Well, why aren't you
embracing the constitution of scripture?" It's not scripture. It was just included as
part of the printing. And of course, to reject the apocrypha should be obvious for anyone.
Very good. Thank you, gentlemen, for those responses. Next question comes in from Praise
the IM, and it is a question specifically for you now, Turriton. As far as I know, you're
a Trinitarian. So my question is, how doesn't Shelley's preservation of 1 John 5-7 show
that the Masoretic text isn't inferior? So my standard isn't what I would like the
text to say or what sounds great to me. I would say when I read through 1 John 5, and
I read it including the Heavenly Witnesses and when I read it without reading the Heavenly
Witnesses, I think that the text flows more smoothly without it than with it. But that
isn't, for me, that isn't the standard that whether it sounds good or it's smooth. Certainly
my standard isn't whether it happens to be also true. In other words, I'm not suggesting
that the insertions that are present in the King James Bible, at least the vast majority
of them, I'm not suggesting those are false statements. So like just take an example,
I'm trying to think of a less controversial example, but like in the case of the italicized
words in Revelation 15-4, we talked about before, I think those are a reasonable interpretation
of what the Greek is saying, assuming the shorter Greek reading there, that inserting
those I think is a reasonable way of translating it. But that doesn't mean that I'm going
to go back and change what the Greek has to match the English wording and adopt the Complutensian
Greek. I think the Complutensian Greek is wrong there. It's a minority text. And here,
although there are some very late manuscripts that support the Heavenly Witnesses insertion,
and a lot of Latin manuscripts that support the Heavenly Witnesses insertion, the fact
is I think that the overwhelming Greek evidence, which is my standard, is the Greek copies,
that those Greek copies don't support it as original. Interesting, but not original.
So that's why I don't think it, the fact that, yes, I am a Trinitarian, of course. Amen.
I think the Apostle's Creed is absolutely correct, but I wouldn't be okay with somebody
inserting the Apostle's Creed into the end of 3 John to make it a longer book. That would
be, it wouldn't be right. And no one has authority to add to God's Word.
Thank you, Turriton. Pastor Shelley, the floor is yours. Go ahead.
I do think, I want to make a correction. I think the questioner was trying to reference
the Greek New Testament because the Masoretic text is for the Old Testament. But when it
comes to 1 John chapter 5 verse 7, he, my opponent, Turriton had mentioned that he doesn't
think it sounds as good. I think that obviously that's just a difference
of opinion because I think it sounds great and it appeals to a heavenly authority before
appealing to an earthly authority. I think that there is a doctrinal significance there.
I think that 1 John 5, 7 might be arguably one of the clearest verses on the Trinity.
So it's not just like a random text. I think it is an important text, the text that I believe
you have some ancient witnesses that testify to its authenticity as well. So, you know,
even if just from an evidence perspective, there's plenty of evidence to say that it
should be there. But at the end of the day, we ultimately have to decide what we're going
to believe by faith. And, you know, I do put my faith in this verse being a part of scripture,
makes perfect sense. I agree with them that obviously just because there's a doctrine
I agree with doesn't mean that any addition should just be brought into the text. I'm
not going to just argue that, well, this makes my point, so therefore it must be text. But
I think it's clearly read in that way. I mean, if you read verse eight in the King's
Ames, it says and, and you know, and what, why am I saying and if there wasn't this
first part of first John five seven, that's why even a lot of these modern versions say
there's three that testify for seven and then they kind of like switch into verse eight
that they almost like break it apart because they feel like they need to. And many people
that do know Greek very well suggest that even the way the Greek is structured, if you
took out verse number seven, it would literally not work. So, you know, I just, at the end
of the day, I can't testify to that. I don't think that the vast majority of people God's
expecting to understand Greek, to be able to know if this is right or not. We have to
allow the Holy Spirit to guide us. And, you know, I thoroughly believe that first John
five, seven is just as authoritative as John three, 16.
Thank you, pastor. And T fan question was for you. And so you get the last word MT probably
stands for majority tax. That makes more sense in light of what you guys are talking about.
No, I read it wrong. So my fault turned it you get the last word. Go ahead. So in terms
of what was just said, I think the I think I've already said, I'm not sure you have anything
else to add. I was going to I was thinking just to clarify what MT was probably intended
as I'm not suggesting that I follow a strict rule that in every case, we have to count
noses of manuscripts. But as a general rule, if you go at any verse, and you look at all
the manuscripts for that verse, then the and you look at all the little variations between
the manuscripts and there are plenty of variations. If you look at all of them in almost every
case, the vast majority of manuscripts have the same word, and there's one or two outliers
to say one or two and 100 outliers on a particular word. And then it's very easy to see what
the original text was. But then occasionally, there's cases where it's 30% one way, 30%
another way, 20% another way, and so forth. And there's this very fractured witness. And
as with the harder cases to figure out, it's not not suggesting it's super easy, nor am
I suggesting that it's every Christian's duty to try to become an expert in textual
criticism. And I think that someone can rationally say, Well, I'm, this is beyond me. I'm just
going to go with the King James, because it's a great text that's been used by a lot of
people. But it's one thing to say, I don't feel competent to address this question and
figure it out myself. And I think it's a different thing to just say that I don't feel competent
to do it. Therefore, no one is competent to do it and no one should try to do it. I don't
think the King James translators would have been okay with that approach.
All right, Turriton, thank you for the final word. We now have a question for the both
of you. So Turriton, why don't we start with you? Since you got the last word on the last
question, we'll give Pastor Shelley the last word here. And so this comes in from common
sense creationist question for both. How did the original translators know which books
to include in the Bible? And in other Bible versions, how do they know which verses to
remove or alter? So I assume by original translators, they mean the massive body of translators
that were used in the King James revision of the bishops Bible, which was itself a revision
of some previous editions going back to Tyndale's original translation. Tyndale never completed
his translation. So as far as knowing which books to include in the Bible, as far as the
New Testament goes, Tyndale was guided by the Western tradition of the 27 book New Testament
canon. I don't know if he consciously thought about it and said, I don't know, should I
include James? Should I not include James? I suspect he just went with what was printed
by Erasmus in terms of the 27 books, which was by far the dominant tradition in the Western
churches. All of them held to that. There are some other churches in other parts of
the world that included things like the shepherd of Hermas or other books, but no significant
group in Europe that I'm aware of held to that kind of view. So for him, it was kind
of not necessarily something he even thought about which to include. And then the Old Testament,
he didn't complete it. So I don't know whether he would have tried to include the Apocrypha
or not. I don't believe he did in fact translate any of the Apocrypha. I think he just got
through part of the Pentateuch before he was martyred. But if they mean the King James
version translators, well, they were given guidelines from Archbishop Bancroft, who
was King James's second in command for the Church of England, and he instructed them
what they were going to translate. So they had an assignment. As far as the other Bible
versions, knowing which verses to remove or alter, I hope that they're trying to use the
Hebrew and Greek originals. Not all of them do that. Some of them are trying to conform
it to their understanding of God, like this horrible distortion produced by the Jehovah's
Witnesses, where they change things to align with their theology. That's not an appropriate
translation technique. Even if they don't do it everywhere, the fact that they do it some places
is enough for me to say, "There's plenty of other translations that are not corrupted in that way."
So just don't use the New World Translation. It's very simple.
Okay. Thank you, Turriton. Pastor Shelley, the floor is yours. Go ahead.
Yeah. I'm not exactly the intended definition of original translators here. If we kind of just look
at it from a broad perspective, like Turriton did, I would agree that the canon was kind of
established by all. And from that, of course, the Bible, you know, Jerome is using the canon
that's established to translate into Latin. And obviously, when we talk about later editions,
no one really deviated from that particular view of canon. When it comes to specific verses
being taken out, like whole verses being taken out, I think that for the vast majority of
translation works, they were all in agreement until we have the work of Westcott and Hort
and the modern critical text actually taking whole verses out. So, you know, from my perspective,
when it comes to how do they know what's in there, obviously, you know, my view is that
there's the text of surceptus that we're taking the Bible that's handed down to us. And so if
you're going to do a translation work, you're handed down the original Hebrew, you're handed
down the original Greek, and they're translating from the text that they have, they have the
manuscripts, they're using them to translate, and that they're not going to remove anything.
You know, when we talk about removing verses, I think that's really what you see with these
eclectic texts such as Sinaiticus or Vaticanus or other Septuagint that really do have missing
verses, and so they're just being faithful to that particular manuscript. I don't even think
that you could say the modern versions are just arbitrarily deciding like, "Hey, let's just take
this verse out." They, in their mind, think that the underlying Greek or whatever version they're
using literally doesn't have that verse, and so they just try to be faithful to that particular
manuscript. Really, you just have to ask yourself this question like, "What am I going to trust?"
That's why I always appeal to the idea that I believe that the Holy Spirit is a witness,
and you can read the text of scripture and tell what's real, and you can tell what's not.
You can tell that the shepherd of Hermes and that the Gospel of Thomas and all these other
extra books are really just trash, and the New World Translation is trash. I think that it's
pretty evident that when you compare the missing verses of the NIV to the King James,
the King James is right, and it sounds just as powerful as the rest of the scripture.
James is just as powerful. I would never question whether James is authoritative scripture. I would
never question if the long ending of Mark, and I think these original translators had the same
view. They believe they had the word of God. The translators, the reader, when they write about it,
the King James translators, they specifically believe that what was handed down to them was
the word of God. So I don't think that there was any question on if they were going to move anything
or which books to include. They already had that established. All right, gentlemen. Thank you for
your responses on that question. Very good. Okay. Next one comes in from Paul Anchor. This is for
you, Turriton fan. And he is asking, in your view, is there a modern English Bible version,
which is closer to the inspired original text compared to the King James Bible? If yes,
why bother improving the KJV? So one reason to bother improving the King James version
is because of the fact that it is written in a way that for us today sounds very majestic.
It sounds very church as opposed to the way that we talk around every other person.
It has a very beautiful sound to it. That's one reason to preserve it, even if we thought there
was some other text that was a better translation. I know there are people out there trying to make
better translations or trying to improve the King James in various ways. And I'm not trying
to suggest that all of them have failed or anything like that. I've commented before,
I think, at least in one place, Nick Sayer's 2016 King James version where it talks about
that John the Baptist was... I think the King James has something like preserved. I can't
remember off the top of my head what the exact wording of the text is, but I thought his version,
the re-wording that he used, is actually closer to the original than what the King James has.
He says that that's not... He disagrees. He thinks that his is exactly the same.
So I'm not trying to represent his view, but I do think on that one point he had made something
that was a small improvement. And maybe in terms of readability as well is maybe an improvement for
contemporary readability. So I hope that answers the question. I'm not suggesting... I know there
are other people who advocate for a specific version. I'm not in that particular camp.
Okay. Thank you. Turriton, Pastor Shelley, go ahead. The floor is yours.
I just wanted to clarify. Did you answer yes or no to that question?
I said in my view is I don't know if there's one that's better unless you count Nick's
New Testament that has one word that's an improvement over the King James. And it doesn't,
as far as I know, in any way step backward and make it a negative anywhere else.
Yeah. I guess my response to this question would just be that, you know, I think that
my opponent Turriton's view seems to be just maybe a little bit prideful because I think it's just
in his mind, he does think that he can improve the text. And I think that the text cannot be
improved. I think that, you know, it would be a little bit prideful for me to even read the text
and think like, I think this is better or I know this is better because there's been plenty of
times where I've had thoughts or feelings like that about something and then later realized I
was wrong. I think that there is a consensus that needs to take place and it would be strange for
me on my own to just think that I'm smarter than the 54 people that translated this text,
especially when it comes to the fact of translating Hebrew and Greek, which I'm not fluent in,
you know, and ultimately I have to put my faith or trust in something else because I'm not the
expert. And since I'm not the expert, I believe that, you know, ultimately I got to trust something. Why
not trust the King James Bible? You know, it is to me been the proven standard. And of course,
you know, the Holy Spirit inside of me, I believe is going to bear witness of the truth.
And here's my view. If the King James Bible is just one of many, all the English Bibles,
they're all kind of the same. They all have a few issues. They all don't. Then I think that we would
not see the evidence of the fruit difference. We wouldn't see a major doctrinal and fruit
difference between these modern non-evangelical churches, I call them, the non-denominational
churches and a lot of these other strange charismatics and things that are going on in
the world using these modern versions and the people that hold the King James only position.
People who hold the King James only position are objectively different. You can see major
differences. It's not like it's just quibbling over which is the absolute best translation here.
There is a real practical impact on people's lives. I believe that my opponent should just
put all of his faith in the King James Bible and accept it as the Word of God.
Thank you, Pastor Shelley. T-Fan, question was for you so you can have the last word. Go ahead.
I will trust in God who inspired the Holy Scriptures in Hebrew and Greek over the
King James translators who were only men and not inspired as Pastor Shelley acknowledges they were
not inspired. So as far as who to trust, that's who I'll trust. As far as whether it's motivated
by pride or some other reason, God knows my heart whether it's pride or not pride. But the question
is admitting that we've made a mistake and correcting that mistake is not normally a mark
of pride. So if we hold our current version with such tenacity that we can't make improvements,
that's the fault, that's a fault from the standpoint of what the King James translators
themselves said. So maybe they should be accused of pride in thinking they could improve on the
bishop's Bible, but it seems that everybody agrees that they did improve on the bishop's Bible.
Maybe somebody would quibble over one or two places where they may have not, but even the
people who have find fault with the King James Bible say that they improved. So it doesn't, it
might be pride to think that I know better than everybody else in the world on any particular
point, but I think it's not pride to want to improve the translation and to make from a good
translation one that's even more excellent as the word was used in the translator to readers.
So appreciate it, Turriton. And okay, we got our final question. We've moved along smoothly.
Time has flown by just like every other portion of this debate. So we got a question here for you,
Pastor Shelley comes in from BornAgainRN. I do appreciate the question. And the question is this,
is the 1611 KJV preserved or the 1769 also? If just the 1611, how do you account for Matthew
using both kill and murder to describe the commandment despite two different words/meaning?
Well, again, you know, my position on the King James is not this over the top Rekmanite view that
says that synonyms somehow mean completely different things. I believe that the 1611
first edition of the King James Bible certainly had some printing errors and some issues,
but I do believe that the work of the King James translators was an entire and perfect work,
and that they did preserve this text. Obviously, it was just a revision of the bishops,
and I think the bishops is the word of God. I think the bishops is the word of God. I think
that it was a preservation of God's word, and the King James 1611 came along and dialed it in and
improved and made it that much better. The translators said that they weren't improving
on a bad work. They were just making a good translation better, and I believe that as we've
gone through time, 1769 made improvements as far as just the spellings being updated and correcting
some of the printing issues that plagued it. But even from the 1769, I mean, the Bible that I hold
in my hand today is not a 1769. It's even more modern than that as far as the adaptations and
the printing revisions. In some later Cambridge editions, they even went back to a more 1611
reading. But again, when we talk about differences like that, which you can find in King James
editions or even here, kill or murder or things like that, if it's saying the same thing,
then I believe that it's still the word of God, just like the King James translator said.
I don't believe that this is any kind of contradiction. Jesus Christ, when quoting
the Old Testament on thou shall not kill, says thou shall do no murder. If Jesus is using them
in synonyms, then I believe that they are synonyms. I don't think that we have to get over the top with
using a specific English word because at the end of the day, it's just a word.
And I do believe that the underlying Hebrew and Greek are preserved as well
and that we have a Holy Trinity. We have the Hebrew, the Greek, we have the English, King James.
These three should agree in one. I believe that they do. And I think that the little bit of
discrepancy that many people point out, it's not an obvious discrepancy. It's usually a personal
opinion or their way to try and make something different in the text. But I believe these are
virtually the same. All King James editions are virtually the same. And it's really just kind of
trying to swallow, I'm sorry, swatting at a gnat and swallowing a camel if we're going to quibble
over the editions of the King James versus the major difference of the NIV to the King James,
of the ESV to the King James. This is an order of magnitude difference that we have when it comes to
modern English versions. And so, you know, I don't, I'm not going to get mad at someone for
using an Oxford or Cambridge. I'm not going to get mad at someone using the 1611. I mean,
we have a 1611 literally in our church, a replica. And if someone wanted to carry that thing around,
it's like five pounds or something. It's crazy. You know, if they want to carry that around,
go for it. But at the end of the day, I don't want someone using ESV.
Thank you, Pastor Shelley. Turriton, go ahead. The floor is yours.
In many places when I'm having discussions about the Bible with somebody who prefers not to use the
King James Version and we compare what the texts say, oftentimes they say the same thing. Sometimes
they use different words. Sometimes they say different things, but very often they say the
same thing. And I think it would be fair to describe the differences between them as small.
It's not like if you read the ESV, Jesus isn't crucified. He doesn't rise on the third day.
It doesn't say that all have sinned, that the immaculate conception pops up out of nowhere
in the ESV, but it's not in the actual Bible or the bodily assumption. You can just find that in
the legacy standard Bible. Absolutely not. They teach the same doctrines. There are some places
where the wording of the text does make a difference in the interpretation. 1 John 5, 7 is an example.
If you think that the heavenly witnesses should be there, you're going to interpret the Spirit
in one way, in the actual three witnesses in 1 John 5, 7, and 8. You're going to treat those
as earthly witnesses instead of treating them as Christ, the Holy Spirit, and the Father.
And that could be a problem in your interpretation the same way that in Revelation 16 5, if you take
out the word "holy" from the text, it changes the meaning of the text. And it may be an important
change in the meaning of the text. But if you're just going to accept the text and not dig deeper,
of course, things will change. I'm not a big fan of the kill-murder distinction. I know other people
like that as a talking point. For me, it's not. But I think contextually, people can figure out
that when it says, "Thou shalt not kill," that it's not including contextually. They can figure out
that doesn't include execution. It doesn't include warfare and so forth. But for me, it's not a big
deal. Then again, I don't know. For other people, clearly it is. It's not the first time I've heard
people raise this issue. So anyway, I think that's all my answer on that. So back to you.
Thank you, Turriton. Pastor Shelley, it was for you. So you get the last word. Go ahead.
Yeah, again, you know, when it comes to which Bible we're going to use, I'm not arguing for
a specific edition of the King James Bible. There's an obvious order of magnitude difference
between the King James and the modern versions. And you know, the question is, is the King James
uniquely preserved? I include the whole family of the King James Bible in this discussion,
and I do believe it's uniquely preserved. I believe that it faithfully preserves the Hebrew
and the Greek. And I think that if my opponent really believed in preserving the Hebrew and the
Greek, that he would use the King James and say it's right. And I know that he thinks that there
is a few issues, but again, he seems like a pretty nice, humble guy. But I think in this one area,
there might be just a little bit of pride from his intellect saying, no, I do think there's an error.
There is an issue. And I think that if you would just wholly accept the King James Bible,
he didn't end up realizing that it's right and that it is the faithful translation of the Greek
and the Hebrew. And then if you really want to preserve the Greek and the Hebrew, you would do
that through the King James Bible, which has been proven through the test of time, has the greatest
fruit. It's the most majestic translation. I would never try to change it. I mean, we have 54 of the
most brilliant scholars coming together and it's a masterpiece. I don't believe it can be improved
upon. Obviously, there's other languages for us to translate the Bible in. But I think for English,
it is the final product. Thank you, Pastor Shelley, for that final word. And gentlemen,
that is about 30 minutes of audience questions. I got to say, again, excellent debate tonight,
gentlemen, very professional and thorough on the question, is the KJB uniquely preserved? I think
you both did a good job bringing up points worthy of discussion. The audience, it appears they were
edified, lots of engagement and interaction. And as we have seen, lots of great questions.
So why don't we get some final words, final thoughts before we wrap it up for tonight.
Pastor Jonathan Shelley, let's start with you. Again, it was great to have you tonight for this
important debate and thanks for your time. Any final words, final thoughts? Yeah, thanks again
so much for allowing us to have this discussion. Thanks to my opponent, Turriton, for being willing
to have this discussion. I think that a lot of people are unwilling to discuss these issues and
I think that the truth should be evident when you have these discussions. I don't think the truth
fears any investigation. I would highly encourage people, if they want to learn more about my
position, to watch the documentary that I made called The Preserved Bible. A lot of people have
uploaded on YouTube. You could find probably a mirrored version or you could just go to
thepreservedbible.com or preservebible.com. You can watch it online for free. And even if you don't
fully agree with my position, there's still a lot of benefit, I think, just from a historical
perspective and just a lot of great information that we were able to put together in the film.
But, you know, I believe that the King James Bible is what changed my life personally. It made me
more zealous for the things of God. It's helped me have a better appreciation for doctrine.
And I believe it's evident in other people's lives that the King James Bible has power to change
a sinner to being more sanctified. It has the power, of course, getting people saved. It has
the power to help a church grow. I believe it has the power to do all kinds of different things.
And I don't see that power coming from the modern versions. I believe the King James is
uniquely preserved. And I think if we wanted to change America, if we wanted to change the world,
we need to get Christians all to get back to the King James Bible. As Ronald Reagan famously
says about the King James Bible, "Hey, we've already got it, folks." We don't need another
translation. We don't need to keep trying to come up with a new way to translate the Bible.
We've already got it. Let's just embrace and trust the scripture that God's providentially handed
down to us, the preserved Bible, the King James Bible. Thank you, Pastor Shelley, for the final
words, final thoughts. I do have your website and link to the preserved Bible documentary here in
the chat for people to check out. Turjan Fan, I also have your website and your YouTube channel
linked for people to see as well. So Turjan Fan, appreciate you doing this. Thank you for your time
as always. And final words, final thoughts. Well, I appreciate the cordial conversation
and the interaction, the pushback, not just content to say we agree to disagree, but actually
the engagement with the other side's position. I'm appreciative of that. I appreciate the desire
that I hear to trust in God's word and to praise the power of the King James
translation in that process. I can certainly acknowledge that what I learned about the Bible,
most of it comes from reading the King James translation of the Bible, not so much from being
some kind of Hebrew expert or some kind of Greek expert that I just constantly read the original
languages. Everyone who's heard my debates knows that my go-to translation is the King James and
on my blog, if you see when I'm quoting scripture, it's almost always just quoting the King James
text. I got in trouble with some provisionists the other day because I quoted them a King James
translation and they thought I was up to some mischief by selecting that one that sounds too
Calvinistic for that. So yeah, obviously, I don't think the King James is Calvinistically biased,
but in any event, the real standard and the real source of that power, I think, has been
misidentified. I think the real source of that power is the Hebrew and the Greek,
and that the King James is powerful when and because it follows the Hebrew and the Greek.
And when it departs from the Hebrew and the Greek, that's when you have more trouble.
Now, as far as being able to compare some specific, the Zondervan printing of some
new international version, or some travesty like these ones that are trying to make some kind of
gender distorted translation where all the Greek masculine nouns are replaced by English neuter
nouns or something like this, I don't defend that. And the fact that you can change things,
that's not my objective. I don't want to just change the King James version for the sake of
changing it. But if we can be, if we are convinced as Christians that the Hebrew and Greek originals
say something different from what the King James says, we should change it. Or if what the King
James says meant something that was correct in 1600 but would mean something that's not correct
today, then we should change it. Whatever it is, we should improve the King James version because
it's a good translation, not just throw out the baby with the bathwater. So there might not be
very much bathwater left and maybe that we only change a small amount. But anyway, we should
improve what we can and stick to the standard, which is God's inspired word in Hebrew and Greek.
All right. Thank you for the final words and final thoughts, Turriton fan. And again,
gentlemen, a very good thought provoking debate on a very important topic. And so I enjoyed this.
There's a lot of hype and excitement for this event. And I don't think you guys let us down.
This was definitely a re watchable exchange as there was a lot of information provided on the
topic. So again, Pastor Jonathan Shelley and Turriton fan, I appreciate the time you've given
for tonight's debate. And with that, we're going to wrap things up to the audience. Thank you so
much for tuning in, share this content around as these kinds of discussions are very important.
So God bless all standing for truth is out.