Hey everybody, Pastor Steven Anderson here from Faithful Word Baptist Church in Tempe,
Arizona, continuing my response to the King James only controversy by Dr. James R. White.
And today I'm going to be talking about chapter four called Putting It Together.
Now he starts out this chapter by talking about Erasmus again.
He goes on and on about Erasmus and the fact that he published his first edition in 1516
and that he had limited resources and that he was in a hurry.
He only looked at a half dozen Greek manuscripts and he was just trying to get it out the door
and yada, yada, yada.
But here's the thing.
He also mentions that Erasmus followed it up with another edition in 1519, 1522, 1527
and 1535 and then he died in 1536.
So the fact that he was in a hurry on the first edition or had errors in the first edition
or only had access to a half dozen manuscripts on the first edition isn't relevant because
of the fact that there are four other editions after that where he had the time to go through
and correct things and fix things and clean it up.
Not only that, but after he died, then you have Stephanus who comes along and puts out
several editions of the Texas Receptus, further refining and purifying the text.
Then you have Beza who comes along and puts out several editions of the Texas Receptus.
So by the time you get to the King James Bible being published in 1611, literally almost
a hundred years have gone by since that first edition of Erasmus' Greek text in 1516.
So there was no press for time.
There was no, you know, we got to hurry up and we only have a couple of manuscripts.
Erasmus traveled all over Europe looking at manuscripts.
He had access to way more manuscripts for his subsequent editions.
Stephanus and Beza looked at a lot of manuscripts.
The King James Bible translators themselves had access to a multitude of manuscripts.
So to sit there and say, oh, well, you know, the first edition of Erasmus had these problems
in it.
Who cares?
The King James Bible translators did not translate from his first edition.
So he just sets that up as a straw man over and over again.
Look at all these problems in the first edition.
Well, not relevant.
There's plenty of time to get the kinks worked out over the course of literally almost a
hundred years of refining the Greek Texas Receptus.
Now another thing that he goes into is of course, 1 John 5.7.
Now at this point, it's important to understand the difference between the majority text and
the Texas Receptus.
The Texas Receptus means received text or the traditional Greek text.
This is what was received by all.
This is what had been worked on throughout the 1500s by Erasmus, Stephanus, Beza, and
been translated into all the major European languages.
And it's the Bible that's gone all over the world.
It's the basis for our King James Bible, etc.
That's known as the received text or the Texas Receptus.
Now what is the majority text?
Well, the majority text is a text that basically just takes what the majority of Greek manuscripts
say in any given verse and just goes with that.
Now there are about 5,800 Greek manuscripts that have survived until now.
Manuscripts of course are handwritten documents.
So there are 5,800 of them.
Some of them are complete.
Some of them are just fragmentary.
But out of these 5,800 Greek manuscripts, if we just look at them and just take what
the majority of those 5,800 manuscripts say in any given verse, that's called the majority
text.
Now the King James Bible translators nor any of these other guys, Erasmus, Stephanus, Beza,
and all the different translators into other European languages, they didn't just blindly
follow the majority text, but rather they examined it and tested it and came up with
the Texas Receptus, which is 99% following the majority text, but sometimes deviates
from it.
Now why would they deviate from it?
Why not just blindly follow the majority text all the time?
Now there is a great argument for the majority text that says, hey, if this is what most
manuscripts are saying, let's go with it.
Let's not go with anomalies.
But the reason why they didn't just blindly go with what the majority of texts are saying
is that sometimes an error can enter the textual stream and then be perpetuated over and over
again so that an error makes its way into a whole bunch of different manuscripts.
So just because the majority of the Greek texts are saying something, you have to take
into account other languages because there are over 10,000 Latin manuscripts of the New
Testament.
You've got manuscripts of the New Testament in Syriac and a whole bunch of other languages.
And so these guys didn't just blindly follow the majority Greek text, but they took into
account what Bible said in other languages and they also took into account ancient witnesses.
So for example, 1 John 5.7 is not in the majority of Greek manuscripts, but it is in some Greek
manuscripts and it did make its way into the Textus Receptus.
Why?
Well, because of the fact that there were a whole lot of writers in the fourth century,
fifth century that referred back to this verse as being there.
So even if it's not in a lot of Greek manuscripts, it had to have been around back then because
everybody's talking about it.
Not only that, you have Latin manuscripts of this going back even further than that.
Very ancient Latin manuscripts, even older than any Greek manuscripts that do contain
it in Latin and other languages.
So there is a lot of evidence for 1 John 5.7.
So even though on the surface you'd say, well, it's in very few Greek manuscripts, right,
but it's in a boatload of Latin manuscripts.
It's in all these ancient Greek writings.
It's in a lot of places.
There's a lot of evidence for it.
So these guys basically looked at all the evidence and decided that it was authentic
and they included it and it's rightfully in the King James Version where it belongs.
So know the King James does not always follow the majority Greek texts.
It takes other languages into account.
And one of the big things that he talks about in this chapter is the book of Revelation.
And he really goes after the book of Revelation.
And so I want to talk about that as we continue to talk about the difference between the Textus
Receptus and the majority text.
He starts out on page 91 by saying,
It is well known that Erasmus struggled with the text of Revelation, not finding any manuscripts
that contained the book.
He borrowed one from his friend Reuschlin.
Erasmus was quite pleased with this text, feeling that it was of such great age that
it might be thought to have been written in the time of the apostles.
So again, he's talking about the first edition of Erasmus' text that he only had one copy
of Revelation.
Now stop and think about this for a minute, okay?
If he's working from a half dozen manuscripts and none of them has the book of Revelation
in it, what does that tell you?
That tells me that there aren't as many Greek manuscripts of Revelation as there are of
the other books in the New Testament if he's got six of them and none of them contains
Revelation.
So he has to borrow a Greek manuscript of Revelation from a buddy.
Because the fact is that there are less Greek manuscripts of Revelation than of other New
Testament books.
So the Greek evidence is not as plenteous.
So therefore, when you're working with a book like Revelation, you're probably going to
lean on other languages, okay?
Just to examine which Greek reading you're going to go with.
On page 107, he says there are other important errors as well.
The final six verses were absent from Erasmus' lone manuscript.
Pressed for time, he translated the passage from the Vulgate into Greek so as to avoid
a gaping lacuna in the text and admitting the action in his notations.
We may chuckle at such a procedure today.
And certainly Erasmus took criticism for it.
But anyone familiar with the languages involved has to admire how well he did all things considered.
In the process, he did make a number of mistakes as we would expect.
The amazing thing is that these mistakes continue in the TR to this very day.
Why Erasmus did not change them at a later time, we cannot say.
He unashamedly made use of better texts of Revelation in his later editions.
But he left these errors intact.
Even more mind-boggling is that they then survived the editorial labors of Stephanus
and Beza to arrive unchanged in the hands of the KJV translators and subsequently ended
up in the King James Version.
That would be pretty mind-boggling and bizarre and far-fetched except that it didn't happen.
Because of the fact that these guys obviously, when they looked at all their better manuscripts
of Revelation, and when they looked at all the evidence, and when they spent literally
a hundred years on it between the efforts of Erasmus, Stephanus, and Beza, and the 54
men who translated the King James Version, you know what?
They decided that the text that we have today in the Textus Receptus is the correct text
of Revelation.
So these errors that persist in the text, they're not errors at all, they're right.
James White wants us to believe this far-fetched, unlikely story that Erasmus just goofed up
on Revelation and nobody called him out on it.
Stephanus, Beza, 54 translators, they all just went along with it.
No, folks, they looked at the evidence and the Revelation as we have it today is correct.
It's right.
Let me give you some examples of what he considers these errors that just persisted.
For example, in Revelation 14.1, it says in the King James,
And I looked, and lo, a lamb stood on the Mount Zion, and with them a hundred forty
and four thousand, having his father's name written in their foreheads.
In the New American Standard Bible, representing the modern versions, it says,
And I looked, and behold, the lamb was standing on Mount Zion, and with them one hundred forty-four
thousand, having his name and the name of his father written on their foreheads.
So this is the reading that James White wants us to think is authentic.
You know, this is one of his many examples from the book of Revelation of just, you know,
I can't believe that Erasmus didn't fix this mistake.
I can't believe that Stephanus and Beza didn't catch this.
I can't believe that the 54 brilliant scholars who translated the King James didn't catch
this error.
He wants us to believe that in Revelation 14.1, it's supposed to say that the 144,000
have basically Jesus' name and the Father's name written in their foreheads.
Now, you can just read those two, and it's just obvious which one's right.
The King James makes way more sense there.
The New American Standard is clearly the one that's wrong.
And in fact, you know, I don't want to go into a big, long dissertation on the doctrinal
implications of this change, but this is a very bad change that the New American Standard
and the modern versions have made, okay, by adding this, his name and his father's name
written in the foreheads.
So I'm going to refer you to another couple of videos that I've done where I address this
because a lot needs to be said about this.
So I did a video called The Mark of the Beast and Modalism.
So be sure to watch that video about Revelation 14.1.
Also I did a sermon called Antichrist Bible Version.
So I would refer you to those two videos to explain to you how wrong this is to have the
name of Jesus and the name of his father going in the foreheads of the 144,000.
Another thing that he claims is an error is where in Revelation 22, 18 and 19, where it
gives the curse on those who would add to or remove from God's Word, it says, I'll take
away his part out of the book of life.
And that's a really famous verse that most people are familiar with about people's part
being taken out of the book of life.
Well, it should say, according to James White, that their part would be taken out of the
tree of life.
Okay.
That's another one that he claims is a mistake in Revelation.
And then another one he brings up is Revelation 16, 5, where the King James says, Thou art
righteous, O Lord, which art and wast and shalt be.
James White thinks it should say who art and who wast, O Holy One.
Now that's awkward.
That doesn't make sense.
That doesn't sound right.
Okay.
To sit there and say who art and who wast, O Holy One.
When all throughout the rest of the book of Revelation, you have this pattern of this
triple, which is and which was and which is to come the almighty, who art and who wast
and who shall be, you know, you have these three mentioned over and over and over again.
And then there's this one place where he's claiming it should say who art and wast and
you're expecting, you know, and shall be or who is to come or who.
And he says here, no, no, no, it's actually who art and who wast, O Holy One.
Okay.
It's awkward.
It doesn't make sense.
It's wrong.
The King James gets it right.
You say, well, you know, what do you mean it sounds right?
Well, here's the thing.
You know, the Holy Ghost is there to guide us into all truth.
You know, if you have the Holy Spirit living inside of you, you should be able to read
the New Testament and the King James and read it in the NIV and tell which one is God's
word because you should be able to recognize the voice of the shepherd.
Now James White would scoff at that kind of logic and say that that's ridiculous, but,
you know, I'm sorry you don't understand what it's like to have the Holy Spirit guiding
you James White, but you know, the Holy Ghost guides us into all truth and we can tell when
things are right and when things are not right.
That's part of the ministry of the Holy Spirit to guide us into all truth.
Textual criticism actually takes the exact opposite approach.
James White even mentions in his book that one of the rules of textual criticism that
they follow is that if you have two readings that are different and one of them sounds
right, one of them seems logical and the other one seems a little bit off the wall, they
go with the one that's off the wall.
They go with the one that sounds weird and their logic is, well, why would anyone change
it to that?
That must be the real reading and somebody came along and thought, Hmm, that sounds weird.
I'm going to fix that.
I'm going to correct that.
So this is a very, uh, just carnal way of looking at this.
Like it's just a manmade book that somebody comes along and says, Oh, I think I'm going
to fix this and improve it and make it better.
Folks, you can't improve on God's word.
Okay.
It's, it's, it's perfect.
It's right.
And so it should sound right.
Okay.
It shouldn't sound weird.
Like for example, in John chapter one where it says, no man has seen God at any time.
The only begotten son, which is in the bosom of the father.
He had declared him.
That sounds right.
That makes sense.
That's logical.
Okay.
James White wants us to go with what the new American standard says.
No man has seen God at any time.
The only begotten God, which is in the bosom of the father.
He had declared him the only begotten God.
That's super weird.
It sounds wrong.
It doesn't make sense.
It ruins the verse, but he says, Oh, that, well, that's why it's right.
Cause it sounds weird.
That proves it's right because you know, who would change it to something so weird
as begotten God.
So it must be right.
This is literally the kind of logic they use when something sounds right.
They think like, Oh, well let's go with the one that sounds wrong cause cause somebody
was probably just fixing it to make it sound right.
So we're going to go with the weirder one.
The weirder one's probably more original.
That is the logic that they use.
Literally.
It's, it's, it's very strange.
Okay.
Anyway, let me move on to some other things in the chapter.
Another verse that he brings up is Luke chapter two verse 14 where the King James Bible says
good will toward men and the new American standard representing the modern version says
good will among men with whom he's pleased.
Okay.
So the King James just has good will toward men.
The modern versions have good will among men with whom he's pleased.
Okay.
Now you can see why a Calvinist like James White would like that, that God doesn't have
good will toward all men.
It's just the ones with whom he's pleased.
There are some times in the new Testament where God talks about just having good will
toward men and, and glad tidings, which shall be to all people.
The grace of the Lord Jesus be with you all.
It's you know, God wants all men to be saved.
He would have all men to be saved and to come into the knowledge of the truth.
He's not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.
But that's not what the Calvinists believe.
So they like these other readings like, well, good will among men with whom he's pleased,
which is what James White is arguing for on page 105.
So the bottom line is that throughout this chapter, James White is bringing up examples
of where the King James Bible and the text is receptors do not go with the majority of
Greek manuscripts.
And he's basically just acting like it's just ridiculous and they're so wrong.
But what they're doing is they're going with other evidence outside the Greek.
They're looking at what other languages are saying as well.
Now here's the hypocrisy of this.
And what's so ridiculous about this is that, you know, James White doesn't believe in the
majority text.
He's constantly going with the anomalies of Sinaiticus, Vaticanus, and other just corrupt
manuscripts that are in the minority.
The Alexandrian readings that are in the vast minority.
He's constantly going with those readings and he's constantly going against the majority.
But not only that, the modern Bible versions in the Old Testament, they constantly have
readings that have zero support in Hebrew.
None.
Okay.
They will take readings from the Septuagint.
Okay.
Like for example, where they'll change sons of God to angels.
And it'll say, you know, well, the Hebrew says sons of God in the footnote and the NIV,
but they'll put angels because they're getting that from the Septuagint.
So they're literally translating stuff from Greek in the Old Testament, which is supposed
to be translated from the Hebrew, but then he's going to turn around and get mad because
Erasmus and Stephanus and Beza and the King James translators are taking into account
other languages.
At least they translated the New Testament 100% from the Greek and at least they translated
the Old Testament 100% from the Hebrew.
But when choosing which Greek reading to use, yeah, they took into account other languages,
which makes sense.
And we're going to get into that a little bit later on.
But the hypocrisy is astounding.
It's okay for the modern translations to go to the Septuagint and to just reject what
the Hebrew says with no manuscript evidence in Hebrew.
So it's a double standard there, okay.
But anyway, let's move on to more material in this chapter.
A little bit later in the chapter, he has a section called the text of the reformation,
question mark.
And I want to read this to you because this is such an important point.
Often the textus receptus is claimed to be the text of the reformation or the text of
the reformers.
The claims desired effect is to add to the TR's weight the witness of such great men
of God as Martin Luther and John Calvin.
Is this claim tenable though?
Everyone admits that the Greek text utilized by Luther in his preaching and by Calvin in
his writing and teaching was what would become known as the textus receptus.
But we must point out that they use this text by default, not by choice.
In other words, it was not so much a matter of their rejecting other text types as it
was a matter of using what was available.
One cannot assert with any level of confidence that Calvin, were he alive today, would hold
to the textus receptus as the inspired text.
In fact, there's good reason to think otherwise.
Folks, did you hear what he just said?
He said, well, yeah, of course the reformers used the textus receptus as the only thing
there was.
It's the only thing that was available.
They didn't choose it.
It's all they had.
Stop and think about this, folks.
If the textus receptus was the only Bible available, if it was the only Bible they had,
how could it be wrong, folks?
You would have to believe that the true Bible was just AWOL.
The true Bible was just missing.
For the entire Protestant Reformation, it just didn't exist.
It just wasn't there.
And thank God for these archaeologists who finally dug up the real Bible in the 1800s.
They finally dug up the real Bible in the 1900s.
Folks, do you actually believe that at home?
Because if you do, I have to wonder, do you have any faith in God at all to have written
and preserved the Bible?
I mean, how can you say that you believe God wrote the Bible and preserved the Bible, but
then you're going to sit there and say, oh, well, the right Bible wasn't even available.
It wasn't even around.
For centuries.
For over a thousand years, it was just gone.
But thank God we've dug it up now, and thank God for these scholars that have shown us
what it really was supposed to say.
Yeah, they used the text as receptus because it was the only thing available.
You know, if John Calvin were alive today, he'd be using a phony version.
Yeah, I'm sure he would be using a phony version.
He'd probably be using the ESV or some other piece of junk.
But the point is, he used the right version because it's all they had.
Folks, that proves that these modern versions are not of God if they didn't even exist back
then.
They're new.
They're so new, Martin Luther couldn't have used those texts.
John Calvin couldn't have used texts with these readings because they didn't exist.
Okay?
So I mean, what a ridiculous point that he's making here.
He's actually making our point for us.
Yeah, it was the only Bible around back then for God's people to even use, but he's claiming
it was wrong.
It's right, folks.
The text as receptus is right.
The received text, the King James is right.
Okay.
Then he goes on to a section called the translation of the KJV and he talks a little bit about
the translation method and how they broke up into teams and how there were 54 guys.
But then he goes into the rules for the translators.
He says, fourth, the translators were given certain guidelines under which to work.
Some rules of interest include the following.
The ordinary Bible read in church commonly called the Bishop's Bible to be followed and
as little altered as the truth of the original will permit.
So the instructions to the translators of the King James were that they were supposed
to take the Bishop's Bible as their basis and to change it as little as possible.
So if it ain't broke, don't fix it.
The Bishop's Bible, which is from the late 1560s was to be the basis for the King James
version and it was only to be changed where it needed to be changed.
Okay.
Now a lot of people ask this dumb question of, well, where was the Bible before 1611
or how could people get saved before 1611 if they didn't have a King James?
Look, there were other great Bibles before the King James in modern English, just like
the Bishop's Bible, the Tyndale Bible.
There were other predecessors to the King James that were good.
So it's a question of good, better, best.
You know, the King James is the final draft.
Tyndale was the rough draft.
Okay.
The Bishop's Bible was an excellent rough draft.
The King James is the finished product.
And you say, where was the Bible before that?
Well, it was in other languages.
Modern English has only been around since the mid 1400s.
And then here's another interesting one.
These translations are to be used when they agree better with the text than the Bishop's
Bible.
So remember the Bishop's Bible is the basis, but he says, hey, you know, if the Bishop's
Bible is wrong, lean on these first and foremost, Tyndale, Matthews, Coverdale, Whitchurch,
and Geneva.
Okay.
So he's saying, go with the bishops or go with other previous English versions where
you can.
Okay.
But if they're wrong, fix it and get it right.
Here's what he says about these rules that I just read.
These informative guidelines reveal that number one, the KJV relied heavily upon previous
translations prompting us to ask the KJV advocate.
When the KJV gives a reading that is identical to the Bishop's Bible, was the Bishop's Bible
inspired and inerrant in that place, even before 1611 folks, that is the stupidest question
I've ever heard in my life.
Let me read that for you again.
It prompts us to ask the KJV advocate.
So when the KJV gives a reading that is identical to the Bishop's Bible, was the Bishop's Bible
inspired and inerrant in that place, even before 1611?
What kind of ridiculous, crazy nonsense is that?
What kind of a dumb question is that?
If the Bishop's Bible says the exact same thing as the King James, of course it's right.
Of course it's perfect.
What kind of a dumb question?
I don't even get what his point is with that ridiculous question.
Okay.
Nobody's claiming that the Bible didn't exist before 1611.
Quite the opposite.
The Bishop's Bible was a great Bible to use before 1611.
You know, if you had a copy of the Bishop's Bible today, you could do great works for
God with it.
Okay.
It's just that the King James is better.
There's good, better, and best.
They weren't replacing a bad version with a good.
They were replacing a good version with the ultimate version.
Okay.
So, I mean, that's just a ridiculous question.
It doesn't even make sense.
He says, finally, we need to note quite unfortunately that a number of the original translators
died during the translation process.
Why do we mention this?
It is a sad fact that some KJV only advocates consumed by theories of conspiracy have noted
that some modern textual critics or translators have been struck dumb or have even died, thus
allegedly providing evidence of the divine wrath against them for tampering with the
KJV.
Now, here's what's hypocritical about this, okay?
He's saying, well, some guys died during the King James.
Was that the judgment of God?
Obviously not.
They were a bunch of super old guys, so some of them died.
But he says, well, yeah, but the King James guys, you know, they'll point out people being
struck dumb or dying as evidence of God's wrath.
Well, first of all, there's a big difference between being struck dumb and dying.
People die all the time.
In fact, everybody dies, right?
Unless we make it to the second coming of Christ, we're all going to die.
So dying is pretty normal.
Being struck dumb is extremely out of the ordinary, okay?
Where somebody just from one day to the next loses their ability to speak, they just can't
speak anymore.
That is super weird and a lot more noteworthy than a super old guy dying of old age, okay?
And what's hypocritical about this is that the guy that was struck dumb was the guy who
made a super liberal paraphrase of the Bible.
It was either the living Bible or the message.
It was one of those two, forgive me, I can't remember which one.
Either the guy who did the living Bible or the message was struck dumb.
There's no way James White approves of either the living Bible or the message.
So why would he defend these guys?
Why would he defend the guy who was struck dumb after making the living Bible or the
message when I guarantee you that James White would say that both of those versions are
total pieces of junk and perversions of God's word?
Even James White would admit that because those versions are so off the deep end, okay?
It's not like James White just accepts all versions.
He said at the beginning of the book that there are a lot of versions that he rejects.
He would, of course, reject something as wicked as the New World Translation, but I guarantee
he would reject the living Bible and the message as well.
So then after this, he has a section called, Let the Translators Speak.
And he gives a ton of quotations from the preface to the King James.
Now, most King James don't have this printed in them.
Some of them do, okay?
So sometimes the King James will be printed with what's called the Epistle Dedicatory
at the beginning, where it'll be, you know, to the most mighty King James, defender of
the faith, et cetera, okay?
That's a short introduction.
A lot of Bibles will have that, but even less Bibles will have the long introduction from
the translator to the reader.
And you'll know you're reading it because the first phrase is zeal to promote the common
good.
So if you look in your Bible and there's this big, long text that starts out zeal to promote
the common good, you'll know you have it.
Well, he quotes a whole bunch of sections from that.
I'm not even going to bother even reading these to you or referring to these because
I cannot even figure out what his point is.
I mean, I'm just agreeing with everything that they're saying in most of these.
Like most of these, they're just saying a bunch of great stuff that makes sense, and
it all agrees perfectly with being King James only.
So I'm not going to address most of it because it's not relevant, but I am going to address
the sections that are relevant, okay?
So I'm going to skip a lot of these that are just great stuff.
I mean, it's interesting stuff, but it doesn't prove anything.
I think he's just kind of trying to snow the reader by just showing you all these quotations
that really are not relevant to the issue.
But then he points out on page 120, their view that the Word of God is translatable
from language to language is plainly spelled out.
Great.
I mean, yeah, of course.
Of course the Word of God's translatable from language to language.
Isn't that the whole point of being King James only is that, yeah, we believe you don't have
to read it in Hebrew or Greek to get perfection.
You can read the Word of God in English, okay?
This is what I mean about how he brings this stuff out, and it's like, what's your point?
But here's the quotation.
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 uttereth in parliament, being translated into French,
Dutch, Italian, and Latin, is still the King's speech, though it be not interpreted by every
translator with the light grace, nor peradventure so fitly for phrase, nor so expressly for
sense everywhere.
So what they're saying in this quotation is, yeah, you can translate something into another
language and it says the same thing, folks.
Now, some translations are more beautiful than others, but you can translate the King's
speech into seven languages and it can say the same thing in all seven of them.
It might sound a little better in one than the other, but it's going to sound great.
And a translator that's not as good is not going to make it sound quite as good.
And he's explaining that even the worst English translation is still the Word of God.
Okay, but here's what you have to understand.
They didn't have the NIV back then.
They didn't have the ESV.
They didn't have the New American Standard.
They didn't have the message and the Living Bible and the New World Translation and all
this junk.
So when they're saying, hey, even the meanest English translation is still the Word of God,
they're not giving a carte blanche to all the bogus modern versions.
You know what they're talking about?
They're talking about Tyndale.
They're talking about the Great Bible, Matthew Bible, Coverdale.
They're talking about the Bishop's Bible, the Geneva Bible.
They're not talking about the junk we see today, folks.
So you can't apply that quote to the modern situation with just super different Bible
versions.
Okay.
They're talking about different English translations of the Textus Receptus.
They're not talking about Westcott and Hort and Nestle Allen.
That stuff wasn't even around.
Then James White says, they use the same sources and methods as modern translators, looking
into the translations in other languages, consulting commentaries and the like.
Here's another quote from the intro.
Neither did we think much to consult the translators or commentators, Chaldee, Hebrew, Syrian,
Greek, or Latin, no, nor the Spanish, French, Italian, or Dutch, neither did we disdain
to revise that which we had done and to bring back to the anvil that which we had hammered.
But having and using as great helps as were needful and fearing no reproach for slowness
nor coveting praise for expedition, we have at length through the good hand of the Lord
upon us, brought the work to that pass that you see.
So here they're basically saying, Hey, we weren't in a hurry.
We took our time and we didn't just only look at the Greek and Hebrew.
We looked at the Chaldee.
We looked at the Syrian.
We looked at the Latin.
We took it all into account.
This goes back to what I was saying earlier in this video that, yeah, they referenced
other languages too, which is part of why they did such an excellent job.
This doesn't prove his point at all because he, yeah, they were just like the modern transit.
No, they weren't because the product is totally different.
They go through how they looked at all these other languages.
They took their time, but I want to point out one thing that he doesn't talk about.
It says through the good hand of the Lord upon us.
Now, he goes on and on about how they never claimed that they were being providentially
guided.
You know, you'd have, if you're going to believe that the Texas Receptus is perfect, or if
you're going to believe that the King James is perfect, you'd have to believe that they
were providentially guided.
They don't even claim that he says, well, really?
Because they're talking about having the good hand of the Lord upon them.
You know, if you study the King James translators, they went through a period leading up to the
translation where they spent three hours a day praying.
They would get together and just pray for hours that God would guide them.
But I guess we're supposed to believe that when 54 brilliant scholars get together and
pray for three hours a day and then spend seven years on a translation, and they're
already working from a great translation, the Bishop's Bible, that somehow they can't
get it right.
And we've all had the wrong Bible for hundreds of years.
And thank God for a bunch of archaeologists and atheists to give us the right Bible.
Anyway, let me move forward in the chapter here and get to the next thing.
Okay, here's another quote from the translators that he gives us from that long zeal to promote
the common good section.
Therefore, as St. Augustine saith, that variety of translations is profitable for the finding
out of the sense of the scriptures.
So he's saying, well, the translators thought that you should use a variety of translations
to get the meaning.
Well, again, I would say, number one, they're talking about all good translations.
You know, Tyndale, Coverdale, Bishops, Geneva.
You know, they're looking at the Reina Valera Antigua in Spanish.
They're looking at good Bibles.
They're not saying, oh yeah, just have this corrupt Bible.
Have a Jehovah's Witness Bible.
That's going to help you.
Okay, so that's, again, they were at a different time, so yeah, they had a different attitude.
That makes sense.
Here's James White's commentary on this.
When the very preface to the King James Version says variety of translations is profitable
for finding out the sense of the scriptures, the KJV only position thereby is proven utterly
ahistorical.
That stance requires the translation to be something its own authors never intended it
to be.
So his evidence is basically that, you know, the King James Bible translators didn't think
or didn't assume that their work was perfect, okay?
They thought that maybe another translation could be done down the road that was better,
or they didn't claim perfection for their work.
So according to James White, the King James Bible can't be perfect because the translators
didn't claim it was perfect.
They didn't have that attitude.
Why would they have to have that attitude for it to be true?
I mean, if they prayed for guidance, if they then, you know, did their best, spent years
and years, compared it with all these other languages, dialed it in, and if God guided
them and they got it perfect, just because they don't know that doesn't mean that it
isn't true.
Let me give you an example from the Bible.
What about when they walked up to John the Baptist in John chapter one and said, art
thou Elias?
And he said, I'm not.
John the Baptist said, I'm not Elias.
But yet what did Jesus say?
Jesus said, if you will receive it, this is Elias, which was for to come.
So John the Baptist, when he's asked, are you Elias?
He says, I'm not.
Jesus says, he's Elias.
So who are we going to listen to?
Are we going to listen to Jesus or are we going to listen to John the Baptist?
John the Baptist did not realize that he was Elias.
When the Bible said in Malachi that the Lord would send Elijah the prophet before the day
of the Lord, John the Baptist didn't realize that he was fulfilling that scripture.
But when the disciples asked Jesus, hey, why did the scribe say that Elias must first come?
He said, well, Elias has come already.
Elijah already came.
John the Baptist is Elias.
Okay.
Now, I'm not saying that John the Baptist was literally Elijah.
Okay.
That's not what I'm saying.
Okay.
But whether or not John the Baptist was literally Elijah, Jesus said, he is Elijah.
Okay.
He said, I'm not Elijah.
Jesus said, this was Elijah.
Folks, he just didn't realize that he was Elijah.
Again, I'm not saying he was literally Elijah like a reincarnation or something, but he
was the guy that's referred to when it says Elijah will come first.
That was a prophecy of John the Baptist.
Jesus explicitly stated that.
Just because he didn't know that, when they said, art thou Elias?
He could have truthfully answered, yeah, yeah, I am.
Yeah, Elias must first come and that's me.
Here I am.
I'm preparing the way of the Lord.
I'm making his path straight.
But he didn't realize that.
Just because the KJV translators didn't realize that what they created was the finished product,
that it was perfect and that it would stand for 400 years and be without error doesn't
mean that it isn't so.
It's a same type of situation.
Okay.
So then he talks about the form of the 1611 KJV and he talks about typos.
The fact that when the KJV was first printed in 1611, it was filled with typos and that's
true.
There were a lot of typos in that first edition and in fact, later editions of the KJV ended
up having so many typos that the printer Robert Barker was actually thrown in prison for having
too many typos.
He didn't do a good enough job with the printing of it and so he died in prison.
So yeah, the KJV had typos in it so over time those typos had to be corrected.
But again, that doesn't mean that the King James translation wasn't perfect.
But people who want to attack King James onlyism, they constantly want to bring up these typos
as if this just invalidates King James onlyism.
And one of the things they'll try to do is compare the modern King James version, which
is typically the 1769 edition with the 1611 edition and show, oh, look at all these differences.
Look where they're different.
Folks, there are no differences between the 1611 and the 1769 other than capitalization,
punctuation, spelling, and the correction of typos.
There were no translation differences made.
Nobody went through and said, hey, the KJV translators did this in 1611.
We're going to change it to this.
We're going to change their translation.
The translation has not been updated, folks.
So things, capitalizations, punctuation, the font has been changed, but the words have
not been changed other than to correct typos because, yeah, the 1611 edition had typos.
Now look, a lot of people claim, oh, the 1611 is totally different than the modern King
James.
It isn't true.
And because of this, we have a replica of the 1611 edition, an exact facsimile of the
1611 edition in the back of our church auditorium for people to come and examine it.
And they can take their modern King James and compare it to that 1611 edition.
And you're going to see that it says the exact same thing other than places where it has
typos that have been documented and corrected.
And it'll be a different font than they're used to.
And the spellings will be different.
The capitalizations and punctuation will be different.
But folks, God didn't promise to preserve capitalizations, spellings, and punctuations
in a foreign language.
He preserved the word.
It's the word that matters.
The capitalization, punctuation, spelling, none of that stuff matters.
Then he goes into this other silly discussion between, you know, well, which King James,
the Cambridge or the Oxford?
And even a lot of KJV onlyists will fall into this dumb discussion of Oxford versus Cambridge.
There is no meaningful difference between the Oxford and Cambridge King James, okay?
It's all these different capitalizations and just these dumb nitpicky things.
Now, when I first looked at the list of differences between the Oxford and the Cambridge editions
of the King James, you know, I had to just laugh at it's just, oh, whether this S is
capitalized here or there.
It's just all these dumb nitpicky things that don't change the meaning.
There was one that I saw that jumped off the page of me that seemed at first like it was
a meaningful difference because it was where one of them said he, H-E, and the other one
said ye, Y-E.
So when I first looked at that, I thought that it was a meaningful difference, okay?
Until you actually look up the verse and you'll see that they both mean the exact same thing,
okay?
And this will just illustrate to you how stupid this whole Cambridge versus Oxford debate
is when I read this for you.
And this is the most meaningful difference and it's not meaningful at all, but listen
to this from Jeremiah 34 16, Cambridge edition, but ye turned and polluted my name and caused
every man his servant and every man his handmaid whom ye had set at liberty at their pleasure
to return and brought them into subjection to be unto you for servants and for handmaids.
Here's the Oxford edition, but ye turned and polluted my name and caused every man his
every man his handmaid whom he had set at liberty at their pleasure to return and brought
them into subjection to be unto you for servants and for handmaids.
So the only difference is the difference between ye and he.
And you say, well, that's two different things.
I mean, ye is a plural second person pronoun and he is a singular third person pronoun.
No, my friend, they are both identical because in the context it says, but ye turned and
polluted my name and caused every man his servant and every man his handmaid whom ye
had set at liberty or whom he had set at liberty.
You get the identical meaning.
Why?
Because the ye and the his are both referring to the same people.
Ye caused every man his servant whom ye had set at liberty or whom he had set at liberty.
Whether the ye refers to the ye or the he refers to the his, it's the same people doing
the same thing.
It's just a difference in style.
Okay.
You say, well, which one's right?
Which one's original?
It doesn't matter because it doesn't change the meaning.
Okay.
Because putting he or ye there means the exact same thing.
There is no difference in meaning between these two verses.
They both mean the exact same thing.
Either one of them is a perfect English translation because they both mean the identical thing.
So there is no meaningful difference between the Oxford and the Cambridge.
They're both the word of God.
They're both God's perfect word in the English language, the King James, whether you have
an Oxford or Cambridge, they're both dead on perfectly accurate.
So that's it for chapter four.
That's pretty much what he covers in this chapter.
And then chapter five is about the King James only camp.
That'll be the next video.
God bless you.
Have a great day.