EXAMINING "

EXAMINING "THE KING JAMES ONLY CONTROVERSY"

PART 3 OF 4

[Distributed by Way of Life Literatureâs Fundamental Baptist Information Service. Copyright 1998. These articles cannot be stored on BBS or Internet sites and cannot be sold or placed by themselves or with other material in any electronic format for sale, but may be distributed for free by e-mail or by print. They must be left intact and nothing removed or changed, including these informational headers. This is a listing for Fundamental Baptists and other fundamentalist, Bible-believing Christians. Our goal is not devotional but is TO PROVIDE INFORMATION TO ASSIST PREACHERS IN THE PROTECTION OF THE CHURCHES IN THIS APOSTATE HOUR. If you desire to receive this type of material on a regular basis, e-mail us, give us your name, address, and the name of the church you are a member of, and request to be placed on the list. Please note that this is not a free service. We take up a quarterly offering to fund this ministry, and each subscriber is expected to participate. To unsubscribe or to submit a change of address, send your name and the request to fbns@wayoflife.org. This is not an automated list. Changes in the database often require two to four days to activate. Some of these articles are from O Timothy magazine. David W. Cloud, Editor. O Timothy is a monthly magazine in its 17th year of publication. Subscription is $20/yr. Way of Life publishes many helpful books. The catalog is located at the web site -- http://www.wayoflife.org.]

Updated March 1, 2000 (first published March 5, 1998) (David W. Cloud, Fundamental Baptist Information Service, P.O. Box 610368, Port Huron, MI 48061, fbns@wayoflife.org)-

The following is Part 3 of 4 Parts of this critique --

WHITE RAISES QUESTIONS AND ISSUES WHICH HE IMPLIES ARE IGNORED BY THOSE HE LABELS "KING JAMES ONLY."

This is reprehensible because all of these issues have been acknowledged and addressed by defenders of the Authorized Version. In fact, White’s entire book has been answered by Authorized Version defenders who wrote prior to the publication of his book. He simply ignores all of this work, or lightly passes over it as if it were insignificant. Consider some examples of this:

(1) WHITE MAKES AN ISSUE OF THE VARIOUS EDITIONS OF THE RECEIVED TEXT and implies that this is a problem which is not addressed by "King James Only" men and that it is something which cannot be answered from a "King James Only" position. The fact is that Edward F. Hills addressed this in 1956 in his book The King James Bible Defended (Christian Research Press, P.O. Box 13023, Des Moines, IA 50310-0023). Chapter VII of this book (it was chapter VI in the 1956 edition) is titled "The Textus Receptus and the King James Version," and it contains a detailed look at the various editions of the Reformation era Received Text and how this variety can be viewed in light of the doctrine of Bible preservation.

(2) WHITE MAKES AN ISSUE OF THE VARIOUS EDITIONS OF THE KING JAMES BIBLE AND IMPLIES THAT THIS IS A PROBLEM WHICH CANNOT BE ANSWERED FROM A "KING JAMES ONLY" POSITION. The fact is that Dr. Hills addressed this in 1956, and many other Authorized Version defenders have addressed it as well. Dr. Donald Waite has published an exhaustive comparison of the 1611 edition of the King James Bible and the modern editions of the King James Bible (The Authorized Version 1611 Compared to Today's King James Version, Bible for Today, 900 Park Ave., Collingswood, NJ 08108). He has tallied and categorized every change and has shown us exactly what the differences are. He has shown that only a very tiny percentage of the changes affect the meaning of the text in any sense whatsoever and that this is actually a non-issue which is raised as a smokescreen by those who want to draw people’s attention away from the weighty matters of this debate. White admits that "most of the revisions have dealt with small matters of spelling, punctuation, etc." (p. 79), but then he says of the differences, "Surely they present a sticky problem for the radical proponent of KJV Onlyism. … But once a person has invested the English with inspiration itself, that route is no longer a consistent option." This is another evidence that White wants to cloud the debate by pretending that most defenders of the King James Bible are on the radical fringe and believe it is directly inspired of God. This is nonsense. In my experience, most defenders of the King James Bible believe it is an accurate translation of the preserved text. They believe that inspiration has to do, first and foremost, with the direct giving of the Scriptures to the prophets and apostles of old. They do not believe that a translation is directly inspired, but that inasmuch as it is an accurate translation of the inspired text, it is therefore authoritative, carrying over into English the inspirational authority of the original text from which it is translated. Further, I contend that my experience is much more extensive than White’s in that I personally know and fellowship with and have communicated through the years with many more King James defenders than he has. Since 1973 I have been preaching and fellowshipping with and studying under and reading after King James Bible defenders. These are my friends and my people. James White was only 11 years old in 1973.

(3) WHITE MAKES AN ISSUE OF THE DIFFERENCES BETWEEN THE RECEIVED TEXT AND THE MODERN SO-CALLED MAJORITY TEXT (such as that published by Thomas Nelson in 1982). White says, "It is important that the reader understand that the TR is not identical with the ‘Majority Text,’ even though it is closely related" (White, p. 65). Many Authorized Version defenders have addressed this issue. Jack Moorman, for example, addresses this in his 1988 book When the KJV Departs from the "Majority" Text: A New Twist in the Continuing Attack on the Authorized Version (Bible for Today, 900 Park Ave., Collingswood, NJ 08108). In this large work (153 pages, 8.5 X 11-inch format) Moorman demonstrates the following: (1) the Hodges-Farstad Majority Text is established upon an insufficient and faulty foundation (the Von Sodom apparatus and the 046 MSS of Revelation); therefore, their conclusion that in 1,800 places the Authorized New Testament lacks majority text support is in error. "These two factors account for the vast majority of readings which they would like to alter in the Received Text." (2) Even most of the remaining passages which do seem to have only a minority of MS support, "nevertheless [have] quite substantial support." Moorman presents this support in 87 pages of listings. (3) Even the verse which supposedly has less manuscript support than any other in the Authorized Version (1 John 5:7) has a wide variety of support. Moorman gives an overview of the internal and external evidence for this important verse.

(4) WHITE MAKES AN ISSUE OF THE ALLEGED LACK OF SUPPORT FOR 1 JOHN 5:7. White largely ignores the powerful arguments which have led Bible believers to accept 1 John 5:7 as Scripture for centuries on end. 1 John 5:7 stood unchallenged in the English Bible for a full six hundred years. It was in the first English Bible by John Wycliffe in 1380, in Tyndale’s New Testament of 1525, the Coverdale Bible of 1535, the Matthew’s Bible of 1537, the Taverner Bible of 1539, the Great Bible of 1539, the Geneva New Testament of 1557, the Bishop’s Bible of 1568, and the Authorized Version of 1611. It did not disappear from a standard English Bible until the English Revised of 1881 omitted it. James White would probably reply, "Sure, Wycliffe translated from the Latin Bible and 1 John 5:7 has always been in the Latin Bible. It was an accident of history. It doesn’t mean anything." I believe this history means a lot. The fact that the most widely used Bibles through the centuries contained 1 John 5:7 speaks volumes to me. It tells me that God had His hand in this, that it is preserved Scripture. Were the countless preachers, theologians, church and denominational leaders, editors, translators, etc., who accepted the Trinitarian statement in 1 John 5:7-8 of these English Bibles through all these long centuries really so ignorant? What a proud generation we have today! White is correct when he states that long tradition in itself is not proof that something is true, but he ignores the fact that long tradition CAN BE an evidence that something is true, and if that tradition lines up with the Word of God, it is not to be discarded. "Remove not the ancient landmark, which thy fathers have set" (Proverbs 22:28). There are many reasons for believing 1 John 5:7 was penned by the Apostle John under inspiration of the Holy Spirit, but White’s readers are not informed of this fact and are left with an insufficient presentation of this issue.

White ignores the scholarly defense of the Trinitarian passage published by Frederick Nolan in 1815--An Inquiry into the Integrity of the Greek Vulgate or Received Text of the New Testament, in which the Greek manuscripts are newly classed, the integrity of the Authorised Text vindicated, and the various readings traced to their origin. This 576-page volume has been reprinted by Bible for Today, 900 Park Ave., Collingswood, NJ 08108. The Southern Presbyterian Review for April 1871, described Nolan’s book as "a work which defends the received text with matchless ingenuity and profound learning."

White ignores the Christ-honoring scholarship of 19th-century Presbyterian scholar Robert Dabney, who wrote in defense of the Trinitarian statement in 1 John 5:7 (Discussions of Robert Lewis Dabney, "The Doctrinal Various Readings of the New Testament Greek," Vol. 1, p. 350-390; Edinburgh: Banner of Truth Trust, 1891, reprinted 1967). Dabney was offered the editorship of a newspaper at age 22 and it was said of him that no man his age in the U.S. was superior as a writer. He taught at Union Theological Seminary from 1853 to 1883 and pastored the College Church during most of those years. He contributed to a number of publications, including the Central Presbyterian, the Presbyterian Critic, and the Southern Presbyterian. His last years were spent with the Austin School of Theology in Texas, a university he co-founded. A.A. Hodge called Dabney "the best teacher of theology in the United States, if not in the world," and General Stonewall Jackson referred to him as the most efficient officer he knew (Thomas Cary Johnson, The Life and Letters of Robert Lewis Dabney, cover jacket, The Banner of Truth Trust, 1977 edition of the 1903 original).

White ignores the fact that it was particularly the Unitarians and German modernists who fought viciously against the Trinitarian passage in the King James Bible. For example, in my library is a copy of Ezra Abbot’s Memoir of the Controversy Respecting the Three Heavenly Witnesses, 1 John v.7 (New York: James Miller, 1866). Abbot, Harvard University Divinity School professor, was one of at least three Christ-denying Unitarians who worked on the English Revised Version (ERV) of 1881 and the American Standard Version (ASV) of 1901. Abbot was a close friend of Philip Schaff, head of the ASV project, and was spoken of warmly in the introduction to Schaff’s history. According to the testimony of the revisers themselves, the Unitarian Abbot wielded great influence on the translation. Consider the following statement by Matthew Riddle, a member of the ASV translation committee:

"Dr. Ezra Abbot was the foremost textual critic in America, and HIS OPINIONS USUALLY PREVAILED WHEN QUESTIONS OF TEXT WERE DEBATED. ... Dr. Ezra Abbot presented a very able paper on the last clause of Romans 9:5, arguing that it was a doxology to God, and not to be referred to Christ. His view of the punctuation, which is held by many modern scholars, appears in the margin of the American Appendix, and is more defensible than the margin of the English Company. ... Acts 20:28. ‘The Lord’ is placed in the text, with this margin: ‘Some ancient authorities, including the two oldest manuscripts, read God.’ ... Dr. Abbot wrote a long article in favor of the reading [which removes ‘God’ from the text]" (Matthew Riddle, The Story of the Revised New Testament, Philadelphia: The Sunday School Times Co., 1908, pp. 30,39,83).

Matthew Riddle’s testimony in this regard is very important as he was one of the most influential members of the American Standard Version committee and one of the few members who survived to see the translation printed. The ASV was the first influential Bible published in America to drop 1 John 5:7 from the text, AND IT DID SO UNDER THE INFLUENCE OF A UNITARIAN. White sees no significance to these matters. I see great significance. White, as do most modern version defenders, ignores the direct Unitarian connection with modern textual criticism and with the textual changes pertaining to the Lord Jesus Christ which appear in the modern versions. We have exposed this connection extensively in our book Modern Versions Founded upon Apostasy.

White also ignores the scholarly articles defending 1 John 5:7 which have been published since the late 1800s by the Trinitarian Bible Society. He also ignores the excellent defense of 1 John 5:7-8 by Jack Moorman in his 1988 book When the KJV Departs from the "Majority" Text: A New Twist in the Continuing Attack on the Authorized Version (Bible for Today, 900 Park Ave., Collingswood, NJ 08108). Moorman gives an overview of the internal and external evidence for this important verse. White also ignores the excellent reply given in 1980 by Dr. Thomas Strouse to D.A. Carson’s The King James Version Debate, in which Dr. Strouse provides an overview of the arguments supporting the authenticity of 1 John 5:7 as it stands in the Received Text. Dr. Strouse (Ph.D. in theology from Bob Jones University) is Chairman of the Department of Theology, Tabernacle Baptist Theological Seminary (717 N. Whitehurst Landing Rd., Virginia Beach, Virginia 23464. 888-482-2287, tbcm@exis.net). White also ignores the landmark work of Michael Maynard, author of A History of the Debate over 1 John 5:7-8 (Comma Publications, 1855 "A" Ave. #4, Douglas, AZ 85607). It is possible, of course, that he had not seen Maynard’s book prior to the publication of The King James Bible Controversy. Maynard’s book basically summarizes the long-standing defense of 1 John 5:7-8 as it exists in the King James Bible, but White pretends that there is no reasonable defense of the Trinitarian passage.

(5) WHITE MAKES AN ISSUE OF ERASMUS, OF HIS PERSONAL, THEOLOGICAL, AND TEXTUAL WEAKNESSES, PRETENDING THAT THE WEAKNESSES OF ERASMUS DETRACT FROM THE RECEIVED TEXT. This topic has been dealt with frequently by defenders of the Authorized Version. Frederick Nolan (1784-1864), in his 576-page An Inquiry into the Integrity of the Greek Vulgate or Received Text of the New Testament (available in reprint from Bible for Today, 900 Park Ave., Collingswood, NJ 08108), defended the sixteenth-century text on the basis of faith and theological purity, and he opposed the critics of his day who were disparaging the work of Erasmus, Stephanus, and Beza in a manner mimicked by today’s modern version proponents. Nolan, in a careful and very technical manner, traced the history of the doctrinal corruptions which were introduced into the text of various manuscripts during the first four centuries after Christ. Nolan devastates the popular idea that Erasmus and the Reformation editors were working with insufficient textual evidence and that they did not know about the readings preferred by today’s textual critics. NOLAN SHOWS THAT THE REFORMATION EDITORS DID NOT FOLLOW THE RECEIVED TEXT BECAUSE THEY LACKED SUFFICIENT TEXTUAL EVIDENCE, BUT BECAUSE THEY CONSCIOUSLY CHOSE TO REJECT THE CRITICAL READINGS. (Contrast this with White’s statement on page 69 that the Reformation editors "used this text by default, not by choice.") Consider the following statement from Nolan’s book:

"WITH RESPECT TO MANUSCRIPTS, IT IS INDISPUTABLE THAT HE [ERASMUS] WAS ACQUAINTED WITH EVERY VARIETY WHICH IS KNOWN TO US; HAVING DISTRIBUTED THEM INTO TWO PRINCIPAL CLASSES, one of which corresponds with the Complutensian edition, the other with the Vatican manuscript. And he has specified the positive grounds on which he received the one and rejected the other. The former was in the possession of the Greek church, the latter in that of the Latin; judging from the internal evidence he had as good reason to conclude the Eastern church had not corrupted their received text as he had grounds to suspect the Rhodians from whom the Western church derived their manuscripts, had accommodated them to the Latin Vulgate. One short insinuation which he has thrown out, sufficiently proves that HIS OBJECTIONS TO THESE MANUSCRIPTS LAY MORE DEEP; and they do immortal credit to his sagacity. In the age in which the Vulgate was formed, the church, he was aware, was infested with Origenists and Arians; an affinity between any manuscript and that version, consequently conveyed some suspicion that its text was corrupted" (Nolan, An Inquiry into the Integrity of the Greek Vulgate, pp. 413-15).

The fact is that at least many of the Reformation leaders believed that God had preserved His Word in a certain family of manuscripts which can be called the Traditional or Received Text and it was to this text that these wise men looked when they were searching for the words of God. It was not a decision they made out of ignorance or happenstance. The Reformation editors recognized that the Traditional Text is theologically pure whereas the text represented by Vaticanus and friends is impure. In a word, they did not adopt the Received Text out of ignorance, but out of conviction!

The Trinitarian Bible Society has looked closely at Erasmus in their publications throughout this century, yet James White ignores their research and position.

Dr. Edward Hills dealt with Erasmus in his books, beginning in 1956.

Erasmus is also considered in the books edited by David Otis Fuller (Which Bible?, True or False?).

In his 1951 doctoral dissertation to the faculty of Dallas Theological Seminary’s Graduate School, Alfred Martin, then vice President of Moody Bible Institute, said: "A Bible-believing Christian had better be careful what he says about the Textus Receptus, for the question is not at all the precise wording of that text, but rather a choice between two different kinds of texts, a fuller one and a shorter one. ONE NEED NOT BELIEVE IN THE INFALLIBILITY OF ERASMUS, OR HIS SANCTITY, OR EVEN HIS HONESTY; BECAUSE HE MERELY FOLLOWED THE TYPE OF TEXT WHICH WAS DOMINANT IN THE MANUSCRIPTS ... (Alfred Martin, A Critical Examination of the Westcott-Hort Textual Theory, Th.D. Thesis, Dallas Theological Seminary, May 1951, pp. 24,25).

Dr. Donald Waite has also dealt with Erasmus and has shown the error of many statements commonly made by modern version proponents and has shown how the Authorized Version defender looks at this question.

Michael Maynard, in his book A History of the Debate over 1 John 5:7-8: a tracing of the longevity of the Comma Johanneum, with evaluations of arguments against its authenticity, has dealt extensively with Erasmus in relation to 1 John 5:7 and has debunked some myths commonly promoted about this.

I have also faced the issue of Erasmus in my books. In For Love of the Bible we concluded: "If the critical textual editors of the nineteenth century had believed God, they would have understood that the pure Word of God was not lost! That’s the major point of contention in this entire matter, as I see it. The Word of God was preserved; it was not lost. My confidence is not in Erasmus or in King James I or in John Burgon or in D.O. Fuller. My confidence is in a God who has promised to preserve His Word. And if the Bible which went to the ends of the earth during the greatest era of missionary activity in church history since the apostolic era was not the preserved Word of God, there is no such thing as the preserved Word of God, and this entire matter is merely an exercise in vanity."

(6) WHITE MAKES AN ISSUE OF THE MARGINAL READINGS OF THE ORIGINAL KING JAMES BIBLE. White notes that the 1611 KJV contained 6,637 marginal notes in the Old Testament and 767 in the New. He then says, "The importance of the marginal notes to the KJV Only controversy should not be overlooked" (p. 77). He implies that it is inconsistent for King James Bible defenders to make something of the critical textual notes in the modern versions while ignoring the ones in the original KJV. This is a comparison of monkeys and apples, though. Both the 1611 KJV and the modern versions have marginal notes, but the nature of those notes is very different.

First of all, the marginal notes in the modern versions ARE DIFFERENT IN CHARACTER. The textual notes in the 1611 KJV were not critical or deceitful as are the ones in the modern versions. The marginal notes in the 1611 KJV did not cast continual doubt upon the text, as do those in the modern versions. Consider, for example, the marginal note at 1 Timothy 3:16 in the NIV: "Some manuscripts God." This is a deception, and those who read this note are led to believe a lie. The fact is that the vast majority of Greek manuscripts have the word "God" in this verse, and only a handful of very undependable ones omit it. In testifying of the marginal notes in the modern versions, Jay Green, a biblical scholar and Bible translator, says, "Deceitful footnotes often throw doubt on the words of the text, such as may be found at Mark 1:1; Romans 9:5, etc. Worse, yet, in other places when words that witness to the Godhead of Christ are removed from the text, seldom is there a footnote to call attention to it. And when there is a footnote purporting to give evidence for the change, a false impression is often given by an incomplete presentation of the facts" (Jay Green, Sr., The Gnostics, The New Versions, and the Deity of Christ, Lafayette, Indiana: Sovereign Grace Publishers, 1994, p. 5). James White, though, pretends that the marginal notes in the 1611 KJV are the same in nature as those of the modern versions and that the "King James Only" crowd is again proven inconsistent.

Second, the marginal notes in the modern versions ARE DIFFERENT IN QUANTITY. James White admits that only 37 of the marginal notes in the KJV New Testament relate to variant textual readings. Even this number is inflated. Allan MacRae and Robert Newman (who are not defenders of the KJV), in their Facts on the Textus Receptus and the King James Version (Hatfield, PA: Biblical School of Theology, 1975), cite 13 marginal notes of variant texts in the KJV. Dr. Donald Waite, in his research into this matter, found only 11 examples of KJV N.T. marginal notes which had anything to do with variant readings. Until we do our own study of the KJV marginal notes, we will lean on Dr. Waite’s research, because we know him and have more confidence in his figures than the other aforementioned men. In contrast, the NIV New Testament has 120 variant footnotes, the NASV New Testament has 133, and the NKJV New Testament has 772 (Dr. Kirk D. DiVietro, Why Not the King James Bible!, Bible for Today, 1995, p. 22). Furthermore, many of the marginal notes in the modern versions question entire verses and passages, not just isolated words.

Dr. Waite has a paper on this subject entitled "Marginal Notes in the Original A.V. 1611." It is item #2822, and is available from Bible for Today, 900 Park Ave., Collingswood, NJ 08108. 609-854-4452.

(7) WHITE MAKES AN ISSUE THAT DOCTRINES ARE NOT ENTIRELY REMOVED FROM THE MODERN VERSIONS. To my knowledge, no one is saying that doctrines are entirely removed from the modern versions. The typical argument is that key doctrines are weakened and diluted, not entirely removed, yet James White repeatedly makes an issue of the fact that the various doctrines are not removed. For example, of the doctrine of the virgin birth he says:

"Matthew 1:25 is often cited by critics of modern translations as an attempt to deny the virgin birth of Christ. Yet if a modern translation wished to do this, why not remove the parallel occurrence of the term at Luke 2:7 where all the modern translations contain the disputed term?" (White, p. 159).

Modern version defenders like James White appear not to understand the importance and power of repetition and of details, yet this is obviously the reason why the Bible is filled with the same. When the Lord wanted to impress Pharaoh with coming events, he repeated the dream two times (Gen. 41:32). When the Lord wanted to impress Peter that the Gospel was for the Gentiles as well as for the Jews, he repeated the vision three times (Acts 10:16). The Lord Jesus Christ often emphasized His statements with the double phrase, "Verily, verily." In the book of Ezekiel the phrase "they shall know that I am the Lord" is repeated 106 times. The Bible is literally filled with this type of repetition. Does that mean the repetitious details are not important? Hardly! Yet that is precisely what the modern version defenders tell us. For example, in Mark 9, the Received Text and the King James Bible repeats "where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched" three times (verses 44,46,48). In the United Bible Societies Greek text and in the modern English versions, this statement is omitted from two of those places. It is in verse 48 but verses 44 and 46 are removed. Is this of no consequence? I believe a sermon in which the unspeakably horrible eternal nature of hell is mentioned three times is more potent than one in which it is mentioned only once. Another example of this is in Matt. 4:4 and Luke 4:4. In the KJV both verses contain the crucial statement that man lives "by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God." The Greek Received Text has both statements. The critical Greek text, though, and the modern versions which follow that text, omit this statement from Luke 4:4. Not important, says White. It is in Matthew 4:4, and that is enough. Nonsense, says the King James Bible defender, it should be in both places because repetition and detail in God’s Word are crucial! That is one of the most important statements in the entire Bible, and it makes sense that the Holy Spirit would repeat it.

King James Bible defenders have made this point many times, but James White has ignored it. Why would the devil (assuming the textual differences were demonic corruptions) remove a verse in one place and leave a similar one in another? Why would he not go ahead and remove an entire doctrine? James White asks this question at various points in his book and seems to think that it is unanswerable, but I find that the answer is rather obvious. It would be almost impossible to entirely remove a doctrine from the Scriptures, but it was not so difficult to weaken certain key doctrines by a whittling down process through textual corruptions introduced by demonically-controlled men (such as Origen) and to dilute the potency of the Scripture overall through this same process. In warfare, a repeating rifle is much more effective than a single shot one! To take the thousands of omissions in the modern texts and translations as lightly as James White does is strange in light of the biblical warnings such as: "Ye shall not add unto the word which I command you, neither shall ye diminish ought from it, that ye may keep the commandments of the LORD your God which I command you" (Deut. 4:2).

We conclude this section with an excellent statement on the importance of omissions in the Bible:

"Getting back to the omissions again, some defend them by pointing out that while a text might be missing from one place in Scripture, it is sometimes found somewhere else in Scripture. In other words, in some cases, essential writings were not removed from all passages. ‘So,’ they exclaim, ‘what is all of this fuss about?’ Beyond question, this has to be one of the most reckless attitudes toward Scripture in the Church, and can only belong to those so dulled by compromise and backslidden in heart that they have lost all sense of reality. The Bible is not simply another publication out there on the open market of religious books. It is the very word of God, which God deliberately placed above His own name (Ps. 138:2), and of which even He Himself, will not alter one word (Ps. 89:34). How then can a God fearing Christian justify even the slightest omission from its page? Are they not as much as saying that men have as much right to discard Scriptures as God did to write them down?

"To justify an omission because it can be found somewhere else does not answer the question of why it was removed in the first place. Instead, such a slight of hand explanation openly insults the declared infallibility of God’s Holy Word, creates alibis for its corrupters, and instructs the saints that they can live without all of God’s counsel. It plainly lowers the Bible in status to just ‘another book’ that we can do with as we please.

"However, while the Church’s tolerance for blemished Scripture is high--God’s is not. If He forbids, under the severest penalty, the adding or taking away of a single word of Scripture in Rev. 22:18,19, will He be lenient with those who support translations that have clearly tampered with the Scriptures? Or, will they stand as guilty on the day of judgment for their rationalizing, as the ones who did the tampering in the first place.

"Satan does not have to do much from without when such indifference lies within. It is this very spirit of nonresistance that the spoilers of God’s Word had hoped for and that will encourage them to do even further damage to Scripture. With the unchangeable Word of God now subject to the changeable views of men, what will the next generation of Bibles be like? If we today are willing to give up our most for less, will saints of tomorrow be willing to give up this less for nothing? Surely, paganism lies at the door" (Chick Salliby, If the Foundations Be Destroyed, Fiskdale, MA: Word and Prayer Ministries, 1994, pp. 88,89).

WHITE DOWNPLAYS THE THEOLOGICAL APOSTASY OF WESTCOTT-HORT, IMPLYING THAT WESTCOTT AND HORT WERE TYPICAL ANGLICANS LIKE THE 17-CENTURY AUTHORIZED VERSION TRANSLATORS AND THE 19TH-CENTURY JOHN BURGON.

White says, for example, "It is very common for KJV Only advocates to attack such men as Westcott and Hort for being ‘baby sprinklers,’ yet the KJV was born in the heart of such a system of theology" (White, p. 71). In another place White says: "As the KJV Only movement thrives most in conservative, independent Baptist circles, it is normally enough just to point out that Westcott and Hort were Anglicans, and hence ‘baby sprinklers’ as one harsh KJV Only proponent puts it. … The fact that the KJV was translated by ‘baby-sprinkling’ Anglicans does not seem to bother those who bring up Westcott and Hort, however" (White, pp. 122,123).

I do not doubt that some KJV defenders have made something of the fact that Westcott and Hort practiced infant baptism while ignoring the fact that most of the King James Version translators were infected with the same error, but I have examined practically everything which has been published on this subject and I can testify that White is missing the mark by MILES. The point commonly raised against Westcott and Hort is not their denominational peculiarities but their theological modernism, not their views on baptism but their views on the Bible and on Christ’s atonement and other foundational doctrines. At considerable expense I have collected most of the books which were published by Westcott and Hort, and I can assure my readers that they were infected with the modernism which was sweeping across the world in their day and with the Romanistic sympathies which were prevailing within 19th-century Anglicanism. John William Burgon, a Anglican who was contemporary with Westcott and Hort, strongly affirmed biblical infallibility, while both Westcott and Hort questioned it. Burgon strongly affirmed the biblical view of the atonement, while Westcott and Hort questioned it. Westcott and Hort represented the liberal Romanized wing of late 19th-century Anglicanism, while Burgon represented the staunchly conservative anti-Roman wing. The reader is encouraged to read Burgon’s work on biblical inspiration and his work against Roman Catholicism. The titles are included in the bibliography in my book For Love of the Bible and these out-of-print works can be viewed by microfiche in many key theological libraries.

Furthermore, it is not only fundamental Baptists who recognize Westcott and Hort’s apostasy. Dallas Theological Seminary professor Zane Hodges noted this almost 30 years ago. He also recognized the theological modernism which underlies the field of modern textual criticism, a fact discounted by White. Consider an excerpt from Hodges’ article "Rationalism and Contemporary New Testament Textual Criticism"--

"The charge of rationalism is easily substantiated for Westcott and Hort and may be demonstrated from direct statements found in their introduction to The New Testament in the Original Greek. To begin with, Westcott and Hort are clearly unwilling to commit themselves to the inerrancy of the original Scriptures" (Hodges, "Rationalism and Contemporary New Testament Textual Criticism," Bibliotheca Sacra, January 1971, pp. 27-35).

A precise, accurate description of Westcott-Hort’s theological position was also given by the late Presbyterian scholar Bishop D.A. Thompson, who looked carefully into these matters: "Neither of these scholars [Westcott and Hort] had been evangelical and as the influence of the German neology increased they moved slowly and discreetly with the times" (Thompson, The Controversy Concerning the Last Twelve Verses of the Gospel according to Mark, Surrey: The Bible Christian Unity Fellowship, pp. 39-40; reprint of four articles which appeared in The Bible League Quarterly, London, 1973).

While some Evangelicals and even some Fundamentalists have come to the defense of Westcott and Hort and have contended that they were theologically sound, these (perhaps) fail to understand the nature of Westcott-Hort’s theological apostasy. Like many Neo-orthodox and Modernistic theologians, Westcott and Hort did not so much openly deny the doctrines of the Word of God directly; instead they undermined these doctrines with clever doubt, with subtle questioning. Dr. D.A. Waite, who has examined the writings of Westcott and Hort in great detail, testifies: "Westcott’s attack on the bodily resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ is not by any means a direct clash of out-and-and denial, but rather an adroit, skillful, oblique undermining of the bodily resurrection of Christ by means of a re-definition of terms" (Waite, Westcott’s Denial of Bodily Resurrection, The Bible for Today, 1983, p. 8).

Dr. Waite’s views on this matter are not based on a cursory look at Westcott and Hort’s theology. He has examined the writings of these men probably as extensively as anyone speaking on the subject today. Certainly he has given much time and care to this research. No one would claim that a man like Dr. Waite is perfect and that he never makes mistakes. We are only men, but I have found Dr. Waite to be miles more dependable than James White and his crowd. As a background for his book Heresies of Westcott & Hort, Waite studied 1,291 pages of the writings of these men. Based on this research he makes the following charges (among others):

Westcott and Hort held a vague or erroneous position on inspiration, revelation, or inerrancy.

Westcott embraced the heresy of the universal ‘Fatherhood of God.’

Westcott denies that God had to be ‘propitiated.’

Westcott taught that men could be ‘divine’ in some way.

Westcott espoused ‘evolution’ in various ways.

Westcott had a heretical theory of man’s sinfulness and depravity, believing in man’s perfectibility in various ways.

Westcott and Hort failed to affirm the personality of the Devil, calling him only a ‘power.’

Westcott and Hort denied that Heaven is a place, speaking of it as a ‘state.’

Westcott believed that the ‘redemptive efficacy of Christ’s work’ was to be found ‘in his whole life’ rather than in his death.

Westcott questioned the eternal pre-existence of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Westcott and Hort denied the deity of Jesus Christ.

Westcott explained away some of the miracles of Christ.

Westcott and Hort denied or gave a false meaning to the literal, bodily resurrection of Christ.

Westcott and Hort had a false and heretical view of the vicarious, substitutionary sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ.

For a discerning overview of the theology of Westcott and Hort, see Dr. Waite’s The Theological Heresies of Westcott and Hort: As Seen in Their Own Writings. Also Heresies of Westcott & Hort. Both are available from The Bible for Today, 900 Park Ave., Collingswood, NJ 08108.

WHITE DENIES A DIRECT CONNECTION BETWEEN WESTCOTT-HORT AND THE MODERN VERSIONS.

White says, "While modern Greek texts are not identical to that created by Westcott and Hort, one will still find defenders of the AV drawing in black and white, saying that all modern versions are based upon their work" (White, p. 99). I have heard other modern version defenders imply that Westcott and Hort are irrelevant to the subject of the biblical text because "no textual critic now holds to the Westcott and Hort theories of textual criticism." This position ignores the real issue, which is the fact that Westcott and Hort represented the signal departure from the Received Text which is represented today in the popular theories of textual criticism. Westcott and Hort built upon the foundation established by their predecessors, such as Griesbach, Lachmann, and Tischendorf. Westcott and Hort adapted the textual theories of these men into their own unique blend. While today’s textual scholars do not admit that they follow Westcott and Hort, many of the more honest ones do admit that they are powerfully influenced by the latter. Consider the following quotation by Ernest Cadman Colwell, a textual scholar who has published a number of widely used grammars and text books, including A Beginners Reader-Grammar for New Testament Greek (New York: Harper & Row, 1965), A Greek Papyrus Reader, with Vocabulary (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1935), A Hellenistic Greek Reader (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1939), and Studies in Methodology in Textual Criticism of the New Testament (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1969).

"THE DEAD HAND OF FENTON JOHN ANTHONY HORT LIES HEAVY UPON US. In the early years of this century Kirsopp Lake described Hort’s work as a failure, though a glorious one. But HORT DID NOT FAIL TO REACH HIS MAJOR GOAL. HE DETHRONED THE TEXTUS RECEPTUS. ... Hort’s success in this task and the cogency of his tightly reasoned theory shaped—AND STILL SHAPES—the thinking of those who approach the textual criticism of the NT through the English language" (emphasis added) (Ernest Cadman Colwell, "Scribal Habits in Early Papyri: A Study in the Corruption of the Text," The Bible in Modern Scholarship, ed. J.P. Hyatt, New York: Abingdon Press, 1965, p. 370).

In the introduction to the 24th edition of the Nestle\rquote s Greek New Testament, editors Erwin Nestle and Kurt Aland make the following admission:

"Thus the text, built up on the work of the 19th century, has remained as a whole unchanged, particularly since the research of recent years has not yet led to the establishment of a generally acknowledged N.T. text" (Erwin Nestle and Kurt Aland, Novum Testamentum Graece, 24th edition, 1960, p. 62).

James White is failing to acknowledge a fact that modern textual authorities such as Colwell and Nestle do acknowledge--that Westcott and Hort are key, pivotal men in the modern history of textual criticism and that the current \ldblquote eclectic\rdblquote Greek New Testaments continue to reflect the decisions made by Westcott and Hort. To deny their influence is similar to denying the influence of Darwin on contemporary evolutionary thought. Many planks of Darwin\rquote s theories have been discredited, but Darwin and his theories are important because of their key, pivotal role in the field.

Consider another quote, this one from Dr. Zane Hodges:

"MODERN TEXTUAL CRITICISM IS PSYCHOLOGICALLY ‘ADDICTED’ TO WESTCOTT AND HORT. Westcott and Hort, in turn, were rationalists in their approach to the textual problem in the New Testament and employed techniques within which rationalism and every other kind of bias are free to operate. The result of it all is a methodological quagmire where objective controls on the conclusions of critics are nearly nonexistent. It goes without saying that no Bible-believing Christian who is willing to extend the implications of his faith to textual matters can have the slightest grounds for confidence in contemporary critical texts" (emphasis added) (Zane C. Hodges, "Rationalism and Contemporary New Testament Textual Criticism," Bibliotheca Sacra, January 1971, p. 35).

Zane Hodges is not a Ruckmanite fundamental Baptist, but he is more honest about the influence of Westcott and Hort upon modern textual scholarship than James White.

White and many others attempting to discredit King James Bible defense also claim that Westcott and Hort are not important because (as they say) "the modern versions (NASV and NIV) are not based on the Alexandrian text or on the Westcott and Hort text. They are based on an eclectic text which sometimes favors the TR over Aleph or B."

This is true as far as it goes, but it ignores the heart of the issue. The fact is that the United Bible Societies (UBS) text is almost identical to the W-H text of 1881 in significant departures from the Received Text. For example, both the W-H and the UBS delete or question almost the same number of verses (WH--48, UBS--45). Both delete almost the same number of significant portions of verses (WH--193, UBS 185). Both delete almost the same number of names and titles of the Lord (WH--221, UBS--212). An extensive comparison of the TR against the WH text, the Nestle’s Text, the UBS text, and key English versions was done by the late Everett Fowler and can be seen in his book Evaluating Versions of the New Testament, available from Bible for Today.

The W-H text of 1881 and the latest edition of the United Bible Societies’ text differ only in relatively minor points. Both represent the same TYPE of text with the same TYPE of departures from the Received Text.

The fact is that the Westcott-Hort text represents the first widely-accepted departure from the TR in the post-Reformation era, and the modern English versions descend directly from it. It is a very significant text and its editors are highly significant to the history of textual criticism. Any man who discounts the continuing significance of Westcott-Hort in the field of Bible texts and versions is probably trying to throw up a smoke screen to hide something.

WHITE DOWNPLAYS THE THEOLOGICAL APOSTASY OF ORIGEN.

White says, "Another common claim made by those who defend the KJV is that the Alexandrian texts have been corrupted by ‘heretics.’ They point to men like Origen (A.D. 185-254) who did things and believed things that most modern fundamentalists would find more than slightly unusual, and on this basis make the very long leap to the assertion that the manuscripts that come from the same area must be ‘corrupt’" (White, p. 44).

Note that the word "heretics" is in quotation marks. In other words, White would have his readers believe that it is only the "King James Only" crowd that identifies Origen and his followers as heretics, that this is another example of the alleged ignorance of the fundamental Baptists who make up a large percentage of King James Bible defenders today. In a footnote connected with the previous statement, White goes even further to cast aspersion upon those who would identify Origen as a heretic:

"Indeed, it might be difficult for them to find anyone in the ancient church, even around Antioch and Byzantium, who would look a whole lot like a modern fundamentalist Baptist. Even the most conservative of the ancient Fathers, like John Chrysostom, would provide KJV Only advocates with numerous reasons to object to his theology, beliefs, and practices" (White, pp. 50,51, footnote 24).

Fundamental Baptists do not look to men such as Chrysostom as "fathers." We don’t have "fathers," for the Lord Jesus Christ forbade us to call men fathers (Matt. 23:9). We don’t need some second century "church father" who was himself influenced by the apostasy of his day and about whom we have only a very incomplete record. We have the Lord Jesus Christ and the Apostles. We have the infallible Scriptures which have been preserved unto us. We have the faith once delivered to the saints. In the second and third centuries the apostasy was already taking form which would lead in the fourth and fifth centuries to the formation of the Roman Catholic Church. The leaven of heresy was permeating through many of the churches, and many of those who are called "fathers" by Protestants and Catholics were heretics. Further, we don’t use a meaningless term like "the ancient church." What church does White mean by that term? In the early centuries there were churches which were apostate and which were rejecting the apostolic faith, and there were churches which were not and which were standing fast in the apostolic faith. What church does he mean? The man needs to read some good Baptist histories like that of John Christian and Thomas Armitage to get his ecclesiology and church history straightened out. The fact is that many of the "fathers" of the church, so called, were persecuting the Bible-believing churches of that day. Augustine is an example of this.

Further, the evidence that Origen himself was a heretic of the highest order is overwhelming, and it does not come from the pens of fundamental Baptists. Origen paved the way for Arianism by teaching that the Logos was subordinate and inferior to the Father, that there was a difference of essence between the Father and the Son. He believed in the "deity" of Christ, but not as it is defined biblically. This is precisely the heresy which was raising its ugly unitarian head and influencing Biblical scholarship and textual research in the last half of the 19th century. What a coincidence!

"Origen is described by Mosheim (in his Com. de Rebus Christ, Vol. II, p. 144) as ‘a compound of contraries, wise and unwise, acute and stupid, judicious and injudicious; the enemy of superstition, and its patron; a strenuous defender of Christianity, and its corrupter; energetic and irresolute; one to whom the Bible owes much, and from whom it has suffered much.’ While he gained, amidst the superstitious contemporaries who then gave character to Eastern Christianity, a splendid reputation for sanctity, as well as learning, his character was evidently dishonest and tricky, and his judgment most erratic. … As a controversialist, he was wholly unscrupulous" (Discussions of Robert Lewis Dabney, I, p. 383).

Origen taught baptismal regeneration and "evidently had no clear conception of the Pauline doctrine of justification by faith" (Berkhof, The History of Christian Doctrines, p. 65). This is an important fact, because it means that the gospel Origen taught was a false gospel, and he therefore was under God’s curse (Galatians 1). Origen believed in purgatory and claimed that all men would eventually be reclaimed through the purgation of sin after death. This is a denial of the sufficiency of Christ’s atonement to wash away all sin of the believer. He taught that even the demons and Satan would eventually be restored (Berkhof, p. 75). Origen taught the pre-existence of man. He believed the Holy Spirit was the first creature made by the Father through the Son. Origen "disbelieved the full inspiration and infallibility of the Scriptures, holding that the inspired men apprehended and stated many things obscurely" (Discussions of Robert Lewis Dabney, I, p. 383). Origen’s "opinions on the Trinity veered between Sabellianism and Arianism. He expressly denied the consubstantial unity of the Persons and the proper incarnation of the Godhead" (Dabney, I, p. 384).

Origen championed the method of Bible interpretation known as allegorizing, by which the literal meaning of Scripture is rejected for a "deeper meaning" discovered by the interpreter. Such a method makes the mind of the teacher authoritative over the plain meaning of Scripture; because if the plain sense of Scripture is not the true meaning, it is impossible to determine exactly what it does mean, and every man is therefore left to his own devices. Origen’s voluminous commentaries contain a wealth of fanciful interpretations, abounding "in references to apocryphal works and heretical revisals of Scripture" (Frederick Nolan, Inquiry into the Integrity of the Greek Vulgate, 1815, p. 367). "His reputation as the great introducer of mysticism, allegory, and Neo-Platonism into the Christian church, is too well known to need recital. THOSE WHO ARE BEST ACQUAINTED WITH THE HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN OPINION KNOW BEST, THAT ORIGEN WAS THE GREAT CORRUPTER, AND THE SOURCE, OR AT LEAST EARLIEST CHANNEL, OF NEARLY ALL THE SPECULATIVE ERRORS WHICH PLAGUED THE CHURCH IN AFTER AGES" (Dabney, I, p. 383).

I don’t believe James White should have put the word "heretic" in quotation marks when referring to Origen! Earlier we noted Origen’s destructive influence upon many Bible editors and translators who came after him. For White to imply that Origen was not an apostate and that his influence was not as harmful as King James Bible defenders argue, is indefensible.

WHITE DOWNPLAYS THE EVIDENCE THAT SOME OF THE INFLUENTIAL MANUSCRIPTS TRACE THEIR CORRUPTIONS TO THE SECOND AND THIRD CENTURIES.

White says, "Another common claim made by those who defend the KJV is that the Alexandrian texts have been corrupted by ‘heretics.’ They point to men like Origen who did things and believed things that most modern fundamentalists would find more than slightly unusual, and on this basis make the very long leap to the assertion that the manuscripts that come from the same area must be ‘corrupt’" (White, p. 44).

In spite of White’s claim to the contrary, there is strong evidence linking many manuscripts preferred by modern textual critics with the heresies of the first few centuries. First of all, there can be no doubt that the manuscripts preferred by modern textual editors (Vaticanus, Sinaiticus, etc.) were rejected by God’s people through the centuries. The vast majority of existing manuscripts represent a different type of text, the type found in the Received Text of the Protestant Reformation. Westcott and Hort tried to account for this Traditional or Majority text with their Syrian recension theory—a theory for which there is absolutely no evidence in history and a theory which Westcott-Hort’s successors have dropped. The fact is that the Sinaiticus and Vaticanus represent a corrupted text which was rejected by God’s people, and the evidence supports the conclusion that these manuscripts were created by heretics during the second and third centuries. White would have his readers believe that this idea is a "long leap" and he implies that it is something which was dreamed up in recent years by fundamental Baptist King James Bible defenders. We could quote many important 19th-century Bible scholars who saw the connection between the Sinaiticus and Vaticanus and early century heresies, but three should be sufficient to prove the point. These were Burgon, Miller, and Nolan.

John Burgon (1813-1888) knew as much about the writings of ancient church leaders as any man who has lived in the past few centuries. He held several high degrees from Oxford University and was one of the foremost biblical scholars of his day. His biographer said, "Burgon was in this country [England] the leading religious teacher of his time, who brought all the resources of genius and profound theological learning to rebut the encroachments of Rationalism by maintaining inviolate the integrity of the written Word of God as the Church has received it" (Edward M. Goulburn, John William Burgon: Late Dean of Chichester, 1892, Preface, p. vii). F.H.A. Scrivener called him "that grand scholar" (cited by Edward Miller, Preface to The Traditional Text of the Holy Gospels, p. viii), and called Burgon’s work defending the ending of Mark 16 "brilliant." He was a first-rate textual scholar, the equal to any man alive at the time. He made several tours of European libraries, examining and collating New Testament manuscripts wherever he went. He visited the Vatican Library in 1860 to examine the Vaticanus. In 1862 he traveled to Mt. Sinai to inspect manuscripts at St. Catherine’s. Edward Hills notes the purpose of these travels: "Being driven by the desire to get to the bottom of the false statements being made by the reigning Critics of his day, Burgon devoted the last 30 years of his life to disprove them. Believing firmly that God had providentially preserved the true text of the New Testament, he set out to discover how the depraved and corrupt readings developed. This required him to travel widely" (E.F. Hills, "A Biographical Sketch of the Life of Burgon," Unholy Hands on the Bible: Vol. 1, Jay Green, ed., p. xix).

Burgon personally collated hundreds of Greek manuscripts. Another of his amazing textual achievements was his index of New Testament citations of the "church fathers" of antiquity. This index contains the fruit of his labors in analyzing the extant writings of ancient church leaders to determine what Scriptures they possessed. The index is in the British Museum and consists of sixteen thick manuscript volumes containing 86,489 quotations. Modern-day textual scholar Wilbur Pickering testifies that "Burgon’s scholarship in this facet of the total field has never been equaled" (Wilbur Pickering, "Contribution of John William Burgon to New Testament Criticism," True or False?, p. 217).

Consider Burgon’s view of the direct connection between early century heretics and the modern critical Greek text:

We know that Origen in Palestine, Lucian at Antioch, Heschius in Egypt, ‘revised’ the text of the N.T. Unfortunately, they did their work in an age when such fatal misapprehension prevailed on the subject, that each in turn will have inevitably imported a fresh assortment of monstra into the sacred writings. Add, the baneful influence of such spirits as Theophilus (sixth Bishop of Antioch, A.D. 168), Tatian, Ammonius, &c., of whom there must have been a vast number in the primitive age,—some of whose productions, we know for certain, were freely multiplied in every quarter of ancient Christendom:—add, the fabricated gospels which anciently abounded ... and we have sufficiently explained how it comes to pass that not a few of the codices of ancient Christendom must have exhibited a text which was even scandalously corrupt.

‘It is no less true to fact than paradoxical in sound,’ writes the most learned of the Revisionist body [Scrivener], ‘that THE WORST CORRUPTIONS, TO WHICH THE NEW TESTAMENT HAS EVER BEEN SUBJECTED, ORIGINATED WITHIN A HUNDRED YEARS AFTER IT WAS COMPOSED: that Irenaeus [A.D. 150] and the African Fathers, and the whole Western, with a portion of the Syrian Church, used far inferior manuscripts to those employed by Stunica, or Erasmus, or Stephens thirteen centuries later, when molding the Textus Receptus’ (Scrivener, ‘Introduction,’ p. 453).

And what else are codices ABCD [Sinaiticus, Vaticanus, etc.] but specimens—in vastly different degrees—of the class thus characterized by Dr. Scrivener? Nay, who will venture to deny that those codices are indebted for their preservation solely to the circumstance, that they were long since recognized as the depositories of readings which rendered them utterly untrustworthy? (John Burgon, "The Greek Text," The Quarterly Review, Vol. 152, July & October 1881, pp. 321,22).

Edward Miller (1825-1901), another textual scholar of the highest caliber, presented the following position in his 1886 book entitled A Guide to the Textual Criticism of the New Testament:

"Now there are various reasons for supposing that B [Vaticanus] and Aleph [Sinaiticus] were amongst these fifty manuscripts [created by Eusebius for Constantine in A.D. 330-340]. ... These manuscripts are unrivalled for the beauty of their vellum and for their other grandeur, and are just what we should expect to find amongst such as would be supplied in obedience to an imperial command, and executed with the aid of imperial resources. ... They abound in omissions, and show marks of such carelessness as would attend an order carried out with more than ordinary expedition. And even the corrector, who always followed the copyist, did his work with similar carelessness to the scribe whom he was following. ... There is therefore very considerable foundation for the opinion entertained by many that these two celebrated manuscripts owe their execution to the order of Constantine, and show throughout the effects of the care of Eusebius, and the influence of Origen, whose works formed the staple of the Library of Pamphilus, in the city where they were most likely written. Such was probably the parentage, and such the production of these two celebrated manuscripts, which are the main exponents of a form of Text differing from that which has come down to us from the Era of Chrysostom, and has since that time till very recent years been recognized as mainly supreme in the Church" (Edward Miller, A Guide to Textual Criticism, 1886, pp. 82,83).

Note that textual scholar Edward Miller said there is VERY considerable foundation for the opinion entertained by MANY that the Vaticanus and the Sinaiticus witness to textual corruptions introduced by Origen and Eusebius. Was Edward Miller a Ruckmanite fundamental Baptist?

Finally, note the following statement by the aforementioned textual scholar Frederick Nolan:

"The works of those early writers lie under the positive imputation of being corrupted. THE COPIES OF CLEMENT AND ORIGEN WERE CORRUPTED IN THEIR LIFE TIME; THE MANUSCRIPTS FROM WHICH TERTULLIAN’S WORKS HAVE BEEN PRINTED ARE NOTORIOUSLY FAULTY; AND THE COPIES OF CYPRIAN DEMONSTRATE THEIR OWN CORRUPTION, by their disagreement among themselves, and their agreement with different texts and revisals of Scripture. It is likewise indisputable, that these fathers not only followed each other, adopting the arguments and quotations of one another; but that they quoted from the heterodox as well as the orthodox. They were thus likely to transmit from one to another erroneous quotations, originally adopted from sources not more pure than heretical revisals of Scripture. ... New revisals of Scripture were thus formed, which were interpolated with the peculiar readings of scholiasts and fathers. NOR DID THIS SYSTEMATIC CORRUPTION TERMINATE HERE; BUT WHEN NEW TEXTS WERE THUS FORMED, THEY BECAME THE STANDARD BY WHICH THE LATER COPIES OF THE EARLY WRITERS WERE IN SUCCESSION CORRECTED" (An Inquiry into the Integrity of the Greek Vulgate, pp. 326-332).

Neither Burgon nor Miller nor Nolan were fundamental Baptists, and they were not members of some illusive "King James Only" club. These men analyzed the primary evidence as diligently as any men living today. In fact, as noted, no man living can match the research which John Burgon conducted into the writings of early church leaders. THESE TEXTUAL SCHOLARS CAME TO THE CONCLUSION THAT THE SINAITICUS AND VATICANUS REPRESENT THE SAME TYPE OF TEXT WHICH WAS PRODUCED THROUGH CORRUPTIONS INTRODUCED BY ORIGEN AND HIS FOLLOWERS.

It is amazing that this position is so consistently slighted in today’s textbooks on textual criticism, and by James White in particular. His implication that this view is the figment of the imagination of fundamental Baptists is laughable.

WHITE ALLEGES THAT THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE RECEIVED TEXT AND THE MODERN CRITICAL TEXT IS NOT VERY SERIOUS.

White downplays the differences and gives statistics from Westcott and Hort to prove his point (p. 39). The fact is that Dr. Donald Waite has personally and painstakingly compared the Westcott-Hort text and the United Bible Societies text with the Received Text word for word, and he has published his findings. He does not base his conclusions on someone else’s statistics. He charges Westcott and Hort and other modern version proponents, such as the editor of the New International Version, with misstating the facts. Waite writes, "Hort’s 1/1000th of the Greek N.T. that he thought could be called ‘substantial variation’ would be 140.5 Greek words (.1%=.647 pages). This would be a little over one half a page in the Greek New Testament. This is extremely wide of the mark of truth! … The truth of the matter is that there is a 7% difference ... This would be 45.9 pages. This is a most serious error" (Waite, The Four-fold Superiority of the King James Bible).

Dr. Waite is a Baptist scholar who has written in the defense of the Received Text and the King James Bible since 1971. He obtained a B.A. in classical Greek and Latin from the University of Michigan in 1948; a Th.M. with high honors in New Testament Greek Literature and Exegesis from Dallas Theological Seminary in 1952; an M.A. in Speech from Southern Methodist University in 1953; a Th.D. with honors in Bible Exposition from Dallas Seminary in 1955; and a Ph.D. in Speech from Purdue University in 1961. He holds both New Jersey and Pennsylvania teacher certificates in Greek and Language Arts, and has taught Greek, Hebrew, Bible, Speech, and English for over thirty-five years in nine schools. In 1971 he founded the Bible for Today (BFT) ministry and has since produced over 900 studies, booklets, cassettes, and VCR’s that he distributes through BFT, along with hundreds of titles by other men on a wide variety of subjects. In 1992 he published his excellent book Defending the King James Bible, presenting the four-fold superiority of the KJV: Superior texts, translators, technique, and theology. Dr. Waite has assisted Bible believers tremendously by putting back into print many of the important 19th-century volumes on Bible texts and versions. Contact Bible for Today for a list: 900 Park Ave., Collingswood, NJ 08108. (800) 564-6109 (orders), (609) 854-4452 (voice), (609) 854-2464 (fax), BFT@juno.com (e-mail).

White ignores the research of men such as Waite. When he cites them, it is only to give a shallow perspective on their work.

White says, "The KJV’s text is but one example of one ‘stream’ within a larger river. It doesn’t matter what translation you use, that truth remains true all the same" (White, p. 120).

This is one of the mantra’s of those who defend the modern versions, but it is a false statement. The truth of God has been given in WORDS. The Lord Jesus Christ said that man lives by every word of God (Matt. 4:4; Lk. 4:4). The words of the Received Text and the words of the critical Greek text are not the same and they do not express exactly the same truth. For example, 1 Timothy 3:16 in the KJV and 1 Timothy 3:16 in the NIV do not express the same truth. The KJV and the NIV do not express the same truth about fasting, because "fasting" is removed from most key passages in the NIV. We have given many examples of this in our book Modern Bible Versions and in the article on "Bible Versions" in the Way of Life Encyclopedia of the Bible & Christianity. Pastor Mickey Carter of Haines City, Florida, expressed this matter well in the title of his 1993 book "Things That Are Different Are Not the Same" (Landmark Baptist Church, Haines City, FL).

The difference between the text underlying the KJV and that underlying the modern versions is vast. In the N.T. alone there are over 8,000 word differences between the Textus Receptus and the Westcott-Hort Text (and its revisions such as the NestlŽ's Text and the UBS Text). It is true that many of these changes are not as significant as others--but ALL ARE real differences. More than 2,800 of the words in the Received Text are omitted in the W-H Text underlying the modern versions. That is a vast number of words. It is roughly the number of words in 1 and 2 Peter combined. The Lord Jesus Christ said, "Man shall not live by bread alone, but by EVERY WORD that proceedeth out of the mouth of God" (Mt. 4:4). The words of the Bible are crucial words! If the Received Text and the King James Bible, with its "longer" text, represents a corrupted text, it should be rejected completely. If, on the other hand, the texts containing the vast omissions is the corrupted text, it should be rejected completely. It is impossible that both are the preserved Word of God. If one is, the other isn’t. It is not truth in general that we need; it is the very words which express that truth.

There are 17 verses omitted outright in the New International Version--Mt. 17:21; 18:11; 23:14; Mk. 7:16; 9:44; 9:46; 11:26; 15:28; Lk. 17:36; 23:17; Jn. 5:4; Ac. 8:37; 15:34; 24:7; 28:29; Ro. 16:24; and 1 Jn. 5:7. Further, the NIV separates Mk. 16:9-20 from the rest of the chapter with a note that says, "The two most reliable early manuscripts do not have Mk. 16:9-20," thus destroying the authority of this vital passage in the minds of the readers and effectively removing another 12 verses. Jn. 7:53--8:11 is also separated from the rest of the text with this footnote: "The earliest and most reliable manuscripts do not have Jn. 7:53--8:11." Hence another 12 verses are effectively removed from the Bible. The NIV questions four other verses with footnotes--Mt. 12:47; 21:44; Lk. 22:43; 22:44. This makes a total of 45 entire verses which are removed entirely or seriously questioned. In addition there are 147 other verses with significant portions missing. This is a huge portion of Scripture which is affected by textual changes, and yet White claims there is no serious problem. I don’t agree, and I will not be brow beaten into submission by men who seem to be infinitely patient with the corruption of the biblical text. I am not impressed with their broadmindedness in this matter.

Promoters of the modern versions claim that the differences between their versions and the KJV are relatively slight and have no bearing on doctrine. This is not true. The differences are great, and many of the changes in the modern versions do affect doctrine. In a sense, all of the differences affect doctrine--the doctrine, at the very least, of that particular verse or passage. Even many of the promoters of the modern versions admit the differences are vast and serious. The Preface to the Revised Standard Version claims:

"The King James Version has GRAVE DEFECTS. By the middle of the nineteenth century, the development of Biblical studies and the discovery of many manuscripts more ancient than those upon which the King James Version was based, made it manifest that these defects are so many and so serious as to call for revision of the English translation."

A more recent work, The English Bible from KJV to NIV, contains an entire chapter dealing with "the Doctrinal Problems in the King James Version." The author, Jack Lewis, a defender of the modern versions, concludes with these words: "’Doctrine' means ‘teaching,' and any failure to present the Word of God accurately, completely, and clearly in a translation is a doctrinal problem. The matters that we have surveyed in this chapter all affect the teaching the reader is to receive from his Bible. It is naive to declare that they have no doctrinal significance. ... The need for new translations lies in the inadequacies of the KJV."

At least Lewis is honest enough to admit that he believes the KJV is inadequate and inferior and doctrinally corrupt. We agree with him 100% that there are serious doctrinal differences between the versions. A choice must be made. The idea that all of the texts and versions are somehow equal is nonsense.

We also acknowledge the happy fact that there is a general overall doctrinal agreement between the textual families. This shows us two things. First, we can rejoice that God has overruled the wicked plan of men and devils and has maintained "essential" doctrine even in the most corrupted texts. Second, this does not mean that the differences between the texts are insignificant and harmless. It does not mean that doctrine is unaffected. It also does not mean it is not important to find and use the pure text. A swordsman of old did not think a dull sword and a sharp sword, or a weak sword and a strong sword, were the same. You can show someone the Gospel of the grace of Christ even with a Roman Catholic version. You can prove the deity of Christ even with the perverted New World Translation used by the Jehovah's Witnesses. You can teach the doctrine of the Atonement even from a perversion such as the Today's English Bible which deletes the word "blood" in most major passages. This shows the marvelous hand of God to confound the efforts of the devil, but not for a moment does this mean that the changes made in these and other new translations are not significant.

Click here for Part 4 of this critique.