Editorial, General

Why a Bible edition can be called pure

The following is a series quotes from 18th and 19th century sources which tie the concepts of editorial and typographical accuracy with the word “pure” or “purity”. Further, that to ensure correctness requires some method of safeguarding and protection. Certain words have been bolded for ease of quick reference.

Report by Dr Benjamin Blayney, 1769

“whereby many errors that were found in former editions have been corrected, and the text reformed to such a standard of purity, as, it is presumed, is not to be met with in any other edition hitherto extant”.

Thomas Curtis’ THE EXISTING MONOPOLY, AN INADEQUATE PROTECTION, OF THE AUTHORISED VERSION OF SCRIPTURE (1831 Tract, 1833 Edition).

Letter from Thomas Turton, Cambridge University Press

“Great pains have been taken in this matter for many years; and although it did not seem expedient that your plan should be persevered in, you may rely upon it, that no effort will be wanting on the part of the Syndics, to secure a supply of Bibles as accurate as possible.”

1831–32 Select Committee Report (British Parliament)

“II. Effect of Monopoly on the Price, Accuracy, and Distribution of the Bible.

“1. Generally.

“The patents have not tended to improve the print and protect the accuracy of the text, … A watchful public, under the circumstances of a free trade, would be much more influential in preserving the pure text, than an unwatched monopoly, … A very great improvement has taken place of late years with respect to the accuracy in the printing of the Scriptures, both in the Universities and by the King’s printers”.

“The Church of Scotland acknowledges the inspired original alone as the standard, … A watchful public, under the circumstances of a free trade, would be much more influential in preserving the pure text than an unwatched monopoly, … There is no book of which it is so difficult to find a very correct edition as the English Bible, … Hardship under which the people of Scotland labour with respect to obtaining copies of the Oxford, Cambridge, and London Bibles”.

“There are very inaccurate editions printed both in England and Scotland; some of the most incorrect editions have been printed in Scotland, … Means which should be adopted for the satisfaction of the Church, to secure uniformity of text, supposing the trade in Bibles to be laid open in Scotland as that in other books, … The Bibles which were more accurately printed at the time of Charles the First and the Commonwealth appear to have been printed by other printers than the King’s printers, … There is no book of which it is so difficult to find a very correct edition as the English Bible”.

“Efforts of the Oxford University press to get their work perfect by keeping up moveable types, … Probable result of throwing the trade in Bibles and Testaments open, as regards price and the accuracy of the text”.

“Granting an exclusive privilege to print Bibles and Testaments does not insure greater accuracy, … A book like the Bible, which has undergone so many editions, if each had received the proper attention, might come as near perfection as possible; monopoly does not secure greater accuracy in the text, … If the printing of Bibles and Testaments were open to the trade, the public could be served not only with a greater variety of editions, but the price would be from 20 to 30 per cent. cheaper, … Probable result of throwing the trade in Bibles and Testaments open, as regards price, and the accuracy of the text, … If the monopoly were removed , and any person allowed to print the Bible, the errors would be fewer, … If the monopoly were removed, many of the errors would be prevented, … The patent has been exercised with a view to profit, and not solely with a view to protect the text”.

1837 REPORT from the SELECT COMMITTEE of the HOUSE OF COMMONS on KING’S PRINTERS PATENT (SCOTLAND); with the MINUTES of EVIDENCE, &c.

The Lord Advocate questioning The Rev. Adam Thompson

“… I think the interest of parties, who meant to print an edition of the Bible, would lead them to bestow all possible care upon it; it would require very great labour and minute attention, and it could not be done so well as by those who are accustomed to that sort of business.

“You think nothing would be gained, in point of accuracy and purity of the text, by any appointment of that nature? — I should think not.”

Mr Chambers questioning Mr Adam Black

“Have you any further observations to make with regard to securing the purity of the text? — Except that, in my opinion, the proposition of Dr Lee, as to employing professors of divinity, or persons appointed by the colleges to examine the text, would have no good effect.

“You think with regard to that, that competition is the best safeguard? — Good practised correctors of the press would be far better than all the professors in the University.”

Mr Hume questioning Mr John Childe

“Then is there any means by which you could suggest the carrying out of the objects of Bible Societies better than that which you have stated? — There can be no plan of carrying out the objects of the Bible Societies so good as to permit them to procure their Bibles and Testaments in any way that they shall think best; seeing that the Bibles and Testaments which they shall publish meet all the objections which are raised to the trade being thrown open. I conceive that the British and Foreign Bible Society, the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, and the Religious Tract Society, would be a sufficient guarantee to persons of all denominations, saving those who claim a version for themselves, to satisfy them entirely of the purity of the text.

“Do you think there would be any danger that imperfect editions would be printed if societies had the privilege of doing that which you have now stated? That question was admirably answered by Mr Thomson, of Coldstream, the first day, I think, of the meeting of this Committee; the different denominations are so tenacious of their own principles that it is literally impossible for the Scriptures to be mutilated.”

The Lord Advocate questioning the Right Hon. Anthony R. Blake

“Has the free publication of the Scriptures ever given rise to any spurious or imperfect editions being sold in Ireland? — I never heard of any; I am speaking, of course, of the authorized version of the Scriptures; the translation of the Latin Vulgate, which is in use among the Roman Catholics, has nothing to do with it”.

The Lord Advocate questioning The Rev. Adam Thompson (again)

“Are you of opinion that the appointment of a censor, or any other regulations, might be attended with advantage in preserving the purity of the text of the Scriptures? — I think that the appointment of censors would be altogether unnecessary”.

1860 MINUTES OF EVIDENCE taken before SELECT COMMITTEE ON THE QUEEN’S PRINTERS’ PATENT

C. Knight

It is alleged that a pure and strictly accurate text can only be secured by the continuance of the monopoly; that if the trade were free, Bibles would be printed in a slovenly manner; that the text would be corrupted; and that the niceties of typography, now sedulously maintained, would not be adhered to.”

R. Potts

“Seventhly, the daily and weekly newspaper press, both in London and in the country, would doubtless lend its aid to secure our Bible pure and correct, as it does our civil and religious liberties. Here I would remark, that I have written to several newspapers, and I have received two letters, one from a London paper, the other from a Cambridge paper, both of which express a readiness to print any reviews or notices that any person might send to them for insertion of any editions of our authorised version.”

“The more important questions to which I have directed my attention are these: first, whether private printers who possess the necessary means and machinery for accurate printing should be debarred from printing the Scriptures when they are not debarred from printing any other books, either in English or in any other language; and, secondly, whether in case the Bible printing patents are discontinued, there are any securities sufficient for maintaining the authorized version of the Bible in its purity and correctness.”

Editorial

Bible words matter

King James Bible words are very exact, and each word has a precise meaning, which means that changing words and punctuation can and does change meaning.

We are talking about the print history of the King James Bible, and its editorial accuracy today.

So, let’s take a word we find in the KJB. How do we know what that means? Let’s say it’s a challenging word, an unusual word.

The most important thing we can do is see how the word is used at that place (the context), and also at parallel passages what is said, and also how that word is used elsewhere in the KJB.

This is where there is a difference between a consistent KJBO approach and those who look to the original languages. The proper approach is to start with and steer the course in the English.

The problem with going to the original languages is that they aren’t really going to the originals but to what lexicons say those words allegedly “really” mean. In other words, they are definitions in English, and these definitions may vary to or even disagree with the KJB words. So it’s a very dangerous place to go to.

I want to show what happens when you go down that path. There’s a preacher named Bryan Ross. He says he stands for the KJB. But the problem is, he doesn’t believe in any finally fixed English, he doesn’t see the authority of meaning in the distinctiveness of English. He’s a “near enough is good enough” kind of guy. He calls this “ball park” or “semantic matrix” approach “verbal equivalence”, which may as well mean “vibrations in meaning”.

So, instead of seeing “charity” and “love” as two different words with different shades of meaning, he claims they are just synonymous. And he does the same with other words, like “Passover” and “Easter”. (Easter is the Christian word for Passover, but indicates more than just Christ the Lamb, as it speaks of resurrection.)

The word “charity” means “love in action”, which is different from just saying “love”. Once you understand that every Bible word has a distinct meaning, you won’t be just acting like “joy” and “gladness” are the same, or again, “travelling” and “journeying”.

The KJB translators knew that the same original word could and should be translated to different English words. And the meaning depends on this flexibility, because for a variety of reasons “joy” is not “gladness”. The syllables and sounds are different, the subtleties of association, the nuance of difference in the concepts… this means that where each word is used, it is the right word to be used. And if one word, then we should not substitute for it another word.

That’s why it’s wrong to say that varieties of words for any single place are okay in perpetuity. That’s why it’s wrong to allow that the KJB can still be changed. We know that there has been a sufficiency in the grace of God in that there has been a history of some variety, but this is only to do with the past, and not an excuse to allow the same “problem”/”phenomenon” to be perpetuated in the future.

God has a finite message in the Bible, as complex and as grand as it is. So likewise God is outworking in history to have precision of words, a singular standard, as the outcome of all things. We are not living in a perpetual universe of uniformitarianism, rather, we are living in a universe that has a start, middle and end. The end is where English is established through out the world, and people are turning Christianity in some vast numbers before the end of the world.

When Jesus commanded His Church to teach all nations, that included teaching them Bible words, it actually ultimately includes the teaching of English and the KJB.

Investigating, learning and understanding Bible words is a good thing. We also have helpful resources like W. Aldis Wright’s Bible Word-Book and the Oxford English Dictionary. But remember, man can be wrong or ignorant, but God is always right. Therefore, the KJB trumps the dictionary.

To stand for the precision of the KJB words is not to stand for something labelled by Bryan Ross as “verbatim identicality”. That concept is nonsense, since English is not the same as a Greek, and a printing of the KJB now is not the same as a printing in 1611. What we are seeing is a refining and clarifying position through time, after all, people in the past did not conceive how right the KJB actually is. Now that English is global, stable and computer-utilised, it follows that the Scripture has been able to come into its final fixedness.

FURTHER STUDY

Words are important: Isaiah 55, Proverbs 30:5, 6, Luke 4:4

Words are exact: Titus 1:2, John 17:17, Luke 16:17

Teach the nations: Matthew 28:18-20, Prov. 1:23, Rom. 10:18

Editorial, General

Thinking about the entire KJBO debate/controversy

One side in the debate formulates its belief based on Scripture.

The other side does not. The other side formulates its belief based on Enlightenment philosophy.

So when it comes to interpreting the Scripture, one side is interpreting believingly. The other side is interpreting, again, under the influence of Enlightenment philosophy.

It could not be more clear: the King James Bible perfectionist argument is between two sides with very different belief systems.

In fact, we could go so far to suggest that these two belief systems are really a conflict over a view of how far God has an interventionist role in history as relating to the manifestation/presence of the Scripture.

Or to put it another way, how far God has provided a method of interpreting from Scripture how much He reveals in Scripture He has an interventionist role in regards to supplying the same Scripture.

Editorial, Review

Mark Ward: wannabe academic and wasted efforts

King James Bible anti-perfectionist, Mark Ward, has put a lot of effort into trying to argue that it is getting to difficult too understand the King James Bible.

He is trying to create a profile for himself with some books and materials which try to identify words that might be wrongly understood in the KJB.

What Ward did not do is approach the area like he wanted to actually help people. Instead, he approached the area like as if he was being funded by certain sources, with the intent of extending markets of sales. That is, the attempt to break people from solely relying on the KJB and an attempt to sell more people more Bible study “resources” in line with that view.

Further, Ward has been approaching his work not in a “ministry” sense (i.e. to serve the other without being a burden) but in a marketing sense, creating lines of revenue to sustain himself.

I believe in prosperity doctrine, so I am all for ministries giving and receiving. Maybe Mark Ward could learn a thing from Kenneth Copeland and put out his own Reference Study Bible, King James Version, Pure Cambridge Edition. (After all, Copeland himself put out the PCE several times, so his really was a ministry of excellence!)

In Mark Ward’s crusade against certain words in the KJB, he surprisingly didn’t highlight some very significant resources, like W. Aldis Wright’s Bible word-book.

If he’d used that book, and its preceding incarnation, he would have seen what mid-19th century people called “archaic” in the KJB. He would have noticed that the same words that get attacked today were already listed and defined there.

When we hear Mark Ward speak, then, we are not hearing a dispassionate, fair and impartial treatment of the subject. No, we are hearing a propagandist. Ward’s background and interests are much more around visual communication and public relations than about teaching and edifying the dumb lambs of the Body of Christ.

Besides his self-promotion, he has a very clear agenda, and it is about product sales and trying to infect King James Bibles users with modernist thinking.

So there’s no need to buy Mark Ward’s books when plenty of superior information is freely available:

https://archive.org/details/biblewordbookag00eastgoog

https://archive.org/details/biblewordbookag01eastgoog

https://archive.org/details/thebiblewordbook00wriguoft

https://archive.org/details/biblewordbookglo00wrig

https://archive.org/details/biblewordbookglo00wrigiala

There’s no need to reinvent the wheel, the men of old were men of renown.

Isn’t it funny that the same words which are said to be “archaic” or difficult or whatever then are the same today… maybe we are reading Biblical English after all, and not “1611 English”. I’d go so far to say that these same words would be ones ploughboys in 1611 would have struggled with.

Editorial, General, Review

An answer to Bryan Ross’ view on Psalm 12 and marginal notes

Bryan Ross is a good man, a believer and he does believe that Psalm 12 is about the preservation of Scripture … but does not see the psalm as specifically prophetic, only generally prophetic. Thus, he does not see that the psalm would have something about the KJB in particular, but takes it about the Scripture in history in general.

Bryan Ross says, “Many King James advocates hold either explicitly or implicitly that Psalm 12:6-7 is referring to the KJB. In other words, they have in their thinking the notion that David is speaking directly about the KJB in this passage.”

Actually, the Holy Ghost is speaking about the KJB, David obviously didn’t know about the KJB.

Ross then goes on to talk about, “The expression ‘as silver tried in a furnace of earth purified seven times’ at the end of verse 6 is taken to be a direct reference to the KJB. This argument is made because the KJB is the seventh translation of the Textus Receptus into the English.”

The correct phrasing is that there are seven major Protestant iterations of Bible translations in English from Tyndale to the KJB. The KJB is the seventh. Even Richard Bancroft, in instructing the KJB translators, told them to look at these six Bible translations.

Ross says, “This assertion is based upon the numerical argument that seven is the number of perfection coupled with King James having been the seventh translation of the TR into English; therefore, it is argued that the King James is ‘perfect.’”

Actually, the reasoning is based upon the fact that the Bible prophecy says seven times, and there are seven major Protestant translations from Tyndale to the KJB.

Ross then suggests that the passage might “necessitate a sevenfold refinement process in any receptor language in order for God’s ‘perfect’ word to exist in that language.”

This does not make sense, since God’s words are perfect, and the process prophesied of in Psalm 12 is about English translation, not about Scripture itself becoming more perfect.

Ross then turns to the modernist view, which says that the words are pure, not that they go through any process. This of course makes no sense since the Scripture is passing through the Earth, and even Ross says the passage is about preservation, so preservation must be a process not merely a state of being.

Ross bizarrely can see nothing of the Holy Ghost as he regards the Psalm being written by someone who did not have “an early 17th century English translation in mind. Rather David is referring to the ‘words’ he is the process of writing in Hebrew.”

Ross then is dangerously locking himself into the modernist mentality, as if Scripture is human, limited to the human mind of its author, and most dangerously, the modernist hermeneutic that Scripture was only for the time it was written in.

Does Ross believe the same thing about Messianic prophecies in Psalms or Isaiah? No, I am sure he believes them. Suddenly he recognises the Holy Ghost being able to know the future, but when it comes to Psalm 12, poor David is only limited to his own mind?! Surely the Holy Ghost is looking ahead to the KJB, and is showing where the process of preservation would lead.

While Ross does understand that David wrote Hebrew and these words went into English, he does not allow the prophecy to be able to talk about the KJB, which is very much how the modernists also think.

Ross also discusses the margin notes in general and in relation to this psalm.

Ross argues that marginal notes are “alternatives” and are often essentially synonymous to the main rendering. This is a wrong approach, in that they are clearly variant, as close as they might be. Ross tries to argue that the textual variants (approx. 20) are mainly saying something synonymous. This approach does not stay with the clarity and certainty of the textual readings of the KJB, but allows ambiguity rather than textual resolution rule. Pastor Ross is doing exactly what the modernists do, in that they think the margins/centre columns are glorifications of uncertainty rather than resolutions on rejected variants.

When it comes to the variant translation in Psalm 12:7, and there are hundreds of these throughout the KJB, and the KJB translators were noting what was a more literal rendering of the Hebrew, but where the sense was to be given as they have it as their main rendering, not the margin.

Marginal material, particularly the “Or” type notes, came from disagreements among the translators, and drawing upon other sources, e.g. other translators, commentators, Fathers, etc. Whatever the majority of the committee(s) decided as the preferable rendering stood as the main text, while the less supported one (i.e. rejected) was put to the margin. In this way, we do not read the KJB margins as any way viable alternatives or as valid possibilities, etc., but as words, which after over 400 years of KJB use, are to be considered as permanently rejected.

Unfortunately Bryan Ross has a non-exactist or non-precisionist view of the KJB words, and seems to give more current and future credibility to other words that are not actually the main text of the KJB than what should be given to them.

Editorial, Review

Tim Berg and David Daniell

Tim Berg, a young rejector of the perfection of the King James Bible, on increasing his scholarly repertoire, was reading David Daniell.

David Daniell, a literary scholar who has now passed away, much preferred the Tyndale Bible to the King James Bible and wrote quite negatively of the King James Bible.

In the Preface to his book, The Bible In English, he bemoans the collapse in knowledge of the Scripture. One might offer to him the solution to the problem: reinstate the King James Bible. But it is apparent that DD did not want to do that, because he wanted to tear it down.

I want to focus on one paragraph, called “Lighting”. He writes, “Some of the work in this book has to be the switching-off of special lighting, to reveal an illusion for what it is.” He is trying to say that the King James Bible has been wrongly exalted and loved, that the KJB is really false light and its beauty, power and magnificence is merely an illusion.

DD exhibits absolute blindness to the achievements of the KJB, and is clearly fighting against the Providences which are with it.

He writes, “The sudden elevation of that 1611 ‘AV’ (KJV) to near divine status in 1769, and, for many people, for ever after, so that ‘Avolatry’ went hand in hand with the mindless adoration of Shakespeare (‘Bardolatry’) for two hundred years and more, is a strange phenomenon, especially as it went with the radical alteration of both texts.”

This statement is packed with lies. It seems strange to assert that the KJB suddenly was elevated in 1769. He doesn’t provide documentary evidence for this assertion. (Why isn’t it a good thing that the KJB has been upheld?)

Second, he exhibits his cynicism towards Shakespeare, but links the KJB and Shakespeare — something which ordinary Christians haven’t gone out of their way to state, though some literary types will praise the KJB and Shakespeare, but this seems quite mad to question.

Third, he charges the KJB with having been radically altered. This is a clearly delusional charge, as the KJB has barely changed at all, except mainly in orthography.

He goes onwards, writing, “Stranger still is a twentieth-century insistence in large parts of the United States of America that this version, imagined to be the personal work of King James the First, and known. often as the ‘Saint James Version’, is the ‘inerrant Word of God’, unchallengeable even to its merest dot and comma.”

Here is conflates two different things, one is that there are some people who ignorantly think that King James made that Bible, and they even call the Bible the “St James”. The other is that the KJB should not be changed even in a dot or comma.”

Well, those two things are completely unrelated, yet for propaganda purposes he affixes them. In reality, the second position is a real one, and has found expression in the doctrine of the Pure Cambridge Edition, which came to world attention after DD wrote his book in 2003.

But to make it clear, the purity of the KJB to the dot and letter is not based upon some special “revelation” or special inspiration or something, which is what DD is really implying is being believed. He doesn’t describe the believing side well at all, here or in other places in his book.

DD really is the same as the rest of the unbelieving scholars who hold a low view of the King James Bible, such as F. H. A. Scrivener, C. Hill, M. Black, D. Norton, D. McKitterick, A. Nicholson, etc. (Three Davids among their number.)

DD’s desire to bring back the Bible is good, but he could not have been trusted to do it since he quite unscholastically believed that the KJB had suffered “radical alteration” of its text since 1611.

There is of course no proof of that. The same readings and translation that is there in 1611 is there today. We have a history of editorial work, but that is not designed to change the actual work of 1611, just do things like correct printing errors, standardise spelling and other such editorial regularisation.

Tim Berg would do well to not uphold David Daniell as a guide or hero. Notwithstanding DD did make some good points about the need to recognise the Bible in 16th century history and the importance of the KJB over the Geneva in the minds of mid-17th century Christians, he nevertheless had many negative and blindingly bad views of the KJB.

One cannot wish for the permeating knowledge of the greatness of the KJB on one hand, and yet pull it down and delegitimise it with the other. That is why I say DD was mad.

Near the end of DD’s book is a whole section dedicated to ridiculing those who use the KJB, mischaracterising the exclusive use of the King James Bible and making some very strange, ignorant and downright untrue charges, all of which is designed to make a Bible lover look a maniac. (There have been actual extremists and problems of course.)

DD shows his colours in making out that the lovers of the KJB are “anti-communists” while drawing a quote from the heretical Dietrich Bonhoeffer. This is the early 2000s way of saying that KJB precisionists (to draw on the old name for Puritans), are worse than a certain political ideology of the 20th century.

He is driven to label the KJB “already archaic in 1611, often erroneous, sometimes unintelligible”, and he seems perplexed that people still uphold the KJB in present day America.

Tim Burg has chosen his side, aligning to those who would dethrone the KJB and to besmirch those that uphold it. It’s a sad thing to see that Tim Burg didn’t instead think that he could promote and uphold the KJB better than those he saw doing a bad job of it, and instead has shaken his fist at it.

General

Church and devotional reading plan

If you would like to read a lot of Bible every day, or have a set scheme of Sunday readings, then why not follow a plan?

In fact, why not follow the plan that was in front of the 1611 King James Bible, adjusted to the 1662 plan, as is presented in the vintage era Book of Common Prayer.

You can read the Bible through by following the calendar, have special Sunday readings, and even follow the movable calendar which will start and override from one of the Sundays after Epiphany. You can read special readings for the holy days as well.

As Protestants, you don’t have to regard any of the feasts and so forth, like the crypto-Catholics, Laudians, Restoration monarchists, Jacobites and so on did, and you can ignore the Apocrypha readings, but still it would sit well if Christians were reading the same thing and following a traditionally established plan.

It surely can’t hurt to read of the birth of Jesus on 25 December or remember the resurrection of Christ on a certain Sunday relative to the moon and equinox according to the Gregorian calendar. I know Pentecostal preachers advocate for a proper Christmas and a proper Easter, but not everyone is on board because of the fact they were once the pagan and the heathen festivals of Saturnalia and Eostremonath. (We have no problem with Thursdays or March and look who they are named after.) I do think we should be very cautious about what has happened to All Saints’ Eve (Halloween).

If you are afraid of embracing error because of the spiritual dryness of liturgical Christianity, perhaps you should think more like the spiritual power of born again Christianity can find merit and use in taking back our heritage and reformation values. I don’t think for one minute someone is going to slide into error because of reading the Bible according to some long established plan. The Bible and the Holy Ghost lead to truth, after all.

Ideal copies of the late Victorian form of the Book of Common Prayer, which was printed all the way to the time of the late Queen Elizabeth II, are available. (That is, not the failed 1928 or other modern forms). This is one online: https://archive.org/details/bookofcommon00unknuoft/page/20/mode/2up And here is another: https://archive.org/details/bookcommonpraye09englgoog/page/n14/mode/2up

People should not be surprised that a Word and Spirit Christian would embrace truths from Pentecostalism, 17th century Puritanism and the historical Book of Common Prayer.

Pure Cambridge Edition of the KJB!