All posts by bibleprotector

Editorial, Review

Framing the PCE position — Part Two

This article continues

In Part One of this article, I addressed the overarching problem of framing in Bryan Ross’ treatment of the Pure Cambridge Edition (PCE) position. I demonstrated that his critique relies heavily on selective quotation, the collapsing of necessary bibliological distinctions and the imposition of his own doctrinal and philosophical presuppositions onto my position. The result is not a neutral assessment of the PCE, but a reconstructed version of it. He has produced a false narrative that presents my view far flatter than I have ever claimed, making it seem ridiculously exclusivist.

In this second article, I will move beyond general framing issues and deal directly with several specific instances where Ross misunderstands, misrepresents or reverses what I have actually said. The aim here is not merely to correct errors, but to show in some detail that Ross’ objections consistently fail because they are aimed at a position I do not hold.

Pentecostalism

“On April 4, 2001, I then stated to the Elders of Victory Faith Centre a case in favour of this, which was when I fully recognised the correct edition. I then came to understand the meaning of the word ‘spirit’ with a lowercase ‘s’, and its connection to proper Pentecostal doctrine, namely, that the Spirit is to work in the human spirit (such as Christian sanctification and the impartation of knowledge), as well as His Pentecostal filling of it.”

In 2001, I was trying to understand things. This is the very beginning of it all.

I was coming from a position of having a wide margin Cambridge KJV Bible that probably would have been a PCE except it had a capital “Spirit” at 1 John 5:8. That was the issue at that time. I knew very little about editions, really nothing of Cambridge’s print history, at that time.

History has vindicated all of this, for example the sharing online of a letter from 1985 from Cambridge University Press which exposes their view that indeed the lower case “s” on “spirit” at 1 John 5:8 was their normal editorial text.

Norton’s book wasn’t even published yet in 2001. Yet, in such times of ignorance, careful study and aligning to Providence is what would show this step to be correct. I only had access to things like D’Oyly and Mant’s 1817 Folio (or maybe more Quarto).

Now, when I said about the understanding of “spirit” lower case in “connection to proper Pentecostal doctrine”, I am talking about the set of doctrines that a Christian who happens to be Pentecostal holds. You can see that by my reference to sanctification which is not an exclusive Pentecostal doctrine at all. That is what I was meaning. So the logic goes:

  • Providential signs show “spirit”;
  • I use a “Full Counsel of God” doctrinal approach which includes Pentecostalism and
  • Make a logical, doctrinal and linguistic basic case for “spirit”

That was only to understand why or how it would be possible that the word “spirit” would be lower case. It is two logical steps: could it possibly correct and then why would it be correct?

It is not a statement of the actual meaning or doctrine of 1 John 5:8. I am not saying that anything I said was actually what 1 John 5:8 actually should be explicitly interpreted as. I am only talking about why the word “spirit” would appear in the KJB lowercase and what it might mean.

Now, remember this was a first look, my 2001 very initial thoughts about it. I did not even know fully how much all editions of the KJB had “spirit” in lower case in so many places throughout. (I was in fact using the primitive, analogue sources of an actual new Strongs Concordance in those days.)

So to say that “Pentecostalism” (doctrinally) guided me to say that 1 John 5:8 must have some special Pentecostal meaning, or that some sort of Pentecostal “experience” (like a vision or something) guided me to say that “spirit” must have a certain meaning would all be a wrong way of understanding what I said. Nothing like that really happened.

It’s a matter of recording what happened, for posterity. I did it all openly, there’s nothing being hidden. I am recording facts in the information I presented. It is a matter of historical reality that is what I stated in 2001 as recorded in 2013 as presented again here in 2026.

Ross misunderstands this by stating: “Interesting to note the stated reason he accepted the PCE as perfect because the lower case ‘s’ aligned with his Pentecostal theology, even though he vehemently rejects our stating that his position is founded on historicist interpretations of Revelation and Pentecostal theology.”

Historicist

Ross is further wrong by referring to “historicist interpretations”. Clearly I am Pentecostal and believe in Historicism, and as concerning the latter, I do point to a Historicist argument about Revelation 10 where it is pointing to the KJB, and where I use it to further point towards the PCE.

This is the same with the “purified seven times” view, it isn’t a central point, but it is a point. The issue is that Ross tries to make the Pentecostalism or the “purified seven times” parts bigger than what they are. Obviously Pentecostalism is in my thinking broadly as a Christian, and the pattern of Historicism and of “purified seven times” are part of a way of how I have understood the PCE’s place in history, but it’s not the most central tenet, it’s just a part of the view.

I can say I barely understood Historicism at that time, I’ve learned a lot more since. See this video to get a some Historicist information on Revelation 10.

Ross’ editorialising

Ross writes, “He did not say ‘I set out to study the history and doctrine and became convinced of this.’ Instead, he essentially said, ‘I became convinced of this by divine leading and Pentecostal doctrine then I set about to prove it and build a position.’”

Notice how Ross puts words into my mouth on the basis of his misinterpretation.

In fact, everything shows I was studying and looking at old Bibles. I was aligning to what could be seen in the providential signs pointing to why Cambridge was right with the KJB.

If there was any Pentecostalism, it was not like Ross imagines it. In Word of Faith doctrine we have the following:

“If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him.” (James 1:5).

Notice this is about finding the truth, through looking at Scripture and studying phenomena, as in, actual science and general practice.

I was, in fact, using Hills’ method of the Logic of Faith, and was giving close regard to to what Burgon had written. That’s how it was being looked at, that’s how I was seeing why the PCE was right.

That’s pretty much the opposite of what Ross falsely accuses me of. I was in fact building a position by studying Scripture, examining providences in usage and information. This is very difficult when there is little basis and little actual studies available in that field (as at 2001 to 2003).

This is my stand

Divorced from me, the PCE is indeed commendable to be a standard edition. However, the reality (as I suppose Ross is now recognising) is that I am connected to it in some way.

However, I can understand Ross bucking against it because his identity and emotional commitment is challenged.

Unfortunately also Bryan’s friend Nate has also been bucking about, so there is a challenge for him as well.

The thing is that Ross does do good work, I am sure that there are challenges running a church, and his desire to promote the legacy of William Tyndale is a good thing.

Yet, “A brother offended is harder to be won than a strong city: and their contentions are like the bars of a castle.” (Proverbs 18:19).

The wisdom of Gamaliel would be good for Ross to consider, “And now I say unto you, Refrain from these men, and let them alone: for if this counsel or this work be of men, it will come to nought: But if it be of God, ye cannot overthrow it; lest haply ye be found even to fight against God.” (Acts 5:38, 39).

Editorial, Review

Framing the PCE position — Part One

Introduction

On the first Sunday in January 2026, Pastor Bryan Ross gave another presentation, number 272 in his series, on looking at the history of the King James Bible (KJB) text. (Which has a spelling mistake in the title, he turned “tenets” into “tenants”, a mistake I’ve also made in the past.)

In his presentation, he has attempted to present himself as neutral, historical, logical, etc., in his dealing with (i.e. against) a position that upholds one particular edition of the KJB as best, right and good.

Interestingly he has moved from dealing with an edition itself on its own merits, to the promotion of that edition and the character of its chief promoter, Matthew Verschuur of bibleprotector.com (the author of this response).

Ross is motivated against an exclusive use or upholding of a particular edition for various reasons.

His motivations have resulted in him being driven therefore to selectively marshal quotes, interpret writings and ignore or collapse distinctions held by Bible Protector in order to have rhetorical propagandist effect.

In this, we can show that Ross’ critiques are not fair, somewhat misframing ideas, misapplying an onus of correction for clarity onto Bible Protector (i.e. gaslighting me for being misinterpretable) and filtering comments through his own doctrinal, philosophical, etc. bias.

Basically, Ross is trying to make out that to hold a particular edition as “exclusive” is extreme, and that this ties into his personal problems with my other foundational views. I can understand how Ross would be uncomfortable with someone like me having different doctrinal views than him presenting something which, in its own self, is there for Ross.

By this, I mean that having a correct, standard and pure edition of the King James Bible is itself an end and a concept which could be adhered to, regardless of specifics of denominational affiliation.

I guess Ross should learn from the analogy of King James the First, who held vastly different doctrines and views to Ross, yet Ross can accept the Version made under his name. In fact, he holds to it quite strongly! Now, since the PCE already was edited in the early 1900s, surely Ross should be able to at least accept the concept of having a general terms-of-reference standard, to have an edition as a editorial representative in a definitive way of what is an accurately printed and orthographically exact presentation of the version/translation he uses.

Framing by selective quotation emphasis

Ross mines quotes from my materials, and then he asserts what he thinks those statements “must logically imply”.

Selective quotation can be accurate and still misleading. When he takes various short portions of what I wrote in my draft, he marshals them together in such a way so as to more reconstruct than analyse.

In doing so, Ross constructs a picture of the PCE position that is stricter, flatter and more exclusivist than what it actually is. (For example, when I say that specifically the PCE should be used as “the” Bible, I don’t mean to deny that the Scripture exists elsewhere, or that foreign translations are corrupt or that the Greek and Hebrew are evil.)

He is therefore engaging in contextual reframing in how he editorialises commentary on what I wrote, reading in and implying things I did not state.

The onus and misunderstanding early development

Ross went (selectively) through some of the background of how I was first looking into editions. Even though I had began from a place of uncertainty, I was using the logic of Henry Hills, Dean Burgon, Oliver Cromwell and Church history. The approach therefore was providentialist not Pentecostalist (which I am sure Ross also misunderstands, not knowing of the farflung spectrum of Pentecostal beliefs exceeding the spectrum of different Baptists).

Ross also tries to put the onus on me. He reads something I wrote and then tries to drive things beyond or even opposite of what I have said or meant. He then says that it is up to me to essentially rewrite something so that he doesn’t misinterpret it. That is completely uncharitably holding a person to ransom by essentially knowingly saying that they are meaning something they do not mean, and then saying that I would have to change my writings so he doesn’t misinterpret them.

Levels of purity: Ross’ central category error

The most consequential flaw in Ross’ critique is his refusal to engage in my multi-level framework of purity, despite clear evidence that Ross understands such distinctions exist. At the heart of a lot of Ross’ misunderstanding is a refusal to engage a layered bibliology, one that distinguishes where and how Scripture exists in purity in different levels. The PCE position is not a flat ontology in which Scripture can exist in only one form at one time. Rather, it recognises levels of purity and representation:

  1. Scripture itself
    • In the mind of God — pure and perfect
    • In Heaven — pure and perfect
    • In the autographs — pure and perfect
    • In faithful copies and translations
  2. Text/Version/Readings
    • The Textus Receptus tradition
    • Foreign and English Protestant translation versions
    • The King James Bible (1611) — pure and perfect
  3. Translation
    • Protestant English translations from Tyndale through the KJB
    • The KJB itself — pure and perfect
  4. Edition
    • Specific editorial forms (e.g., 1769, later Cambridge editions)
    • The Pure Cambridge Edition (PCE) itself — pure and perfect
  5. Setting
    • A particular, editorially stable instantiation of the PCE by having a text file with no typographical error — pure and perfect

Ross repeatedly collapses these levels into one flat category, then accuses the PCE position of denying or being made “more” Scripture than elsewhere. That conclusion only follows because Ross deliberately ignores the framework altogether, and he does so from his biased viewpoint rather than fair dealing.

Of course the PCE cannot be more pure than Scripture in Heaven or the autographs. Of course the PCE can be completely correct without denying or being against other levels of manifestations of Scripture.

It is completely unfair, like comparing apples and oranges, to mix the purity of an edition with the purity of a version. What needs to be understood is that a version needs a pure edition to represent it. The purity of a version is presented correct in an edition. Yet the concepts remain separate, dealing with a version in a textual critical way is entirely different to dealing with typesetting in a orthographic and copy-editorial way. These separate classes or levels of purity relate in both being able to be present in any copy of Scripture or not.

(Think about having a typographically correct ESV. That might be an accurately presented form of the ESV, but its Readings and Translation are still wrong. However, when we say the ESV, we would really want to be saying the typographically accurate form, because that is just common sense. It is not as if inaccurately printed copies are not the ESV.)

Purity as a continuum

Ross seems to insist that terms like “final purification” and “perfect” must mean something like as if this was the first time God’s Word was pure on earth, as though God’s Word was previously impure or unavailable. This is a category error.

Yet there are all kinds of I have said which contradict the way Ross tries to frame me, for example, I say that God’s Word is always pure in Heaven, Scripture was available and effective in the distant past.

The purified seven times in Earth (see Psalm 12) does not deny the purity that “just is” in Heaven. The purified seven times in Earth is most properly in a prophetic way can be seen in the English Bible version/translations. Is Tyndale actually impure Scripture? No. But is the KJB built upon it in a seven fold kind of way? Yes.

The finality of major editions of the KJB with the PCE is to do with editorial culmination, not to the first appearance of purity. To read it otherwise is to collapse editorial history into an ideological absolutism as if no one had the “really real” Scripture until now.

Also, just because the KJB has gone through many editions does not deny the specific important major iterations (folio editions) of editorial importance of the KJB. This means that specifically the 1611s, 1613, 1629, 1638 and 1769 are important milestones. But yes, a smaller Bible from 1612, or Scattergood or F. S. Parris and Thomas Paris’ work is not without contribution. Doubtless Ross might try to make some sort of anti-Newtonian Indigo argument.

Ross knows a lot of what I have said and explained, yet he persists with his narrative, claiming that I will produce materials complaining about him. He anticipates this because he knows he is doing things that deserve censure.

Ross should be careful about becoming another Justin Peters, and also consider about the danger of fighting divine providence.

Doctrine, language and bias

Ross’ critique is not doctrinally neutral. His resistance to the PCE position is shaped by identifiable commitments:

  • Mid-Acts Dispensationalism (and Pauline emphasis)
  • Cessationism and anti-Pentecostalism
  • A specific and restrictive Historical-grammatical hermeneutic
  • A low view of providential editorial history
  • A philosophy of language that resists letter-level theological significance
  • Opposition to forms of authoritarianism and absolutism

Underlying much of Ross’ opposition is a philosophy of language that resists precision. If spelling, capitalisation and punctuation are assumed to be conceptually indifferent, then any claim to letter-level exactness will appear unnecessary or even dangerous.

Ross seems to think that doctrine, meaning or sense is not affected by the small parts of language.

I affirm that doctrinal nuance, conceptual association and sense are communicated by construction, syntax, vocabulary and that words and grammar form are important, meaning that there is significance tied to spelling, capitalisation and punctuation.

Legality requires precision of language. Christianity itself, and the nature of God, is doctrinal and describable. Language is a necessity, and precision thereof an absolute requirement. Ross rejects this premise a priori, then criticises the conclusions that follow from it.

“Glistering Truths” and Relative Precision

Ross seems to portray as if I am claiming that correct doctrine only exists in the PCE. This is wrong. Correct doctrine is communicated in all levels or layers of what Scripture is, but obviously text and translation do affect the understanding of it.

So if we were to compare an Oxford or a Cambridge KJB, obviously there is going to be no difference on Creation, Sin, the Virgin Birth, the Resurrection, the Rapture, etc. The claim is not that the PCE uniquely teaches the Trinity or the deity of Christ.

In fact, even on very small points of meaning, the differences between a Cambridge and an Oxford are very tiny. Yet, at every last whit, at every last detail, on just a word or letter here or there, there is still something very small. It is a matter of having exactly the very words of God. There are conceptual accuracies in even the minor details.

Ross should understand that the PCE view is the maximal editorial precision that best preserves every nuance of doctrine, meaning, sense and conceptual precision.

The difference is one of degree. The PCE therefore is by design a preservation of doctrine with the greatest editorial fidelity.

Let’s be honest, but even a loose paraphrase may contain Scripture where it aligns with the highest standards. Modern versions are not always wrong, but we can recognise when they are right. Their foundational nature being of the spirit of modernist Infidelity is the reason we should reject them as a whole, but yet we can detect truth within them because we have a known standard of truth to measure by.

And on the editions question, it was, after all, the 1629, 1638, 1769, etc. which had “spirit” lower case in 1 John 5:8, so this should not be lightly rejected today. Some would do so on fairly whimsical grounds like their “feelings”. In fact, that is like a “Pentecostal” response in this present time of general Christian ignorance. But someone saying that the early Barker printings and now a Cambridge letter from 1985 are of greater authority, this would be a mistake. Why are Bible editors of the past hundreds of years all to be rejected because Cambridge University Press, in a time of their own obvious ignorance, said that they were embarrassed about 1 John 5:8?

Key criteria

In relation to the list of key criteria of 12 passages identifying the PCE, Ross has misunderstood, because it is possible to construct a complete and definitive list of differences between the PCE and the Oxford 1769 Folio, or between the PCE and the Concord or the PCE and an Oxford printing of the 20th century.

That list of key criteria is just a checklist to discern the PCE, not definitively but sufficiently, and further, that list has become the way to define a PCE or not.

Ross asks, “How does Verschuur know this list is complete?” Answer: It is a definitive list to discern a PCE, it is not all the differences or checks for all editions as far as every single reading difference.

Ross asks, “Could there be other changes that could be significant according to his argument?” Answer: These aren’t necessarily all significant or even the most significant, they are just indicative places, which would be usual to find some levels of differences between Thomas Nelsons, Americanised Editions, Oxfords, Zondervan, etc.

Ross asks, “How can one be sure?” Answer: Sure that an edition is the PCE? The PCE has been published by Cambridge etc. since at least 1911 if not earlier and printings of the PCE, including from other publishers printing the PCE, show conformity to a particular editorial text, e.g. that will have “Geba” at Ezra 2:26. So it is empirically and objectively known, this is not a “Verschuur” claim, this is an objective reality that everyone can observe, e.g. David Norton observed the 20th century/current text.

Therefore, the list is diagnostic not exhaustive.

Phenomena and Providence

Ross takes a mocking tone towards a few (passing) references to earthquakes, comets and historical events as if they are essential proof claims.

I am noting these historical facts as phenomena not as a basis of truth. It is normal to do this in recording history to help contextualise the time frame. But things do have meaning, of course, we live in a universe ruled by the Most High who is an interventionist Being.

After all, there is a lot to show how Kepler’s Star is associated with the inception of the King James Bible. Since God is in control of history, and there are convergencies between “signs and wonders” of Genesis 1 (for example) and God’s outworking in history, this is because God’s will really is done and because the Most High really does rule.

Ross’ labouring of the issue trying to insinuate or create sensationalism is a rhetorical distraction.

Public Articulation vs. Historical Reality

Ross seems to be implying that because the PCE position was publicly articulated only from 2007, it may lack legitimacy.

This confuses recognition with existence.

  • The PCE text existed decades earlier
  • Cambridge printings demonstrate editorial stability
  • Public articulation itself does not create, it identifies

By this logic, many doctrines would be invalid until first formally systematised. I imagine people turning down Nicaean doctrines in 326 because they were a year old, or someone rejecting the KJB in 1612 because it was a year old.

Recent expression does not imply novelty of substance.

This article continues

In Part Two of this article, I’m going to show explicitly Bryan Ross misunderstanding me.

Editorial

Where now the horse and the rider?

Plato famously used the image of horses in his writings. In The Republic he divides society into three social classes, called three estates: rulers (philosopher-kings), warriors and primary producers (workers).

In the modern era, Russian political philosopher Alexander Dugin formulated his own ideas, drawing on sources of ancient philosophy, traditionalism, and civilisational theory. Dugin rejects the current Liberal Social Modern World Order with its structures, rules-basis and views on self-determination. In contradiction to the antichristian “Post War Human Dignity Absolutism” he wishes to return to hierarchy, faith and destiny.

Therefore, a society of civilisations led by philosopher kings, with of course one particular Russian civilisation being filled with ambition, it follows that the rise of both the metaphysical and martial forces of are to assert themselves again.

The power of forces enter the forge or crucible and are made great again.

Hence we see the Platonic connection to the horse and now we have a connection to the Russian military.

Unsurprisingly, Russia has been making use of horses in its “special military operation” against Ukraine. In early 2026 footage has been released showing Russians using horses, in what appears to be a cavalry fashion.

Why is this important?

The image of horses in a prophecy about warfare immediately recalls Scripture that many connect to Russia.

In Ezekiel chapters 38 and 39, the Scripture speaks of a great northern power led by Gog, coming against the land of Israel in the latter days. The language seems to invoke a feeling that it is like World War Three:

“Thou shalt come from thy place out of the north parts, thou, and many people with thee, all of them riding upon horses, a great company, and a mighty army” (Ezekiel 38:15).

Again, Ezekiel writes:

“Be thou prepared, and prepare for thyself, thou, and all thy company that are assembled unto thee, and be thou a guard unto them” (Ezekiel 38:7).

The repeated mention of horses and horsemen is striking. While interpretations can include elements of symbolism (e.g. tanks and APCs being called “cavalry”), it is well attested that besides being a prophecy about the Assyrians in the distant past, it is a prophecy of Russia in the near future.

So we have the convergence: Dugin’s ideas on sacred war, Russia’s renewed use of old methods and the biblical description of a northern power marked by horsemen and military might.

The Word of God remains unchanged. Ezekiel’s prophecy stands, that the horsemen are coming. Other information on these events can be found in Daniel, which many have misinterpreted.

“And at the time of the end shall the king of the south push at him: and the king of the north shall come against him like a whirlwind, with chariots, and with horsemen, and with many ships; and he shall enter into the countries, and shall overflow and pass over.” (Daniel 11:40).

The king of the north can be tied to the power that put their claim on the north pole which is Russia.

Scripture comforts believers, that while “Some trust in chariots, and some in horses: but we will remember the name of the LORD our God” (Psalm 20:7).

We find in Daniel that a great power is to arise, none other than the archangel Michael, who is AGAINST the horsemen. It is the power of the scripture of truth against erroneous philosophy.

Editorial, General, Review

Assessing the Pure Cambridge Edition


INTRODUCTION

Any serious examination of the printed history of the King James Bible (KJB) must proceed with care, humility and a willingness to observe what the historical record actually presents. In this regard, video lectures by Bryan Ross have provided a helpful overview of the transmission and printing of the Authorized Version (yes, spelt with a “z”), particularly as it relates to the work of Cambridge University Press and the broader editorial history of the text from the seventeenth century to the modern era.

Much of what Ross has presented has been quite good, especially with his emphasis on historical process and editorial development, as well as his resistance to extreme or speculative claims.

We still must point out that Ross does approach with certain presuppositions and therefore can have wrong interpretation and conclusions. That is evident in how he approaches the specific form of the King James Bible that emerged in the early twentieth century that is now commonly referred to as the Pure Cambridge Edition (PCE).

After giving a general examination on Scrivener’s Cambridge Paragraph Bible, his next lesson turned to the PCE. This is lesson 271 in his long series addressing the topic of assessing the printed history of the KJB text. While Ross has usually followed a normal, empirical and analytical approach, he instead took a decision to criticise a position (of Bible Protector), rather than to start by examining the historical printed history and reality of Cambridge’s printing of the KJB in the 20th century.

This shows two things. First, that Ross is now approaching an idea with his presuppositional biases rather than discussing empirical facts about the literal “printed history”. Second, and more tellingly, in doing so, that is, in undertaking to discuss the view put forth about Matthew Verschuur, he is essentially placing and recognising Verschuur and his views as part of the “printed history” of the KJB, as much as Norton, Scrivener, Curtis, Blayney, etc.

THE EDITORIAL REALITY

It is now acknowledged by critics and defenders alike that the King James Bible has a genuine history of editorial and manifest alterations in printing. From the early folios of the King’s Printer, through the Cambridge revisions of 1629 and 1638, and through to the major editorial work of Benjamin Blayney in 1769, the English text of the KJB has been subject to correction, standardisation and refinement.

It is right to recognise that the text of the KJB through its editions was carefully tended by generations of printers and editors who believed they were custodians of a received English Bible. What is equally clear is that editorial traditions developed, particularly within Cambridge University Press (CUP), that distinguished its text from Oxford and other printers.

It is within this Cambridge tradition that we find the Pure Cambridge Edition as the product or result of a long history of both major editorial works, and the internal work within CUP.

SCRIVENER’S WORK

One important point of agreement concerns F. H. A. Scrivener’s Cambridge Paragraph Bible. Whatever its alleged scholarly merits, Scrivener’s edition was never adopted as the standard printing text for the King James Bible. Even Cambridge itself recognised this, as evidenced by the caveats placed in the front of the Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges series explaining why its Scrivener-based KJB text differed from ordinary Bibles.

This is significant because it highlights a key distinction: the King James Bible has been preserved primarily through usage and printing. Importantly, the “authoritative” text of the KJB, historically speaking, is not the one that best approximates a theoretical 1611 original, but the one that was actually printed, read and received by the English-speaking church.

However, Scrivener’s work was not completely in vain. Clearly there was a need for further revision beyond 1769. Clearly a conservative execution of Burgon’s welcome for a slight revision held some merit. So, it was right that the Pure Cambridge Edition came to be, which advanced beyond the normal Victorian Edition contemporary with Scrivener and present at the beginning of the twentieth century. The Victorian Edition was essentially the 1769 Edition in Cambridge clothes, with a few spelling and other very minor differences here or there.

THE EMERGENCE OF THE PCE

In the early twentieth century, Cambridge University Press undertook further editorial refinements to its ordinary KJB text, standardising to a new Edition. These changes were not radical innovations, nor were they publicised. Rather, they reflect a continuation of Cambridge’s longstanding editorial practice.

By or in 1911, the distinct form of the Cambridge text emerged known as the Pure Cambridge Edition, which differed in identifiable and consistent ways from the Cambridge Victorian Edition and from Oxford printings. This form would dominate Cambridge and Collins printings for much of the twentieth century, appearing in a wide range of formats, including Cameos, Turquoise Reference Bibles, Pitt Minions and other editions styles and sizes from Cambridge and its Pitt press.

Today, this text is commonly referred to as the Pure Cambridge Edition, not because CUP officially named it so, but because it represents a stable, coherent, and internally consistent form of the Cambridge KJB editorial English text.

AWARENESS OF THE CAMBRIDGE KJB

There was really no scholarship on this topic until Matthew Verschuur launched the Bible Protector ministry in 2007, but we have some sources. For example, some information from Darlow and Moule in their Catalogue, that describes some printings from 20th century that are PCE.

David Norton indicated in his 2005 book the state of the Cambridge Edition in 1931. He did not go into any detail on it, though he knew that such an Edition existed, which is now known as the Pure Cambridge Edition. He showed how many millions of copies of the Ruby size alone had been made.

For much of the twentieth century, this Edition went largely unremarked—not because it was insignificant, but because it was normal. It was simply “the Cambridge Bible.”

Then, from the 1980s, we had a wave of general information which promoted or identified that Cambridge was better than Oxford. In those days the questions were around Jeremiah 34:16 and Joshua 19:2.

Early Bible software such as The Online Bible used a Cambridge text. Prominent KJB advocates generally preferred Cambridge over Oxford, even if they did not articulate the precise nature of the differences. D. A. Waite and Peter Ruckman preferred the Cambridge. From the contrary side, James White’s anti-KJB book came through in favour of the Cambridge.

By the early 2000s, increased attention to textual variation within KJB printings brought this Edition into sharper focus. Discussions of “subtle changes” (one article) and “counterfeit” KJBs (another article) had the effect of drawing attention to the fact that not all KJB editions in current use were the same.

Information about this was re-uploaded in 2014, but was written some years before that, see: https://www.bibleprotector.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=55

Between 2000 and 2006 the PCE was being identified, and in 2007 to 2011, the PCE began to be known in KJB circles. Even critics acknowledged its existence. Gail Riplinger even stated some years after that, though she herself knew of the existence of the PCE, though not by that name. Her “Settings” article which included reference to the PCE was written in 2011.

AWARENESS OF THE PCE

Thus, we can show that there was a general knowledge of “the Cambridge” prior to 2007, and that that in the period of 2007 to 2011 the PCE was brought to awareness in King James Bible circles. That is, to identify that there was a distinct Edition which was commended to be taken as a standard.

So, we know that between 1911 and 1999 Cambridge printed this Edition. Not all the time, but many times, in many editions.

Yet, Cambridge University Press barely knew of it, in fact, could hardly confirm anything about a Bible that they had literally printed multiple millions of times, in a whole range of sizes, from 1911 to the year before they launched their website.

From the 1930s Collins had also been printing the PCE, in most of its printings. Between 2000 and 2007, you could get a PCE from Collins. LCBP, TBS and the KJV Store all for certain loyalty to Cambridge’s post-PCE printings generally refused to print or stock PCEs. But they were around. There were some LCBPs that were PCE. There were second hand and surviving stock TBSes which were PCE.

Even today, Cambridge don’t say much about the Edition they published for nearly a century. Actually their illuminated Gospels which they have currently been releasing are PCE.

So we have a solid period of many decades where the Pure Cambridge Edition dominated most Cambridge printings and most Collins printings. The Victorian Edition did linger in some examples to the 1940s, and in the 1960s, the Concord Edition appeared, along with the Compact C. R., and the Crystal Reference, which also had the Concord text.

However, Cambridge made a decision in 1985 to change the case of the word “spirit” at 1 John 5:8 to “Spirit”. The changes did not happen in every one of their editions immediately, but they began.

Then in 1990, CUP gained the Queen’s Printer, Eyre and Spottiswoode, and a variety of other editions started appearing from Cambridge, including the influence of changes such as at Acts 11:12 and 28 where “spirit” was haphazardly altered to “Spirit”.

Rick Norris, who has tried to study this area, can identify the PCE in a vintage Pitt Minion bold figure reference edition, but he’s also motivated to try to make an as worst case as possible. Norris is good on the data but hopeless on the analytics.

Lawrence Vance has also written a book touching on the subject, in which he certainly knows the Pure Cambridge Edition exists, though he, like Will Kinney and Gail Riplinger, prefer the post-pure Cambridge, favouring the capital “S” reading at 1 John 5:8.

This means we have arrived at the place where there are King James Bible advocates who are broadly accepting of the PCE, or of the post-PCE Cambridge text, or of either. Vance and Riplinger both refer to the Cameo (reference or plain text):

Genesis 41:56 And Joseph (PCE) — and Joseph (Cameo)

1 Chronicles 2:55 Hemath (PCE, pre-1940s Cameos) — and Hammath (Cameo)

1 Chronicles 13:5 Hemath (PCE, pre-1940s Cameos) — and Hamath (Cameo)

Amos 6:14 Hemath (PCE, pre-1940s Cameos) — and Hamath (Cameo)

1 John 5:8 spirit (PCE, pre-1985 Cameos) — Spirit (Cameo)

(And now, Acts 11:12 and Acts 11:28 may also be an issue, but it wasn’t in the Cameos here being discussed from the 1980s to early 2000s.)

As you can see, we all tend to use Cameo texts that don’t have “Hemath”, which itself makes Bryan Ross’ accusation of “verbatim identicality” an overstatement, because we all know that God is blessing us despite if we have printed Bibles with “Hammath”, which does not have any historical precedent in the editorial history of the KJB.

SPECIFIC EDITORIAL CHARACTERISTICS OF THE PCE

The Pure Cambridge Edition is not defined by sweeping doctrinal alterations, but by specific, repeatable editorial features, such as:

  • A number of restored Hebrew-based spellings in place names from 1611
  • Specific spellings (e.g., rasor, counseller, expences, ancle)
  • Consistency in minor variations like Jeremiah 34:16 and Nahum 3:16, etc.
  • Retention of lowercase spirit in passages such as Acts 11:12, verse 28 and 1 John 5:8, consistent with the 1769 tradition
  • Some minor punctuation and italic points

Notably, many deviations from the PCE found in later Cambridge “Concord” editions arose from consultation with Oxford, reflecting an editorial decision to attempt parity, which obviously was not reciprocated from Oxford. This includes changes that are grammatically or contextually questionable, such as the removal of the question mark in Jeremiah 32:5.

More important differences between Oxford and Cambridge are:

Matthew 9:27, “Son of David”, but the Oxford has “son” in all such places. (This could be construed as an anti-deity issue.)

Joshua 19:2, if it is “and Sheba” then the count of 13 cities and villages is wrong, but if it is “or” it is consistent that Beer-sheba and Sheba are overlapping concepts (e.g. the well is called Shebah in Gen. 26:33, so the Oxford is wrong to make it “and”.)

A recurring problem in some discussions of KJB editorial work is the tendency to appeal directly to Hebrew or Greek to examine or suggest changes. This approach largely goes against the idea of an internal printed history of the KJB which focuses on the English.

So, it was correct that Blayney may have looked at the Hebrew and Greek, though this would have related to italics. But it would not be correct to make foolish comments about the case of the word “spirit” in relation to the Greek. For example, I have seen multiple times people refer to this issue trying to argue from the fact that Greek has uniform lettering. According to such logic, we could then write the KJB in all English uncials/capitals or minuscules/lower case, but we now find logically that English lettering is both a convention of translation and of editorial precision!

CONCLUSION

What distinguished the Blayney tradition, and the later Cambridge editors (excluding Scrivener and Norton), was the commitment to the stability and integrity of the KJB’s editorial English text.

It is right to want to have consistency, standardisation and a typographically correct text. It’s right to desire this kind of purity. That is what the Pure Cambridge Edition offers, it offers a standard form for KJB believers to use which meaningfully, rightfully, correctly and exactly represents the KJB as a product of proper received tradition.

We can argue that it is the will of providence.

The Pure Cambridge Edition does not require extravagant claims to justify its significance. Its case rests on history, continuity, and observable fact. For many decades, it functioned as the dominant Cambridge text of the King James Bible. It reflects deliberate editorial choices rooted in the Cambridge tradition, and it exhibits a level of internal consistency that merits recognition.

We can therefore embrace the continuation of the PCE, because it is something to hold to as an inheritance rather than an invention, and something that is a reliable form that can be considered to be a proper representation of the very version and translation of 1611.

I commend it to people like Bryan Ross, that he should hold a preference to the PCE, that he should see the PCE as a genuine representation of the KJB fit and worthy to be accepted as a common standard.

For more information, see https://www.bibleprotector.com/blog/?page_id=1226

APPENDIX

Some places where the Concord Edition will differ to the PCE, the PCE renderings are shown.

Genesis 24:57, inquire

Exodus 23:23, and the Hivites

Numbers 6:5, rasor

2 Samuel 15:12, counseller

2 Samuel 18:29, Is [italic] the

Ezra 2:26, Geba

Ezra 6:4, expences

Jeremiah 32:5, prosper?

Ezekiel 47:3, ancles

Mark 2:1, Capernaum, after

Acts 11:12, spirit

Acts 11:28, spirit

Romans 4:18, nations; according

1 Corinthians 15:27, saith, all

1 John 5:8, spirit

Editorial, Review

The Scriptural Continuum

Logic versus logic, interpretation versus interpretation.

Introduction

Another article has appeared from Bryan Ross. It is an article about logic, but it is really a conflict about Bible interpretation.

Bryan Ross is still at it, trying to reject the idea of having a precisely accurate edition today and deferring instead to alleged precise accuracy of the originals — of which no perfect copy is extant.

In a calamitous blunder, Bryan Ross has sided with the modernists against the King James Bible by insisting that the authority is with the “Hebrew and Greek”, and that its “doctrinal weight” outweighs the English.

In order to show the magnitude of Ross’ error, a reader simply has to apply what he is saying against the King James Bible itself. In so desperately trying to argue against there being a correct edition with correct wording, he has also had to sacrifice the KJB’s exact text and its exact translation, while he goes with the modernists to the temple of Hellas. Are we now to parley at Mars Hill instead of preaching to the world in the global language? Are we to jettison the greatest Christian revivals of the past 508 years for the superstitious deference of modernism? For, we all know that no one has an immaculately, jot and tittle, pure and perfect exact copy of the Bible in Greek or Hebrew. Half the time they can’t even get the order of the Bible Books right!

Is Bryan Ross so petty that he will say, No! It’s not half the time! Verschuur made an error in his statistics!?

Authority

Our authority in matters of doctrine and theology should not primarily be logic. Logic is not higher than truth. Our authority should be truth itself, and logic is but a servant of truth. Logic is just one of the things that is a part of the use of knowledge.

It is telling that Ross, as doubtless compelled by his friend Nate Kooienga, is more interested in trying to use logic as a polemical device than a proper hermeneutical approach.

I think they know what I am saying makes sense, but they must go to lengths to try to reject it.

My point

What happened was I mentioned a place where the Bible is accurate to the letter in English showing a principle about the difference between a letter changing a plural, which the Apostle Paul mentioned in Galatians 3:16.

I mentioned it rather casually in passing, but in fact there is a lot more that we can show from the Bible, for example: “Then said they unto him, Say now Shibboleth: and he said Sibboleth: for he could not frame to pronounce it right.” (Judges 12:6a). Notice the changing of a letter, the changing of the sound, is actually shown to us in the Bible that one is “right”, meaning the other is less right.

Again, “all the words that I command thee to speak unto them; diminish not a word” (Jer. 26:2b).

Remember, Bryan Ross does not believe Matthew 5:18 is speaking about the very makeup of the words of Scripture being entirely reliable, he is instead focused on the message of the Bible only. Thus, he can meander about on spellings and wordings, for he is not anchored in the precision of communication that comes from using precise grammar, spelling and punctuation. He is fine with fluid orthography because he doesn’t detect or seem to want to detect preciseness of meanings like fractals in every word in a letter perfect way.

Bryan Ross the hermeneutics police officer

Bryan Ross is trying to quibble about how apparently Galatians 3:16 cannot be used to demonstrate that God knows and cares about letters in the Bible.

His logic can be summarised as follows:

  • Paul was writing in Greek about a Christological doctrine from Hebrew;
  • Verschuur is writing in English about a Bibliological doctrine from an English translation; so
  • Verschuur’s use of the principle of what Paul indicates, even thought it is in Scripture and deals with Scripture words, is a “non sequitur” because Ross’ hermeneutics don’t allow Verschuur to use Paul’s words in English in an applicative way to support having letter-accuracy in an edition of the English Bible.

What Ross is doing in a silly way here is trying to divorce the Hebrew, Greek and Paul from the King James Bible, its editions and me.

But we are all part of one continuum. There is a direct connect between inspiration and today. I trust I am not in bad company if I am with the Apostle Paul. And if I actually believe God wants us to have every word that proceeds out of His mouth!

Word differences are not spelling differences

Ross keeps saying, “Spelling differences such as alway versus always or stablish versus establish do not affect grammatical number or meaning and therefore carry no doctrinal weight.”

Except, “alway” and “always” are two different words, with different (though similar) meanings. “Stablish” and “establish” are different too. Now even if it was just in nuance, even if just in subtle shading, they are communicating something slightly different.

Doctrinal accuracy demands word accuracy. If we want to have the exact communication of God, and know exactly what He means, we cannot just have haphazard and random word and spelling selections.

Plummeting logic

My whole argument is about the precision of Scripture, and having an exact edition allows us intricate knowledge of that.

Ross makes a very bad argument against me when he tries to say that because all KJB editions have the same message at Galatians 3:16, in relation to the matter of the singular and plural “seed” and “seeds”, that somehow this cannot apply as an argument to the PCE.

This is the most atrocious “logic” I have seen for a long time. He’s literally saying that unless the PCE is different at this place, then whatever is being said doesn’t apply to the PCE.

Let’s use his logic against him. For example, here’s an absurd argument: Paul wasn’t writing English so why is Bryan Ross quoting Galatians to me in the KJB? He can’t use English because Paul was writing in Greek about Hebrew, so I (facetiously) INSIST that Bryan Ross give me the argument in Greek.

Doesn’t that mean that Bryan Ross is making a “category error”? Whoops.

Ross accidentally admits something

Ross says, “But in reality, variations like stablish vs. establish or punctuation shifts do not alter doctrine in the same way.”

So, me using logic here, that means that “stablish” to “establish” or punctuation does effect doctrine in just a minor, microscopic way?

That’s exactly what I am saying. I’m not saying that there’s going to be big ticket doctrinal matters like the Christological argument at Galatians 3:16. I am saying there is perhaps only the tiny molecule of difference, of some minor doctrinal impact.

And that’s the point: the tiniest hairsbreadth of meaning difference is a meaning difference!

Amen Brother Ross, you do really know that those differences of words are really different words with different meanings: “throughly”, “ensample”, “alway”, “stablish” and the rest the words like “astonied” and so on must all retain their rightful place.

Because every jot and tittle actually does matter. Meaning matters. And meaning builds ideas, ideas which form parts of doctrines.

Answering Ross’ faulty reasoning and misguided deference to the originals

Ross writes, “Paul’s argument in Galatians 3:16 demonstrates the theological significance of singular versus plural forms in the inspired Hebrew and Greek texts, not in English orthographic variations.”

Sorry, but Paul was not expressly writing with a view to talk about Hebrew and Greek, God was not limiting what Paul said to be something to do with that even. He was just talking about the plural and the singular. It was about Christ, and he made a point about precision in language to show us about Christ. God communicated to us about this, so we cannot and should not artificially say that Paul was somehow writing about Hebrew and Greek. He doesn’t even mention those words.

So the principle of plurals as communicated by letters is entirely valid for us to understand, and to use it as a point to show why we should have an accurate English edition is proper.

I mean, we are reading the word “seed” and “seeds” literally in English right, and in order to communicate that, we would want an accurately printed English Bible, right? That is right.

Ross then says, “While fidelity to the original languages is essential for doctrinal accuracy, spelling and punctuation differences among King James Bible editions do not alter meaning or theology.”

This is truly a dangerous statement. Ross is basically saying that the authority for theology is in the original languages, and not in the fact that we have English representing the originals.

Has he not read these verses?

“For whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning, that we through patience and comfort of the scriptures might have hope.” (Romans 15:4).

“But now is made manifest, and by the scriptures of the prophets, according to the commandment of the everlasting God, made known to all nations for the obedience of faith” (Romans 16:26).

Doesn’t he know that there was a Reformation so now we can know doctrine in our own tongue?

Now he is committing himself there to actual error because he categorically states, “spelling and punctuation differences among King James Bible editions do not alter meaning”.

So, he is saying that if you have an edition that has Peter’s speech “betraying” him instead of “bewraying” him, that that’s not a meaning change? Or that deliberately insisting on having “Spirit” not “spirit” at 1 John 5:8 today (as opposed to the haphazard nature of early printings) is not a meaning difference?

The editorial staff at Cambridge who ignorantly changed this verse in 1985 did so because they called it an embarrassment. They really thought it was a meaning difference, an error. If they didn’t think that way, why were they (wrongly) embarrassed?

Surely this is directly an issue of theology! And yet Ross blunderingly stumbles along claiming “spelling and punctuation differences among King James Bible editions do not alter meaning or theology.”

I guess Robert Barker went to jail for nothing for printing the Adulterer’s Bible. I guess the Parliamentary inquiry in the 1830s and those at other times was for nought. I guess the British Government was wrong, as well as the Guardian Presses of the United Kingdom, in wanting accuracy of King James Bible printing.

Surely they recognised that meaning and theology could be affected with press errors and poor editorial decisions!

Ross concludes, “doctrinal precision depends on the integrity of the preserved original-language text and faithful translation—not on the exclusivity of one English edition”.

Doesn’t he understand that a translation has to be printed? Are people free just to print badly and introduce accidental word changes, and that doesn’t matter? Are people free to get rid of proper distinct words with their distinct meanings, and there is no consequence?

We are dealing with the Word of God here, I strongly recommend great fear at such an undertaking as to be sure to be presenting the Scripture with absolute fidelity in our English settings, presswork and publishing.

Doesn’t Ross understand that what we have today is long passed beyond the original languages, that we have now a faithful representation in English? It seems that he harbours a secret deference to the original languages, and even does his teaching by not relying upon the King James Bible itself, but all this nonsense about sperma and toldot and other such non sequitur.

Ross makes a really big mistake

Ross writes, “By conflating inspired textual distinctions with editorial refinements, Verschuur commits a category error that undermines the logical foundation of his position.”

Notice how Ross divorces the inspired text from the printed King James Bible.

Notice how Ross indicates that inspiration is not communicated by the mechanism of editorial exactness in English.

Notice how Ross implies that placing the inspiration of Scripture in the hands of God but editing apparently is just a human undertaking, that God apparently has no direct care for the transmission of the inspired words through the method of editing and medium of printing/publishing.

Notice how Ross upholds the accuracy of the originals but expresses no care for what the end user actually has at hand today.

General

Times New Roman comes back

THE United States is completely right to have their diplomats return to using the Times New Roman typeface in official communications, as that typeface was invented by Stanley Morison of Monotype. He used this typeface at Cambridge University Press for the printing of the Pitt Brevier Edition of the King James Bible in 1936. This contained the Pure Cambridge Edition.

The Pitt Brevier had The Translators to the Reader, sometimes the Apocrypha, no italics or notes. Free copy:

https://archive.org/details/holybiblecontain0000unse_z7h7/page/n5/mode/2up

Editorial, Review

Specificity and certainty

ANSWERING PASTOR BRYAN ROSS YET AGAIN

Introduction

Bryan Ross has written a counter article to my recent articles called Providence, Special Revelation, and Verbal Equivalence in the PCE Debate as published through his Grace Life Bible Church blog. What he calls the “PCE Debate” means his rejection of the idea that God has jot and tittle exact perfection of His words in English.

We all believe that about the autographs, and it’s okay to say that they were perfect, but Bryan Ross has allowed the influence of deistic assumptions of the modernists to keep him from recognising that there is any perfection in present history.

At last he has had to give up openly accusing that I recognised the Pure Cambridge Edition (PCE) on some sort of mystical, special, private or charismatic-style revelation. Obviously, though, he still believes this falsehood, which is why he has written an article to carefully try to reason (i.e. baselessly assert) that this is really what I am still “guilty” of after all.

He has tried to make a kind of seeming analytical criticism of my position, but it is honestly objectively his position which is the weaker one, since he cannot point to the “certainty of the words of truth” (Prov. 22:21) where “Every word of God is pure” (Prov. 30:5).

My view recognises the specificity of words and their meaning, e.g. when our Bible has “fishes” compared to when it has “fish”, even to the very specific “sneezed” versus “neesings”. (This is not an “edition” issue.)

What Ross relegates to the mere orthographic rather than meaning, like, “astonied” and “astonished”, is in fact a very fine difference. The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) and other sources indicate that “astonied” has more the idea of being sort of dumbstruck and stuck (like a stone) than “astonished”. They are not the same word, the OED lists them as two separate entries.

In America there has indeed been some confusion over words, like their common misuse of “farther”, when there is in fact a proper (Biblical and OED-recorded) understanding for how “farther” and “further” should be used, with different meanings.

(There needs to be a lot of study in these areas, as someone could falsely say that “grins”, a once Anglo-Saxon word, has been allegedly “deleted” from the Bible, for a different word with a generally similar meaning from French, “gins”. We are downstream observers, and can suggest many things, including that the meaning of “gins” was intended all along.)

We are empirical observers of the orthographical and lexical details. Our attitude towards them matters. We should seek to understand why “astonied” is legitimately a different word with a different meaning (though obviously very similar) to “astonished”.

We are admonished to “Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.” (2 Tim. 2:15). That verse was not talking about the hermeneutical model of hyperdispensationalism but about proper interpretation. Part of proper interpretation is to have very definite and specific meaning for words.

Bryan Ross’ views are uncomfortably close to those of modern translation users who say that they all are really saying the same thing. We know they are not.

“Now I beseech you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you; but that ye be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment.” (1 Corinthians 1:10).

Interpretation matters

Saying that something has theological and logical tensions doesn’t mean that there are. Saying something can be just framing, just propaganda, mere words. Expressing a view is not proof.

It’s like saying you know a view is wrong, wishing it’s wrong, but not proving it because it’s just your opinion. This is how Ross presents my views in his short essay.

What this is all really about is interpretation of scripture, and in a broad sense what I will call the schema. This is like a way of slotting all ideas into a model of looking at Scripture (and reality) according to an accepted Divine Œconomy.

Ross says he cannot find the “Pure Cambridge Edition” pointed to in the Bible. In this case here, we are discussing what the Scripture says about beliefs we hold.

For example, the Scripture doesn’t explicitly teach the Trinity, it teaches it as a model of reality. The Bible doesn’t use the word “Trinity”, and we have to bring together various passages, like Jesus’ water baptism, 1 John 5:7 and other passages, to construct the proper doctrine.

So likewise with the Rapture. The word doesn’t appear in the Bible, and you have to join together a bunch of verses to understand it. So it is going to be no different with other doctrines about the Bible itself.

There’s no mention of “Received Text” nor of “King James Bible” in the Scripture, yet according to Bryan Ross’ model, he holds to both those things. Is he holding to the King James Bible (KJB) because an angel appeared to him and told him to? I wouldn’t think so. I would think he would recognise the Scripture pointing to it in a broad way at least.

It turns out that if you believe in Historicism, the way of interpreting the Book of Revelation as pointing to events throughout Church history, you can find prophecies and indications about the King James Bible.

There are implications from verses in Revelation, as well as general teachings in Scriptures, which point at the idea of there being a Pure Cambridge Edition as well.

So Ross is wrong when he writes, “identifying a specific edition as divinely intended without explicit Scriptural warrant functions similarly to extra-biblical revelation.”

According to that way of thinking, his own views about the King James Bible would have to be suspect, especially if he does find things pointing consistently towards it in the Scripture. Now if he doesn’t argue from the basis of Scripture for the KJB, then we may as well ignore what he has to say because he would be hypocritical. But if he does use Scripture to point to the KJB, then actually he should be able to understand how we use it to point to the PCE.

Ross tries to say that word differences in editing are orthographic variations in editions of the KJB, and that they are sufficient or satisfactory, where no substantive doctrinal meaning is affected or changed.

He is asserting his position as if it is ipso facto correct without any basis. I know he will try to use some dictionary to either make the words appear to have similar definitions, or where some dictionary might even say that the words might have common origin or even be an obsolete form of the same, but a robotic adherence to fallible dictionaries is not expressive of the whole of the situation, besides, the OED still lists the different words as separate entries with distinct definitions, and Blayney didn’t eliminate the so called “variant” forms, meaning it is all quite deliberate.

So Ross’ position is not correct, because the tiniest degree of variation can amount to a meaning difference. In all kinds of places where different words which look similar appear, he is advocating that these words are really just the same. (How strange that editors like Dr Blayney just left all these variant spellings everywhere, and didn’t regularise these places.) Ross is allowing them to remain as what he thinks they are meaningless variations. And when American publishers in the past varied all these words, he doesn’t mind because he argues that big picture doctrines are not being affected.

In a way, in a broad brush approach, it is possible to argue in the big scheme of things that no major doctrine is affected. So maybe things like the virgin birth or the second coming are not affected. However, meaning and doctrine, even if some tiny sliver of a nuance, is affected. And if one hair’s breadth is affected, the whole law is rendered void.

“For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all.” (James 2:10).

By one “point” we can see a kind of double meaning, it would mean even one dot.

“Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven: but whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.” (Matthew 5:19, which comes after which verse Ross misinterprets?)

Bryan Ross is therefore as if he is the least in the Kingdom, for he appears to be teaching his spiritual charges in his adult Sunday School that “astonied” and “astonished” are not two different things.

He doesn’t get that from Scripture, not even by a minute examination in an objective sense of Scripture passages, which use either of these words rightfully in their places. He is just reading in his opinion as based on some statement from wayward American editors, and throwing out his hypothesis as fact, that varying words are just orthographical variations, and apparently are not varying words at all. Hence his desire to run to various old table alphabeticals and so on to try to prove that the early modernising of American editors was right.

As a consequence, his thinking becomes fuzzy and he cannot detect the legal and semantic difference between things like “stablish” and “establish”, “ensample” and “example”, let alone other things, ranging from “fishes” and “fish” to “naught” and “nought”, etc.

Reality about sufficiency versus Ross’ universal hypothesis

Ross is trying to apply his principle of “verbal equivalence” in inspiration and to today, when at best it can only apply to the intervening period of the scattering and progressive gathering of the Scripture’s readings, and the progressive work in translations and in editing.

The problem is that Ross is not overtly appealing to any authoritative standard where a perfect set of words exist. (That is, to what standard or authority does he measure “equivalence”?) What he has mistakenly done is apply the sufficiency (his “equivalence”) in transmission to the fixedness and rigidity of primal and final forms. (He therefore accuses the inspiration of the New Testament of making sloppy quotes of the Old as well as saying there is only “equivalence” today, even though his own hero, Laurence Vance, points to a Cambridge standard.

There is no “verbal equivalence” in the mind of God, in Heaven or in inspired autographs, as if they are uncertain or varying. There are variations and sufficiency in transmission, but that’s not the
imprimatur of God, as though He wants things to be a tossing sea of “equivalence” without finality.

But unlike Ross, the Scripture and I are pointing to the fact that there is an end of the variants of transmission, a final form, answerable to its first and divine origins.

“So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it.” (Isaiah 55:11).

Ross says, “Ultimately, the debate centers on whether doctrinal certainty demands absolute precision or whether substantive fidelity is sufficient”.

It’s weird that Ross would admit this, because true doctrine isn’t just about all the big ticket items, it’s about the legal framework and minor minutiae as well. The infallibility of the Scripture and truth in the details requires precision in minor Biblical statements as well as the major doctrines.

(Logically, we fix printing errors, so why is it natural to strive as humans for perfection in the very details if apparently this is not something of the nature of God?)

Ross and I both think that God has had a sufficiency in Church history. Ross sees this with the dangerous “near enough is good enough” flavour (consistent with his definition of “grace”) which approaches the matter with a kind of deistic leaven of the small “m” modernists like James White, Mark Ward, John Piper and a host of the off-white brethren in this Laodicean era who hold to their inability, unwillingness and rejection of there being exact knowledge of the very words of God.

However, I see from the outset, the seed and intention of God is perfection, so then His work in history is under His superintendence. Ross may try to argue that this sort of interventionism is somehow linked to an idea of a “special revelation” that we might receive, but it is the work of the perfect Spirit, Who is in His works doing perfectly (see John 16:13).

This is expressly taught at Deuteronomy 32:

2 My doctrine shall drop as the rain, my speech shall distil as the dew, as the small rain upon the tender herb, and as the showers upon the grass:

3 Because I will publish the name of the LORD: ascribe ye greatness unto our God.

4 He is the Rock, his work is perfect: for all his ways are judgment: a God of truth and without iniquity, just and right is he.

As for Ross’ question about how to recognise Providence. Might I suggest this passage, and see if spiritual knowledge is required, from 1 Corinthians 2:

12 Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God.

13 Which things also we speak, not in the words which man’s wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth; comparing spiritual things with spiritual.

14 But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.

Answers to Ross’ endless questions

Ross discusses the debate questions, for example, the one asking, “How does God guide the preservation of Scripture?”

My answer is we can learn much from both studying Scripture and also with believing empirical examination. A Historicist framework would help Ross immensely too.

Ross puts forth another debate question, “What counts as the Word of God when editions differ?”

Ross would be foolish to continue to question this one, for it is obvious that what believers in history had as the Word of God to them was the Word of God to them. (I mean that God genuinely sent His truth to them.)

I laid out for Ross the distinct difference between “Scripture” (written copies including the autographs, referred to by Paul to Timothy), version/Text/readings, translation and editions.

I am confident that a 20th century Oxford edition is over 99.99% the same as a Cambridge one.

So the question cannot be as Ross phrases it, “What counts as the Word of God when editions differ?” It’s obvious that the Word of God has been printed in Oxford editions regardless if they had “whom he” at Jeremiah 34:16 like the old Cambridge editions had.

Is that “h” technically the actual, inspired Word of God? No, but thankfully it hasn’t been leading people into heresies because it has minimal doctrinal meaning. I doubt most Christians ever are reading the verse in the course of devotions or Bible teachings, even with the correct “whom ye”. Ironically, it’s the fact of the typographical error/old editorial mistake which makes people look at that verse!

But thank goodness such minor issues have been cleared up … unless you are running rudderless listening to Scrivener, Norris and Norton, then you will think there are numberless undetected errors still floating about. These are the kinds of people who are disparagers of Dr Blayney’s work.

Ross asks the big question, “is verbal equivalence sufficient, or must we have verbatim identicality down to letters and punctuation?”

This question is wrongly framed. Bryan Ross has to be explicit and say what standard his “verbal equivalence” is matching to. (It is odd he never shows us his standard — I suspect it’s a variation of the modernist view that it will be “the originals” — but he can’t actually pin down a correct copy of those either, and they aren’t in English, so what’s his lexical authority?)

Ross also has to be intellectually honest. He accuses me of the old slur (of naïve KJBOism) about so called “verbatim identicality”. But identical to what standard?

I am very clear: the perfect standard is 1. In the mind of God, 2. In Heaven. 3. In inspiration and the general witness of copying. The ultimate or anti-form perfection is the last end, which is the PCE. The PCE has the properties to which the 17th century millenarians (Bacon, Mede, Hartlib, Cromwell, etc.) sought in their pansophical program.

Ross has hoped that truth (that there has been editing in the history of the KJB) would be an instauration of wrong thinking, only history, nature, logic, scripture and providence itself is showing Ross to be wrong about his view of there not being a final edition.

Again, we must divide between Ross’ terminology in relation to transmission as opposed to editions today in our current state. We are not accessing the Scripture in flux. This means that while there was historical sufficiency where there were tiny textual, translation and edition differences, we are not living in that state any more, for all things have worked towards the solution. The progress of history, the process of Bible transmission and the plan of God has all had an end goal, and it has been arrived at.

Well, Ross thinks he is accessing the Scripture in flux, because he can’t see that “stablish”, “throughly”, “ensample” and so on are legitimate specific words with specific meanings and not synonyms to other similar words. Apparently present day KJB editions that have the varying words (he rebrands them as just orthographical variations of single words) are all equal.

It is possible that there are kinds and species in Bible words, but Ross has erased any specificity of the species by only recognising kinds.

So, here’s the problem. Ross’ terminology should really be “there was justifiable flux in the transmission of Scripture through history, but it wasn’t anything substantively changing major doctrines, but I (Bryan Ross) also don’t believe there is a fixed state or that we can know what the resolution to it all is.”

If Ross just said that honest statement about his position, it would be clear. He simply doesn’t believe there is a fixed state, he simply doesn’t expect to find a fully corrected edition, and he certainly thinks that we cannot find out (the arm of the Lord apparently is shortened) what is an exactly right edition.

In fact, it sounds like the modernists saying, “there couldn’t be a perfect edition because it would have to be edited and printed by infallible men, and you would have to be claiming infallibility to recognise a perfect edition”. This is what I suspect Ross is really thinking. I suspect something is bucking within him about it, and that he and his friends have been searching the internet for “evidence” that I claimed special Pentecostal “revelations” on this topic.

Providence and plan has happened since eternity

God planned in eternity, and therefore all the actions of history, are towards the ends of the Gospel being made known to the nations and families of the Earth being blessed.

So, God has, as part of this big plan (called “the Gospel”) aimed to have a perfect representation for the entire Earth in the latter times.

Ross states, “Scripture does not specify which printed edition of the KJB is perfect.” Yet, there are indicators from the Scripture that point to it, in prophecies, promises, elements of the nature of God (as revealed in Scripture) and the Historicist structure of Daniel and Revelation. The KJB is pointed to and the PCE in ways as well.

For example, the Scripture speaks of a “pure language”, but we know that technically the purity of Biblical English required editing by Dr Blayney, for example, therefore as we go to the exactness of meaning, we must have an exact Bible with precise Biblical English (which is the PCE in specific rather than just the KJB translation in general).

Ross is faulty in his logic, he says, “If that certainty cannot be derived from Scripture alone, and if it is not based on new revelation, it must arise from interpreting historical signs as indicators of God’s will.”

Well, Scripture does point to it, but this is actually a controversy about a whole other issue, one of presupposition. Ross is hiding this fact in how he frames his incorrect logic.

We have multiple presuppositions in approaching the Bible. They include: the pre-existence of God Himself, the notion of language and the fact of human experience (including history) and so on. Of course, this is not the Roman Catholic idea of putting tradition equal to Scripture, but it does mean that we receive Scripture in a cultural-intellectual context, not a vacuum.

Thus, there comes an interrelation between what the Bible says and our experience (e.g. the application of Scripture), and therefore, not only can we find the Bible talking about purity of its wordings, etc., but also we can then observe it and study it in empirical and rational senses. Thus, it is not wrong for us to look in the dictionary to see that there is a difference between words. But it would be desperation to lurch the other way and say that similar words are really the same words with variant spellings.

Ross is blinded to precision

Ross argues that his hypothesis “is that variations in spelling, capitalization, punctuation, or minor wording across KJB editions do not corrupt the doctrinal content; the substantive meaning remains intact.”

Everyone in the King James Bible camp in practice believes that, it doesn’t require Ross to try to own it with his pet coined phraseology as though he suddenly has intellectual property ownership of the idea.

The problem for Ross is that he has got himself stuck because he cannot resolve the editorial differences. He is arguing essentially to keep a level of uncertainty, inexactness, looseness, imprecision and variation. He really doesn’t want to resolve the differences because it would end his big new idea that he wrote a book about.

This is the opposite of editorial good sense.

The fact is that while major doctrinal issues are not affected with the kinds of variations in printings of the KJB (notwithstanding, obvious typos like substituting Jesus with Judas are quickly corrected), it is always a theoretical danger that some problem could have arisen from some printing variation.

It’s not as if the KJB was actually corrupted by such matters. But there has been a real doctrinal issue, for example, in dealing with 1 John 5:8, which many old editions had “spirit”, but some modern editions now have “Spirit”.

Logic alone is that “spirit” can include meaning “Spirit”, whereas “Spirit” excludes meanings communicated by the representation “spirit”, so ultimately, it is wiser to have the PCE for just that point, let alone all the other reasons for it.

Ross also misrepresents my position, making it like it an absurd dichotomy: either you believe every letter is pregnant with meaning or else you don’t. His framing of the issue is incorrect.

Punctuation, case and letters of spelling are important because of meanings they convey. Realistically there might not be much meaning difference in the American, Scottish, London, Oxford or Cambridge spellings of “razor”/“rasor” or “basin”/“bason” or “ax”/“axe”. Yet, despite the extremely negligible doctrinal impact the “wrong” spelling will have, there still needs to be a standard.

Now the reality is that worlds are framed by the Word of God (see Heb. 11:3) so there can be the whole turning of some vital thing on a singular letter or comma. The Bible is a legal document (see Rom. 7:12), the Testaments are legal documents, so every jot and tittle counts for something. Nothing is just line filler or padding.

There is an “exact sense” being communicated through the entire Bible. Holiness becomes the house of God, and it was built exactly, and kept clean. So too must every letter have its place in the Bible (see Psalm 93:5). We don’t have a superstitious adoration of letters like some other well known false religion, but meaning matters, and meaning is communicated by the substructure of letters and dots.

Unlike Ross, I really do think that there is a discernible difference and nuance of meaning (that does affect doctrine because truth has meaning) between “alway” and “always”. (It is easy to show it from the OED too.) These are not merely differences in orthography which Ross tries to suggest.

Thus, the Bible is a full conceptual communication, not just in its broad doctrines. Every word actually matters, everything that is present in the Bible is there for a reason. God wants us to know the truth, the very truth of truth.

Ross omits important information

Ross is still trying to justify his wrong accusation about me, where he is trying to make out that I think only the Pure Cambridge Edition is pure and actual Scriptura Ultima and everything else isn’t.

But I want to categorically say that the Scripture in the mind of God, in Heaven and in the autographs was equally as pure and perfect as the PCE in a technical, letter exact sense. (Ross is one of those who quibbles about the meaning of “perfect”, which usually means trying to make the word just mean “mature”.)

And I also showed that all the copies that might have had typos are no less Scripture. Ross seems to be flogging a dead horse.

Doesn’t he realise that the only way that God can excuse the typos is by making sure He has a copy without typos existing and/or coming to pass?

Ross then made a “meme” (pretty boring looking) which says that I agree with him about so called “verbal equivalence” in Reformation Bible translations and other KJB editions.

I’ve been open about it. I’ve said that Ross is not entirely wrong, I’ve said that he has said some good things. I guess his big meme is probably a celebration for him, because he actually read what I wrote and suddenly realises I am not 100% against him.

I think he has over reacted in the past to some criticisms I have made, when I have been critical of say 15% of what he says.

Ross is the one trying to push as if I totally reject everything he says, and it sort of feels like that in the way he has tried to so hard to keep pushing to justify his saying of incorrect things about me.

He also has a problem with his analysis and judgment. Not only in how he views the PCE and my approach, but also in relation to other matters. He has asserted (was that a prophecy?) that Laurence Vance’s work on the textual history of the King James Bible would be a firestorm for King James Bible onlyism. I have Vance’s book sitting by me, and it’s quite fine with a lot of solid research, but hardly incendiary.

If Ross thinks he is coming to the Body of Christ with a message that “alway” and “always” are just the same and that the differences don’t matter and that the differences can be erased by just having “always” … then Ross is actually dangerously fighting against divine propriety. Is he so sure and confident that he isn’t wrong, that “astonied” really is just “astonished”? Wouldn’t it be better to let caution guide us rather than insist upon something which may be incorrect?

If we use the minds of generations of learned Bible users guide us, then to them the distinction of words might have felt like a distinction in meaning, even if they couldn’t articulate the technicalities. They would have had a sense of the meaning from another word that looked similar, but as it is to this hour these words’ existence has not been erased, nor even minished by Ross.

A proper conclusion

The assertion about the PCE’s reliable vocabulary prevails, regardless of Ross’ wishful thinking and claimed vague inconsistencies in what I have said about something or other. Most of it is about how Ross is trying to read me as meaning something else than what I am saying.

I do thank the Lord that we have doctrinal exactness of every letter, punctuation mark and orthographic detail in the PCE. It’s a blessing for unity for believers across the Earth to say the same thing and even get the same number in the word and letter counts of their KJBs!

I’m happy Latin speakers had the Word of God. I don’t know why Ross is trying to invent some tension between Latin speakers having their Bibles, and us having the PCE from the 20th century to today.

I have to laugh at the sheer effort Ross is putting in, saying that my “appeal to Providence compounds the problem.” How? It’s God that is self-evidently showing His works. I didn’t make providences happen, that’s what God has evidently done.

As for knowing and understanding the distinctions in King James Bible words, which are in the Pure Cambridge Edition, we have the advantage of being able to study the Bible and have access to tools to help us. Even current AI can help explain the difference between words.

It’s almost like Ross is being a Luddite when it comes to this. Considering (as I do as an outsider) to where he lives, one would have thought that the climate of publishing and Dutch theology in his area would have had some impact. I think about my own town, which was the centre of Dutch theology, and I grew up in a school dominated by this persuasion. So let me appropriate the words of Peter Van Kleeck, Jr., “Change the words and you change the Bible”.

By removing distinctions in words like “stablish”, “alway”, “ensample” and “throughly”, Bryan Ross is taking away from the meaning of the Bible. Removing words removes meanings.

Editorial, Review

Bryan Ross’ attempted fire storm

Introduction

I have the feeling of a strong man rejoicing to run a race as I saw and now write in response to Pastor Bryan Ross’ article about the Pure Cambridge Edition (PCE).

Ross has been pushing his narrative for a few years, that there is no single exactly correct edition of the King James Bible (KJB). He wants to embrace a host of badly edited American editions with all their divergences rather than run the course of a pure exemplar edition.

It has taken me some time to try to understand what he is arguing for, since it seems to me that he is saying that there is only general truth and not singular perfect truth, or perhaps, there is a single perfect set of ideas in the Bible but no actual copy of the Bible that expresses that perfectly as far as being letter perfect. I’ve found it difficult to understand precisely what he does believe.

Now I want to be fair, and since I think my view is correct, I don’t have to misrepresent or twist Ross’ view. Whether or not he made a spelling mistake in his heading on the word “Prespectives” is not the sort of thing I want to concentrate on. I’ve had to edit my own writing for typos too.

Ross has written a whole article trying to frame me as inconsistent. His article Inconsistent Logic & The PCE Position Examining Three Perspectives is an attempt to try to make out either I am illogical or have changed my ideas.

While it is true we all develop and grow, and we all improve our understanding, I will show how Ross is wrong, how Ross has misunderstood me and how I think Ross wants to frame me as wrong.

An attempt to present Ross’ position

I am going to do my best to try to present what Ross believes, as relevant to this debate. He believes that the King James Bible is the best English translation. He thinks that the King James Bible preserves what was in the Textus Receptus (TR), which he upholds. He thinks that the variations in editions and printings of the KJB do not amount to “corruptions”, but since he is measuring to the TR, he is accepting the various editions of the KJB are reliably presenting “substantively” the same meaning.

Ross also makes much of “verbal equivalence”, a term which his group has coined which describes that meaning of words are the same as the meaning in the original languages even if spelling has varied in English. In the same way, the Tyndale Bible might use a different word to the King James Bible, but the overall meaning is still “substantively” the same. He measures this in a doctrinal sense, and seems to base this on the idea of how the Bible seems to loosely (rather than precisely) quote itself between the Testaments.

He rejects “exact sameness”, which his group has termed “verbatim identicality”. This is the alleged idea that there must be a robotic and rigid “xerox” (i.e. photocopy) of what was written in the originals as to be given today. He applies the same with comparing the English orthography of the 1611 printing of the KJB with what was printed in the 20th century. I suspect that as a younger Christian, he had some sort of nebulous view that this was true, but as he became older and wiser, he realised he had to explain real editorial variations in editions since 1611. He took the same view that the modern supporters do, that the truth must generally be there, and that specifics of typography must not count for much. What matters, apparently, is the preservation of the message, while specific words don’t really matter so much, especially if comparing words like “ensample” and “example”, etc.

As far as interpretation of Scripture, there are two key passages that define Ross’ view. One is 2 Timothy 2:15, which speaks of “rightly dividing the word of truth”, which he takes to describe the dividing up of the Divine Œconomy into various dispensations, and specifically applies the verse to highlight that the writings of Paul are particularly relevant for Christians today (essentially part of Acts to Philemon). This might be termed the Pauline Dispensational Method.

The other passage of importance is Matthew 5:18, where he takes the “jots and tittles” to mean the descriptions of things in the message and not specifically the written legal form of those promises. This means that he is looking at Scripture as a set of ideas and doctrine rather than the narrow meaning that it is something which is communicated by a specific string of letters making words.

He therefore would read Scripture as primarily literally and he starts from a Grammatical-Historical Interpretation. It is important to note that he holds to the “Grammatical” part as how one should read a genre of writing rather than any specificity about the words or letters being used themselves. In the “Historical” aspect, he sees the Bible within the cultural lens of its communicating to the original audience.

He is a Futurist (i.e. anti-Historicist), and a Cessationist (i.e. anti-Pentecostal). While leaning to Paul’s writings as specifically relevant for the present day, he still allows for a broad application of all Bible passages to the present. Most especially, in all this, he places less emphasis on words and verbiage as conceptual containers, and so therefore, he must most especially be polemically moved against any position which constrains or narrows down on words as being specifically emphasised upon as the precise conveyers of an exact sense.

In looking at the printed history of the King James Bible, in the first instance, much of Ross’ targeting has been against a kind of unlearned Ruckmanite position that had tended to deny editorial work within the King James Bible, and the almost strawman view that the King James Bible today is identical to what was printed in 1611 except for some minor typographical errors.

My general comments on Ross’ approach

There are parts of Ross’ approach and thinking which I would quite noticeably differ with. I have tried to present this without the kind of editorialisation which Ross has practiced against me.

For example, he has tried to colour me as holding a “unique position”, using “unrealistic” ideas and being a practitioner of “private interpretation”.

Ross, as aided by his friend Nathan Kooienga, has tried to use “logic” to make out as if what I am saying is “inconsistent”. They say my position is “confusing”, but it seems to me that they have refused to understand my explanations.

I think this is related to an underlying problem, what I might call “Grace Libertarianism”, basically, by not approaching the Bible in a legal sense, one can see the corollary fuzzy thinking. I think that the same malaise which affects the charismatics also addles the thinking here of Ross and Kooienga, who both are intelligent enough, yet are surprisingly willing to adhere to a view which defies authority, precision and clarity.

Ross has been pushing his narrative for a few years, that there is no single exactly correct edition of the KJB. He seems to think that truth can be contained within parameters, rather than that there is a specifically accurate written word of God anywhere in existence. He is using a kind of logical fallacy that if something can be permissively correct, that is, generally correct, that it cannot ever be specifically correct.

That is, that if various possible ways of saying something exist, that these multiple possibilities seem, in his mind, to allow him to deny that there is one specific way to say something exactly correctly. Thus, Ross is anti-perfectability.

I don’t understand how Ross doesn’t see there needs to be a perfect standard to which all the permissible possibilities are ultimately adhering to. In order for there to be permissibility there must be an ultimate legal jot and tittle correct written standard.

By disconnecting conceptual accuracy from the specificity of words, letters and punctuation, he is more in the realm (akin to the thinking of many charismatics) that God’s truth is in ideas and that God is I guess apparently not tied to the letter of the law. Ross thinks that God’s ideas are being communicated in the King James Bible, but it’s not so far to backslide to the position of Ross’ acquaintances J. Burris and J. Armstrong, who along with the host of Reformed, Charismatics and Baptists think that various translations are okay as long as they are presenting the approximate same gist or message. Ross’ decoupling from the anchor the exactness of the words of Scripture is the first slipping towards that modernistic position.

Ross wrote his article against me, with the help of his circle and some background AI assistance, to essentially try to charge me with apparently being inconsistent. Actually, Ross was stung into writing more because I called him out for wrongly saying that I say that if it isn’t PCE, it must be corrupt.

The actual article he wrote is more about him trying to save face than about me. Ross said that he concluded from a 2009 copy of my book Glistering Truths that I must be saying or implying that if it isn’t PCE, it must be corrupt. He didn’t get it from what I actually stated, he got it by a kind of convoluted way of thinking.

In other words, he has in his mind a way of thinking about what I was apparently meaning. That is really all it is, and then it was attaboyed by Kooienga trying to make a strained logical syllogism which totally says something I have expressly denied! It’s a conceptual mess, and it is designed to undermine my position by gross misrepresentation.

Ross tries to argue this as based on the fact that he used a monograph I wrote in 2009 (Glistering Truths), which he used to assess my views. Now, just as an aside, I edited that monograph in 2019 and 2024, to fix up typos and to rephrase some parts to make them clearer. But my argument and views expressed are not changed in light of this area of discussion.

How strange it is that Ross is writing an article trying to make out as if I am saying something different now to what I said before. In other words, he’s trying to frame me as inconsistent, when the reality is I can show in 2008 that I said the Latin Vulgate contains the word of God! See this link: https://av1611.com/forums/showpost.php?p=4258&postcount=5

Therefore, I would like to highlight how ridiculous it is, with minimal need for rhetorical effect, that I ever said, meant or implied that if it isn’t PCE, it must be corrupt. The Vulgate is far from the PCE, and I am not denying it was the word of God to those historical Latin-speaking Christians.

Ross’ approach is quite weak and really falls down when we try to find what exactly is his standard of what is the word of God. He seems to be allowing all kinds of things collectively to be the word of God without any specific ultimate form, method or measure. He is left trying to say that “Beer-sheba, Sheba”; “Beer-sheba, and Sheba” and “Beer-sheba, or Sheba” are all concurrently and equally the word of God at Joshua 19:2, even though the count will alter, and the Scripture says there are thirteen cities and their villages.

My approach is way better

Unlike Ross, I begin by pointing to the Scriptures and what the Bible says about itself in relation to its authority, origins and pre-existence.

The Scripture, I can show from the Bible, existed in the mind of God in eternity. (What troubles people get themselves into when they try to use the Greek to change the meaning of the Bible: but the Bible was known to be written in the mind of God, so they oughtn’t throw pencil shavings!) When Heaven was created on the start of day one in Genesis one, the Book was made and in the Heavenly Tabernacle.

Then, after many years, God moved through Moses, who while wrote the first Books of the Bible on Earth, God essentially worked through Moses and put that power into the words in the Earth. Inspiration essentially means putting spirit into, that is, putting the nature of spirit into those words which Moses then was writing (see also John 6:63). While on one level Moses was writing as a human to a human audience, it was actually God writing to mankind.

I think Bryan Ross has been addled by his going to the Greek and trying to Snuffleupagus “breathing out” like the Yahweists teach.

When we see the New Testament authors not quoting word for word the Old Testament, this is not because they were using some changed translation, nor because God is into deliberate or accidental carelessness, but because the same author of the Old (the Holy Ghost) is fit and free to give (and interpret) His own words in the New.

It’s very important to see that Luke quoting Isaiah is itself an inspiration, that Luke’s writing is as much inspired as the former writing of Isaiah. The Holy Ghost varying the wording is part of a Scriptural interpretative model that adds and aids meaning by the preciseness in the variations. Difference itself is new information. All such information is infallible and true, and reconciling it builds the full picture. There is no contradiction between any passage in the Scripture.

But Ross seems to think that variations in the New Testament quotes are the precedent for possible variation in orthography all being acceptable with some sort of latitudinal magnanimousness and perhaps even God ordained. There is little difference between this doublethink and the doctrine of modernist Rick Norris who says the same thing as Ross by allows for acceptability of various modern translations. Ross is just being less of an unbeliever than Norris.

Now in the copying process various errors, variations and corruptions occurred. No one can truly be as stupid as Ross makes out in believing that there is an exact sameness in manuscripts over the centuries. So the modernists, Ross and I all agree that there was no single perfect copy of the Bible being passed through time on Earth.

And yet, unlike Ross, I point to the indefatigable rock of the Scripture in Heaven, no matter what waves beat upon the Earth, truth existed there. I also articulate very clearly the doctrine of the scattering and gathering. The Scripture was scattered, and then with the scriptoria, and especially as leading on with the Textus Receptus tradition, we see singular gathered printed copies which begin to reconstitute the Text of Scripture.

Furthermore, in the various translations being made in English from the time of King Henry VIII to the apocalypticon of King James I.

Here we come to the most important point that blows up everything Ross the arsonist tried to do. He deliberately ignored this teaching about the modes of being of Scripture and its levels of perfection and purity, which ends his entire fake accusation against me.

Read closely. I do not believe that only the KJB is the word of God, yet I do believe it is only the Word for us now and for the world more and more. I do not believe that only the PCE is the word of God, but I do believe if you want to know exactly, precisely to the minutest detail it is true, that the ultimate knowledge of doctrines hang upon its words, and that doctrines therefore are in the balance based upon the very case of the lettering and punctuation marks.

You see, there are seven levels of the Scripture and its form.

First, the Scripture exists in the mind of God, which is also called Theistic Conceptual Realism. It’s a fat load of good being there alone, but because it is revealed in this time of creation first in Heaven and then on Earth for us through the process of inspiration, it is good.

So the second form is that it exists in a perfect form written in Heaven. We can prove this from many passages too, such as Psalm 40:7; 119:89, Daniel 10:21 and Hebrews 8:5; 9:19, 23.

The third form is the Scripture itself. Scripture having all the attributes we ascribe to it, such as inerrancy, infallibility, inspiration etc.

So now, taking this third form, we can argue three things:

  1. That a copy of the Scripture is the word of God,
  2. That a copy of the Scripture is the word of God to the people who use it as the word of God, and
  3. That a copy of the Scripture is the word of God in as much as it is faithful and substantively so.

Therefore on this basis the Greek copies of the Scripture in Constantinople, and even the Latin Vulgate was the word of God.

Now we know that there are Textual variations and translation issues in the Vulgate, so we know that the Vulgate does not match “verbatim” what would exist in Heaven or in the mind of God, but we do know it is accepted in general.

(In fact, the ESV contains the word of God where it matches the KJB, though the ESV be corrupt and the corruption have rendered it practically unusable to a person who has an awakened conscience on these matters.)

The next level, the fourth level, is that of the Text. We can argue for purity of Text. This means a perfect Version, this means a perfect set of Readings. We now point to the King James Bible as being this exactly, as it being the final form of the Received Text.

The next level, the fifth, is that of the translation. We can argue for the purity of the translation. That means a perfect translation, not just a good one like Tyndale or Geneva. We can argue that God’s words have come into English properly and exactly. We can say that the King James Bible is the best translation in the world.

The next level, the sixth, is that of the Edition. One Edition of the King James Bible is better than the others, because of accuracy, because of getting the orthography right. We can argue for a progress in this matter from 1611 to the 20th century. We can see how far advanced the work of Dr Blayney was in 1769.

When I said that Dr Blayney did well, that he had a moral obligation to fix typos and to standardise and improve the English, did you know that Bryan Ross and his friends laughed me to scorn. I cannot understand their attitude at all except to understand it spiritually. I shall not render evil for evil for this, but show that in the love of God, God has given Pastor Ross a fine gift of the benefit of the 1769 work, something good.

Now there are a series of editions of the King James Bible, and editors have worked to fix typographical errors, standardise the spelling and grammar, etc., and there are seven major Editions, which are editions of significant editorial importance, they are the folio Editions of 1611, 1611 again, 1613, 1629, 1638, 1769 and the Pure Cambridge Edition (which is not a folio but exists in a series of various printings). The PCE therefore presents the word of God exactly with proper editing in English.

This brings us to the seventh level, which is the Pure Cambridge Edition, but specifically, a copy-edited form of it, a resolved, exactly correct copy. I didn’t invent the Pure Cambridge Edition, I didn’t make a computer file copy of it based on some sort of “pentecostal experience” or “supernatural guidance”, I did it in line with Providence, and I used a believing textual analytical method. The setting and setting forth of the PCE as a resolved and acknowledgeable perfect textual form therefore presents the word of God exactly correctly to the letter.

Now Ross has quite wrongly said that I say that my holding to the Pure Cambridge Edition (level 6) invalidates every manuscript and copy and Bible (level 3), every Bible version (level 4) and every translation (level 5) and every other edition of the King James Bible. This is so blatantly wrong, and yet he has built his entire attack on me on this silly and false syllogism.

It should be obvious that every edition of the KJB has the same version and translation, and therefore how could I be casting them out on that ground? The fact is that I personally only strive to use the PCE of the KJB for the reason of love of accuracy and wanting to ensure reliance on the exactness of the very presentation of truth.

And so, at the last, we have, before the end of the world, a very perfect, precise and exact knowledge of the very words of God to the very details and possible grasping of the very nuance of meaning, by having a perfect form of the PCE, which in itself answers here below to that which is above in Heaven.

Semantics required for conceptual accuracy 

The fundamental foundation of my belief system, and of the argument for the KJB and the PCE, is that worlds are framed by the word of God, and that the “word of God” is made up of words, and words have meanings. Therefore, exactness of meaning is rooted in exactness of words.

(This is, I am sure, what the rabbis thought too, after their own fashion. My own theological belief, being Word and Spirit, is built directly upon Word of Faith theology, and this emphasis on words as “containers” is central. The Puritan Calvinist, being primarily a legalist, also shares the centrality of God’s law being communicated by words, that words have meaning, because the law is words of meaning. And so, language is a kind of presuppositional framework that exists, it comes from the mind of God, and it enters creation, which is why we call our Saviour by the title Word. The modernists, in their foolishness, have called Him Logos, but I say that we must dominate the Platonic understanding and plunder their words and use words in a Christian way, and not subject Christianity to Platonism.)

Words matter. Things cannot exist except words describe them, and the perfect form of the things exist because they exist in the mind of God, therefore, Theistic Conceptual Realism (the ideas that God knows) dominates Nominalism (mere words). Meaning requires words, just as God’s ideas were expressed by the divine utterance and reverberance in creation, And God said!

Bryan Ross is so far from these mysteries, floundering about with his six different spellings of a word, that he cannot detect that perfection is come.

He cannot accept that the very truth is communicated precisely by jots and tittles which are necessary for conveying the exact sense of the Scripture.

He accuses me of believing in “verbatim identicality”, yet I do not believe in such a thing, but I do believe in the perfect Scripture in Heaven being the progenitor of perfection that is here now in the whole world, and that its force is of full effect in its operation in the Earth.

I can point to scripture reference after scripture reference of promises, prophecies and implications that we should have the Bible perfectly and exactly before the end of the world.

Of course, any edition of the King James Bible which, at the point where it is varying from the PCE, is at that point not giving the “exact sense”. 

Doctrine, statutes, precepts, the very nature of our religion, is based upon the legal nature of covenant agreements and written testaments. Righteousness is measured by the very exact “every last whit” of the law.

The specific and exact state, word order and lettering of Scripture has an effect on nuance, concept and meaning. Therefore, the very letters of the King James Bible are important, because life and death can depend upon them.

Ross intentionally misreads me as though a world of meaning exists in a letter “w” sitting by itself on a piece of paper made by the calligrapher’s art. Ross writes, “Whole doctrines in the Bible do not hang on letters; they hang on Bible verses in context”. This is exaggerated nonsense about a single letter hung with doctrines. But in that a letter changes doctrine, in a verse, in context, that is evident: “Now to Abraham and his seed were the promises made. He saith not, And to seeds, as of many; but as of one, And to thy seed, which is Christ.” (Galatians 3:16).

So, a letter does make a difference. When we look at editorial variations, we would not be so foolish as to not correct typographical errors, and we would be not so foolish as to insist that “I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh” (in Joel 2:28) is identical or else meaninglessly distinct to “I will pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh” (in Acts 2:17). Every word matters, every capital letter matters, even dots matter.

I cannot believe that Ross would stoop so low as to use such a willfully “on the spectrum” style of gullible reasoning to accuse me by saying, “The way doctrines are derived in the Bible is not by looking at a single letter or word in a single verse.” As we can see here, I am using a variety of letters making words and typing out a response here which you can read and which makes sense. I am not striking the letter “L” over and again on my keyboard as if one letter is going to do anything by itself. I mean, how does it edify anyone if I really was doing what Ross suggests and I was abasing myself before the letter “L” and insisting it, in some sort of new religious cult-like way, was some angular power to whack his lambda?

Surely Ross knows he is being dishonest. Surely he knows I am not saying that some mere letter on a page in the Bible itself is full of doctrines. Surely he knows what the nuance of “Glistering Truths” shows.

Ross can easily observe that I actually teach that the “neesings” of the leviathan is full of meaning that is not merely the same as someone sneezing. Now, I know how Ross will run to the Oxford English Dictionary, and claim with umpteen examples that “neesing” was a 17th century form of “sneezing”. I can imagine Ross right now pumping AI for info, that neesing is just an old and archaic spelling for sneezing. But he has missed the point: the Bible trumps the dictionary, and adhering to the divine trumps mere human reasoning.

We approach Scripture with a believing sense of wonder, we don’t impose fake criteria by sullying Bible words with the tyranny of subjective opinion and dictionary dictatorships. Dictionaries are tools, they are servants, they exist downstream from the Providential supply of words and their meanings. We should not be so foolish as people like Mark Ward who petulantly proclaim that usage determines meaning. Divine usage, not human usage, determines meaning.

Let us humble ourselves gladly to then find out what “ensamples” means rather than just say it must be the same as “examples”. To ignore or conflate them would be anti-intellectualism or vain deceit.

Ross also makes a weird accusation that I did not get my views on the PCE by comparing Bible verses. I assume he means the comparing of Scripture with Scripture, and I assume he is meaning a doctrine about there being a perfect exact standard of God’s words. Well then, Pastor Ross can be assured that the entire doctrine of the PCE is based upon Scripture. I also appeal to Providential and internal arguments, but the entire argument is built upon Scripture, it is itself a scriptural doctrine. I’ll be happy to give him an extensive list of Bible verses, but I know already what he will say. He will find it incompatible to interpret the Scripture that way, because I know the problem actually lays in how he interprets Scripture. He’s demonstrated that with how he rejects the teaching of Matthew 5:18.

In fact, Ross came up with his “verbal equivalence” by just trying to explain (wrongly) why New Testament quotes of the Old Testament are not identical. Other than that wresting, his views and his rejection of the PCE are nothing really to do with Scripture.

And so we arrive at the nonsense position of Ross, as if that “alway” and “always” are the same word spelt two different ways. It’s very easy to prove in all kinds of ways that these are two different words with different meanings. Ross has committed himself in writing that they are not different, that they don’t present a different sense. His position is forced to accommodate the places where editions which vary the spelling, orthography, wording or made typos and to uphold them (those places that differ) as equal to what the PCE has now. (Obviously, Bryan Ross accepts the PCE is an edition, but he deliberately tries to deny its specialness.)

Answering Ross’ accusations 

Ross wrote accusingly of me, “He developed his position on the PCE through private interpretation (his Pentecostalism & Historicist interpretation of Revelation) to determine what he thinks the reality of the printed text should be, rather than what the actual reality was.”

This is loaded with wrong and false accusations.

I did not argue for the Pure Cambridge Edition based on private interpretation at all, it is based upon open analysis, providence and tradition.

The accusation that I used some sort of “Pentecostal” experiences to determine the PCE is just completely made up, and I have rejected this ridiculous accusation many times.

I also did not use the Historicist interpretation of Revelation to develop my position on the PCE. In fact, I did not understand Historicism very much when first studying about the PCE. I have written on multiple occasions about how I came to understand about the PCE, and Ross can easily correct himself by reading my several accounts.

It was later that I found in Historicist writings that they pointed to the King James Bible in how they interpreted Revelation 10. In general, I did not initially build or understand the case about the PCE as based on Historicist prophecy.

It is strange that Ross refers to the “reality” of the Pure Cambridge Edition. What is his “reality”? That we cannot get exactness in editing? I’d sure like to know how Ross proposes to have an exactly correct printing of the King James Bible. The history of editing from 1611 to 1769 is obvious, but why doesn’t Ross be more clear in recognising the improvement in the printed history?

Things are heading somewhere, editing has not been for no reason. It staggers belief that Ross would be fighting so hard to reject a post-1769 standard edition. Is he denying that God would want to get a correctly edited KJB Edition for the Body of Christ?

I also can’t understand how he doesn’t recognise that words mean something, his reluctance to get exactness, and his trying to just make “throughly” and “thoroughly” the same. If KJBOs didn’t make an academically rigorous case for the distinction in meanings then why not make an academically proposition to understand why there are detectable differences (according to God’s academia, not the worldly peer-reviewed mafia).

Apparently he doesn’t understand how constitutions and the courts work. Words are full of meaning, but if words can just be just smudged because they seem similar, then I think Ross would be the most sloppy lawyer in the world.

In all of this, Ross’ attacks have done one thing, and that is make me explain more, and I expect it all is more of an encouragement for believers to:
* stick with the reputable Pure Cambridge Edition
* understand and stay with the “glistering truths”
* align with Divine Providence

Conclusion

Pastor Ross may continue in the same denial he seems to hold to but never articulate: that the Scripture cannot have an ultimate final, exact form on Earth. He needs to see that all things move with purpose instead of “verbal equivalence” of general ideas, of approximation, which avoids admitting that God’s Word is communicated in words, not in loose impressions. And because he rejects exactness in the written form, he cannot penetrate a standard beyond conceptual boundaries.

But creation itself testifies otherwise. The sun shines as one light. So too with Scripture. Many copies may vary, many translations may obscure, but the light of truth itself has a penetrating form. Not because man contrived it, but “So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it.” (Isaiah 55:11).

Heaven and Earth follow patterns. The tabernacle below reflected the pattern above; the law given had a heavenly origin; the Scripture is both divine in source and earthly in manifestation. This correspondence is what God designs in perfection and brings to completion in history. Ross seems to be ignorant of this principle, though it be through the whole Bible.

I stand for that God’s Word existed eternally in His mind,
was written perfectly in Heaven,
was given and used throughout all ages as Scripture on Earth,
was gathered through the Received Text,
translated exactly into English for the world,
edited providentially into a standard Edition,
and resolved in a stable and exact form.

This is not private interpretation, it is not whimsical opinion, but the belief in a precise God with an actual set of words telling exactly what we need to know. We can enter into every exact nuance of doctrine by knowing we have every jot and tittle in its right order.

Editorial

Bryan Ross finds out that a letter can change doctrine

Even though openly spoken of for many years, Bryan Ross only today discovered about the 1985 letter from Cambridge University Press when via their American office they discussed the case of the word “spirit” at 1 John 5:8.

For years I have discussed the letter in various writings on my website, and this topic was discussed by various people too, including Gail Riplinger, so it is surprising that Bryan Ross has only just found out about it.

Essentially, Cambridge University Press made a decision to reject their own editions, which had since 1629, had the word “spirit” lower case at 1 John 5:8, and further, so had Oxford’s Clarendon Press in the well known 1769 Edition.

It staggers belief that a topic discussed in openly on the internet in this space is so unknown by Bryan Ross.

In the 1985 letter, the Press claimed that the [correct] rendering of the word “spirit” is to them “a matter of some embarrasement [sic]”. What is ironic here as well is that there are all kinds of places where the King James Bible has the word “spirit” lower case.

Within a few years, Cambridge was seeking to update its printing plates, and consequently engaged David Norton to make a wholesale edit. Hindsight shows us what nature the Press was of by that stage, which is one of many reasons why the change being made in 1985 should not be accepted.

It waits to be seen what Bryan Ross will do with this new revelation, but I expect he’ll be like a chicken on a bug.

Also, by the way, in case any mistake is made, the Press was not the Queen’s Printer in 1985, they got that title in 1990. The fact is that the PCE was printed as the Queen’s Printer with the Royal Warrant to 1999, as thankfully not all printings after 1985 were immediately tampered with.

Collins was still printing the PCE in the early 2000s. It was literally in the few years right after Cambridge stopped printing the PCE that the “Pure Cambridge Edition” was identified as correct and called by that title.

(Technically, the calligraphic Gospel of John and of Matthew as currently printed by Cambridge are PCE.)

See also http://textus-receptus.com/wiki/1_John_5:8