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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

PART ONE

Today, like a solar storm, a new contention has come to pass, which is something called the denial of the ultimate very jots and tittles of Scripture being manifest and known in the Earth.

Pastor Bryan Ross is an American teacher who has been investigating claims of various King James Bible only people. Like me, he has sought to distance himself from crazy claims and better articulate some claims that are made by King James Bible onlyists. For example, I think there is no such thing as an “Antioch stream” of Bibles.

I recently had a discussion with Bryan Ross, and he indicates he is not retreating to a mere Textus Receptus onlyist position. But on the other hand, when discussing the issues of variations in words like “stablish” versus “establish”, Ross appealed to the original languages and argued that these words were essentially the same.

In part, this is because Ross has seen in American KJB editions variations of spelling on words, and in order to justify this, he attempts to argue that since the Americans were varying around words (he claims just spellings) that something like “stablish” and “establish” must be synonymous. (After all variations of this sort are to be found even in 1611, in regard to “thoroughly” and “throughly”.)

These are different words with different meanings. As I’ve shown clearly in my book Glistering Truths (get it here), words like “alway” versus “always” or “farther” versus “further” are different, and so too are “stablish” and “establish”. It’s no use relying solely on 1611 when orthography and spelling was not yet standard, but we see huge progress in this through the early Cambridge editorial revisions and in Blayney’s Oxford work, to our final Pure Cambridge Edition of today.

Bryan Ross argues that because in Greek or Hebrew the same word might be translated to similar words, that those English words are really the same. Hence his ultimate appeal is to the original languages and not English of the KJB. This makes him look very much like a TRO, though he has stated that he thinks that the KJB is right.

I have taken the approach of relying on English alone, especially in relation to looking at the internal nature of the editing and grammar of the King James Bible.

Dean Burgon said, “If would really seem as if the Revisionists of 1611 had considered it a graceful achievement to vary the English phrase even on occasions where a marked identity of expression characterises the original Greek. When we find them turning ‘goodly apparel,’ (in S. James ii. 2,) into ‘gay clothing,’ (in ver. 3,) — we can but conjecture that they conceived themselves at liberty to act exactly as S. James himself would (possibly) have acted had he been writing English.” (Revision Revised, page 190). Now obviously this is talking about translation, but the principle applies directly into editorial distinctiveness, which does convey the translation (that is, the meaning).

There are subtleties of nuance, in a way, worlds of meaning between these different words in English. Those differences, just like the “stablish” and “establish” differences, are vital for conveying the very sense of the Scripture. It is said that Martin Luther taught that we must tremble before every syllable of Scripture, that no iota is in vain. And as the Westminster Confession lays out, Scripture is truly in our own language of English. Therefore, this right kind of zeal towards the very words and letters in English.

That’s why we should stay with the proper editing of the King James Bible and uphold the very accuracy of the letters as to be found in the Pure Cambridge Edition.

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