Anyone familiar with the KJV Only Debate knows that it is the quintessential “hot button” topic. Proponents of KJV Onlyism, which would be most people who insist that the KJV is the only acceptable English version, are very serious about this issue. Why? Because it is a matter of faith.
Many of you might be rolling your eyes right now. Let me guess why. 1) This whole KJV debate sounds very strange to you. 2) You are weary of this debate and see so many more important things to focus on. 3) You use the KJV and love it, but you don’t want to make this whole issue a big deal. 4) This whole issue seems so complex that you wonder how it can be so clear as to be dogma.
I can understand why people don’t get this issue. The endless debates get old real quick. But this is why it is important. KJV Only adherents, insist that if you really believe the Bible and if you really believe God’s promises, you must conclude like they do about the KJV. And if you don’t, your a doubter. When faced with historical or textual evidence which seems to contradict their position, the ever resilient KJV Onlyist will appeal to faith. He may not be able to prove it, but he can surely believe it. And isn’t this what we normally encourage with other issues (creationism, inerrancy, inspiration, miracles, etc.)?
Just because I don’t agree with the KJV Onlyists, does not mean I (and other non-KJV Onlyists) don’t love and respect the Bible. And I believe the Bible has much to say about the KJV Only debate. So I am planning a series of posts which detail what the Bible teaches with regard to this debate. You’re reading the introduction to that series. Let me conclude this post with some important, and somewhat lengthy quotes by Dr. Kevin Bauder from One Bible Only? Examining the Exclusive Claims for the King James Bible (Kregel, 2001). These quotes and this post will set the stage for the issues I plan to address in these posts.
The question is not whether the Bible contains a promise that God will preserve His Word. King James-Only advocates go much further. They insist that God has preserved His words and preserved them exactly in a singular, identifiable, and accessible form. So the question is whether the Bible contains a promise that God will preserve, word for word, the text of the original documents of Scripture in a particular manuscript, textual tradition, printed text, or version. [pg. 158]
The core issue in the King James-Only controversy is whether one must have the very words of God (all of the words and only the words of the autographs) to have the Word of God….Does possessing the Word of God depend upon the exact preservation of all of the words and only the words of the original documents of Scripture in an accessible form? If so, what text of Scripture teaches us this premise? Where are the exact words of the originals to be found, and what passage of Scripture assures us of the location of this accessible manuscript, manuscript tradition, published text, or version? If the advocates of the King James-Only position cannot answer these questions with explicit, biblical, reasonable, and verifiable evidence, then they ought to stop defending their position as if it were a question of doctrine…. [pg. 164]
Click here for all posts in this series.
I can’t wait to read the rest. I like it when we get to the key point of divide in a debate. If we can pinpoint the key to our differences than we can finally have some serious discussion.
Don,
That’s what makes One Bible Only? such a great book. Kevin Bauder nails the issue, and cuts to the heart of the debate. And he brings in Scripture throughout his chapters in the book.
I hope the series lives up to its billing.
Blessings in Christ, Brother,
Bob
Anybody can keep raising the bar for what is explicit, biblical, reasonable, and verifiable. The emergents have raised it way high, so high that no one can know. This is a trend. You show someone Scripture and use it in a historical way, and that isn’t good enough. We have to find a text that says: “The King James Version will be the Version, and the text will be called TR and Masoretic.” If you can show that, you are unreasonable. And what alternative is given? Textual criticism, no settled Bible, content becomes the standard, but based upon no biblical, reasonable, verifiable reason. Bauder defends 66 books, and to him it is reasonable, verifiable, biblical, etc., but there is nothing that says 66 books in the Bible.
Bob, look at my blog post, my article from Friday. I’m not one that even uses the word “nail.” Then you add, “brings in Scripture through his chapters in the book. In his first chapter, the Introduction, which you quote above, he gives zero Scripture—get that, zero. I’m just the messenger, so don’t shoot me, Don Fields. Don’t you think that Scripture might just come into the introduction. Not in their book. He writes Appendix A, which is a second of the three chapters he writes (he includes a statement by Armitage in the appendix too). Guess how many verses? Zero. None. He doesn’t even quote the verses uses by the confessions and creeds that support providential preservation. He uses NO VERSES. Now he has one other chapter, singular chapter, and it is called, An Appeal to Scripture. I would hope he brings the Bible in with that one. In that chapter 155-158, still no verses. 159-Scripture (attacking KJV people). 160-166, No Scripture. None. 167–One Scripture. Titus 3:10 to call KJV guys hereticks. There we go Bob. There’s your bringing in Scripture. Essentially one page on one chapter out of three.
Correction on start of second paragraph. Bob uses my “nail” the issue metaphor. Of course, mine was on Jackhammer were hammering analogies are always welcome.
Oh, just to let everyone know, Bauder’s one page of referencing passages in what I think we should call biblical, reasonable, and verifiable, since he says that is the standard when he nails the issue, that page is a section called “An Appeal to Reason.” Kind of fitting, huh? The one page in a section called AN APPEAL TO SCRIPTURE, he uses one page to appeal to Scripture in a section called “An Appeal to Reason.” Bob has one page to borrow from Bauder in “One Bible Only?” so I expect to see all of it.
Pastor B.,
Just so you know, I was using “nail” on my own. It is my assessment of Bauder’s work. I understand you just quoted from that book on Jackhammer, but I was planning to use it on my blog before that post.
I guess I goofed in saying Bauder uses lots of Scripture. His “appeal to Scripture” is the conclusion. So he writes the intro, the conclusion, and an appendix. He is synthesizing and summarizing what the chapters in between contain. And there is some Scripture and Scriptural arguments used.
Arguing on the basis of Scriptural implications and examples and direct teaching, is what I should have said about Bauder. He doesn’t delve into the actual exegesis, and lets others unpack his arguments more fully (it may be the other way around, he is summarizing their fuller arguments).
Anyways, these posts of mine might borrow from and use material I gleaned from One Bible Only?, but I hope to go beyond that and fully deal with the Biblical testimony which relates to this issue.
Just wanted to clarify.
By the way, I don’t have a lot of time currently, but I do plan to read your latest comment and respond. I may wait until I have the second installment of this series done first, though. That comment and this series are very interrelated.
I disagree that Bauder nails the issue. He nails what his (and those of his persuasion) would argue against the Providential Preservation possition. But by no means does he nail the real issue. The truth be told, Douglas Wilson nails the heart of the issue in his chapter on receiving the word.
The issue is one of pressuppositions. The issue is not academic, it is fideistic.
I haven’t read this pamphlet by Bauder, but I have read Dr. James White’s book The King James Only Debate which I found very helpful and enlightening. He believes in preservation, not in one manuscript but in the totality of manuscripts. I find that to be a much more reasonable and intellectual position – based completely on God’s Word!
Don,
James White does not believe in preservation in the totality of the manuscripts. There is at least one OT passage that he believes, as well as others, that the manuscript has not yet been found.
Now if he does believe in the preservation of the totality, then he does not believe that we need to continue collating new manuscripts that are found. More have continued to be found, including the Dead Sea Scrolls. These people have no settled text on earth. They believe in an ongoing task of restoration.
This not only does not fit Biblical presuppositions, but it leads to gaps in Biblliology that a semi-truck can drive through.
Dave, when I said he nailed the issue, I was saying that he nailed from his perspective, as I explained, that is, if they can find one error for us, in their opinion of course, then we are right where they are in the preservation issue.
What remaining bits of KJV-onlyism I had in my was slayed by James White’s book “The King James Only Controversy”… It’s a must read!
RK
Here is an article from Pastor Carter on “Public spanking for James White”
http://www.mag-net.com/~maranath/white.htm
so long as people read it, but KJV and NIV are the best!