Tag: KJV-onlyism

Announcing: A New & Improved King James Only Blog

~ fundyreformed ~ 19 Comments

Over the years I’ve toiled alone in trying to create a good KJV Only resource site. There are others out there, and I mainly wanted to publicize them. I also have an interest in the debate and have posted from time to time on the topic here. I’ve had my fair share of blog wars and debates over this too. Other obligations and interests have left that site only partially complete, however.

I’ve finally enlisted a couple likeminded blogging buddies, Phil and Damien, who are going to help me maintain an active KJV Only Blog where we’ll try to compile a bunch of blog posts relating to this debate. Discussions will be saved in the comments and it may prove to be a helpful resource for many.

Our first substantive post went up today, so I encourage you to check out King James Only?, and click on the subscribe links. We’ll be doing some re-posting over there of material the 3 of us have posted at our own blogs, and we will create new content as well. We want it to be a clearing house of good resources on the debate from an informed, rational perspective. One that doesn’t paint all King James Onlyists as total wack0s since all of us posters are former KJV Onlyists ourselves. We feel the debate is important, and that providing patient helpful answers is a good thing for those seeking their way in the debate at large.

Let me know what you think, and if anyone would like to join our effort, contact me.

Westcott & Hort: Victims of KJV-Only Smear Campaign

~ fundyreformed ~ 18 Comments

Okay, this isn’t exactly a news flash. But Westcott and Hort, the respected scholars who published the first major critical edition of the Greek Text of the modern era (in 1881), are the innocent victims of a mind blowing smear campaign. King James Version Onlyism has charged them with all sorts of unbelievable heresies, chief of which is the belief that their text is better than the Textus Receptus, which underlies the KJV.

Westcott and Hort both stood against liberalism in their day, to one degree or another; Westcott particularly authoring excellent, conservative commentaries. Never mind these facts, KJV Onlyists scoured through post-humously published journals and letters, and scanned through the dozens of other published books by these scholars and came up with some gems. When presented in just the right manner, to just the right kind of audience, Westcott and Hort can be successfully transformed into monsters. With ellipses (…), italics and the fundamentalist favorite: the ALL CAPS, Westcott and Hort’s quotes, already removed from their contexts are doctored into such a fashion that they are ready to be included in prominent KJV defending books.

It’s sad that the above is quite true. It’s sad that this is the extreme to which people go to somehow legitimize their view. Of course, Gail Riplinger is proof that you don’t have to stop with this extreme measure. I won’t continue, because my friend Damien Garofalo just posted the next post in a series he’s doing analyzing D.A. Waite’s KJV Only seminar slides. Dr. D.A. Waite is one of the foremost defenders of the King James Bible and in his books as well as his seminars, he makes use of the guilt by association argument concerning Westcott and Hort. I encourage you to check out Damien’s post which exposes some of the fundamentalist smear for what it really is.

Waite may be using these doctored quotes second hand. But that shouldn’t excuse him since this would then reveal shoddy scholarship rather than a fondness for libel. And as a former KJV Onlyist, I can attest that many of us are sadly misinformed about these godly scholars, Westcott and Hort. Feed a person poor arguments and faulty facts long enough, and they’ll believe anything. So forgive me, Westcott and Hort. Thanks for your work in moving us closer to the fine Greek text we have today.

A final note: check out the Westcott and Hort Resource Centre for more information. Or see some of these articles by James May at kjvonly.org.

A Christ-Centered Perspective of King James Onlyism

~ fundyreformed ~ 16 Comments

Damien over at Return to Biblicism, just completed a three part series on “Christ and the Scriptures“. He gives me hope: there are other people out there who write longer blog posts than I do!!!

His series focuses on why we believe the Bible, and he argues convincingly that we should believe in Christ first, and the Bible because of what Christ believes about the Bible. Today’s post is where the rubber hits the road for the King James Only debate. He illustrates how Jesus uses the LXX, and what that should mean for our views of Bible versions today.

I’m going to steal a chart he used in today’s post, but I want you all to go over and read his post too, now. In Luke 4, Jesus is specifically said to pick up a scroll in the synagogue and read what was written there. See how what was written compares to the Hebrew Old Testament (as translated by the KJV) and the LXX Greek Old Testament. Click chart below to expand.

click to expand

This argument, coupled with a comparison of how Scripture quotes Scripture (OT quoting the OT, NT quoting the OT or the NT), and then seeing how Scripture records single events in multiple passages (in the OT and NT), is the knock-out blow to the KJV Only argument. If we treat Scripture and think about it in a way similar to Jesus and the apostles/prophets, how can we go wrong?

For more on this line of reasoning, read Damien’s post, or check out this article by Brian Tegart entitled “Jesus is not KJV-only“.

Strangest Argument for the KJV ever

~ fundyreformed ~ 50 Comments

This video is unbelievable. I’ve seen this guy post on the Fundamental Forums, and he is basically as extreme as one can get on the KJV. [HT: Ryan DeBarr]

In this clip, he’s using the phrase “him that pisseth against a wall” to emphasize manliness, and to claim the KJV is a superior version, since it literally translates the Hebrew euphemism. [He is right, only the ASV translates it similarly, but the HCSB does give the literal rendering in the footnotes (I used up 1 Sam. 25:22 for my comparison.)]

This is what you get when you cross KJV onlyism, extreme sectianism, and a nutty view of history. Crazy.

**Warning, the language is quite crude on this clip.

[vodpod id=Groupvideo.854173&w=425&h=350&fv=%26rel%3D0%26border%3D0%26] from rjhayton.vodpod.com posted with vodpod