D A Waite on the Moorman-White debate concluded

Here is the next section of Dr. Waite's notes on the Moorman-White debate. I'm going to let most of it stand without comment, since I either believe or tend to assume that Dr. Waite is correct and have nothing I want to add.

II. COMMENTS ON THE Q&A, Last 50-MINUTES

1. The first man’s question about James was foolish.

2. 1 John 5:7 was brought up. White said the early church never used this verse as proof of the Trinity. This is false. Early church writers quoted from it and used it for this purpose and other purposes.

3. If you take out the parts of 1 John 5:7 and 8, the genders do not match. White disputed this, but it is correct.

4. White lied when he said at the bottom of the page in the Nestle/Aland text “I have an exhaustive listing of every textual variant.” That is a total lie. Many, many texts are omitted. The hundreds of Traditional readings are merely grouped into the”M” symbol, but are never shown specifically. If “every textual variant” were shown in the footnotes, there would have to be over 8,000 variants shown since that is the total number of variants found by Dr. Jack Moorman. These are found in his book, 8000 Differences (BFT #3084 @ $20.00 + $7.00 S&H). This would take several volumes to contain “every reading.” How can James White be like this?

5. He said, further that “I have the textual data here.” He does not have ALL the data by any means. He said “I have the information right in front of me.” But it is only very, very partial and limited information.

6. He brings up Revelation 16:5 once again about HOSIOS to throw off the main discussion without answering Dr. Moorman’s 5500 manuscripts that all but 50 support the TR. Nor does he or the moderator let Dr. Moorman discuss the 105 places where the Gnostic Critical Text is weakly supported by very few Greek MSS.

7. The question was whether or not these differences are in minor things, or do they change the meaning of the text. White sidestepped this question and said “the vast majority of variations in the New Testament manuscripts do not in any way shape or form change the meaning. In fact, of the approximately 400,000 textual variants that exist in manuscript tradition, 99% of them you would not be able to explain what the difference is to the English speaker because it cannot be translated. So you have about 1% or about 4,000 meaningful variants which actually impact the meaning of the text. Of those, about 1500 to 2000 are viable, that is, they could be original . . . So you have about 1500 to 2000 that have to be examined and that might impact the meaning of the text. It’s very important.” The truth of the matter is that there are more than 356 doctrinal passages that change the meaning doctrinally. Almost 200 pages prove this in Dr. Moorman’s Early Manuscripts, Church Fathers, and the Authorized Version (BFT #3230 @ $20.00 + $7.00 S&H).

Too many books I'd like to have the money to buy and the time to read, sigh.

8. White lied when he pointed to the TR and the NA New Testaments and said: “If I take either of those two texts that Pastor Moorman has on the desk right there, and I apply the same translation procedure to those two books, I WILL NOT HAVE A DIFFERENT DOCTRINE OR TEACHING. I WILL NOT.” “I might have a different list of verses that support any one doctrine.” In fact, as I mentioned #7 above, there are 356 doctrinal passages that are in error on his Nestle/Aland text. This is a lie and a deception to his listeners.

9. When Dr. Moorman was answering this, White interrupted him and would not let him finish, nor give him equal time to reply. This is totally unfair for the moderator to have allowed this.

10. White lied when he said that rather than things being MISSING (as Dr. Moorman said). “You’ll never hear ADDED, and yet clearly there is added material in the expansion of titles in the Byzantine manuscripts.” This is false. It would have been impossible to have ADDED materials in these 5,500 manuscripts all over the world at different time periods and yet have the same words “added.” Yet REMOVAL was possible from the Vatican and Sinai kind of manuscripts.

You might not hear the actual word "added" but as I recall, Westcott and Hort clearly theorized that the passages that are missing from the Alexandrian texts but present in the Byzantines had to have been added at some point into the Byzantine line. What other choice is there? Either they were taken out of the Alexandrians or added into the Byzantines.

11. One questioner mentioned that in the Gnostic critical text, they “pervert the deity of Christ, take away from Him, remove the virgin birth, eliminate the Godhead, add works to salvation, support Jehovah’s Witness beliefs,” Then White interrupted and lied when he said (without letting Dr. Moorman reply), “That’s just not true.” Dr. Moorman said, “It most certainly is true!” White said, “That’s just not true.”

12. A question was asked about the dead sea scrolls. The moderator asked Dr. Moorman if he would like to comment on this. Dr. Moorman said it wasn’t an issue that we’re facing here tonight. White said “I think actually it is.”

13. Then White went on to say wrongly that the N.T. writers cited the Septuagint (LXX) rather than Hebrew Old Testament. In fact, there was no LXX in B.C. times, only in A.D. That is a serious lie that he makes. He then lies again by saying: “The dead sea scrolls demonstrate that the Septuagint translation has just as ancient moorings as the 1525 Bomberg Masoretic text that we have in Hebrew.” This is a total lie. White is exalts the Greek LXX to a par with God’s own Hebrew Old Testament Words. Shame on him! The LXX did not come into existence in B.C. but only in the 200's A.D. in Origen’s days. This putting of the LXX on an equal position (or even higher, perhaps) than the Hebrew Words which God Himself gave to us directly is serious heresy.

Now here I have to say that everything I've encountered on this subject puts Dr. Waite in the wrong. The Septuagint doesn't have to be regarded as on an equal footing with the Hebrew to be recognized as having existed before the New Testament was written, and some Septuagint writings WERE found with the Dead Sea Scrolls, clearly pre-Christian.

The Septuagint was translated by Jewish scholars more than three hundred years B.C. This is often a very important factor in debating the authenticity of the translation of the Hebrew "almah" as "virgin" in Isaiah 7:14, with anti-Christians who seek to disparage the New Testament as false on this basis among many others. I've encountered this debate in atheist discussions, evolutionist sites and Jewish anti-messianic sites. The fact that the Greek Septuagint has "parthenos" for "almah" is strong evidence in favor of the English "virgin" in the New Testament. There are other sources of evidence in pre-Christian Jewish writings that "virgin" was understood by them all along, but the Septuagint is a particularly accessible argument.

And some of the modern versions DO "remove the virgin birth" as the questioner said, by translating "almah" as "young woman," which agrees with all the New Testament debunkers I've encountered debating this issue.

I've run across the rejection of the Septuagint in fundamentalist KJVO circles before and it's always struck me as strange. Even the differences found between the Hebrew text and the New Testament rendering of those same passages can be somewhat explained as the result of translating the Greek of the Septuagint into Latin and then into English.

The New Testament writers obviously knew Greek. Also most Jews in the time of Christ lived scattered throughout the Middle East and Mediterranean area and many had completely lost their understanding of Hebrew, so it makes perfect sense that their scriptures would have been made available to them in Greek in that Hellenized world.

14. White tossed in Revelation 16:5 again as a distraction, yet never gave time for Dr. Moorman to answer it, though he has written on this very verse. He dealt with it in his Majority Text book which he could read for them, but they didn’t give him time to do this. See Dr. Moorman’s book, When the Majority Text Departs from the Authorized Version (BFT #1617 @ $25.00 + $7.00 S&H).

15. Dr. Moorman said that White had “not traversed MOUNT IMPASSABLE.” White said, “I believe I have.” Dr. Moorman said, “No you have not.” White has only two pillars, Vatican and Sinai and a few papyri, making maybe 50 MSS in all. That is it.

16. White then read off a list of words we don’t use or understand today. He should get the Defined King James Bible (BFT #3000) to clarify all of these words. Dr. Moorman said “there is 15.”

Yes, there are surprisingly few that could really be described as archaic, and I appreciated Dr. Moorman's point that often the KJV's wording captures the original meaning better than any of today's terms anyway.

17. White lied when he said that “The text of the Byzantine manuscript tradition is not what you find in those first centuries. It is the Alexandrian manuscripts that have that most primitive text.” The TR goes back to the apostolic text as to its words, though the date of the material on which those words were written was more recent because of copying and recopying. Mark 16:9-20 defense proves this is true based on ancient versions, and early church fathers’ quotations.

18. Dr. Moorman makes an excellent point when he asked White how words could have been ADDED when the manuscripts were from many different countries and covered many different years. It would have been impossible to have ADDED these in the more than 5,500 manuscripts now in existence. The Vatican and Sinai have 2900 fewer words. How could you add these 2900 words? “That is your MOUNT IMPASSABLE” that White did not answer, nor could he answer, though he claimed he did answer.

19. White went back to 1 John 5:7-8 as a distraction and did not answer HOW 2900 words could have been ADDED rather than what actually took place. These 2900 words were subtracted in Vatican and Sinai.

Burgon has evidence for this.

20. White lied again when he said that “if the KJB translators had the Vatican and Sinai manuscripts, they would have used them.” In point of fact, the KJB translators knew of these false MSS and rejected them. They would not have used them in any way. They knew them to be false.

Certainly what I've learned. If it's in Burgon I'll find it.

21. Robert Marsh’s question was cut off and he could not finish it. He was about to ask how James White accounts for the 356 doctrinal passages in his Gnostic Critical Greek Text.

22. In his 2-minute summation, White gave an erroneous statement when he talked about the real issue here which is:. “What did the inspired apostles originally write?” The apostles were not “inspired.” This shows White’s total ignorance of what “inspiration” really means. While Job 32:8 uses this word, 2 Timothy 3:16 is the only place in the New Testament where the word, “inspiration” occurs. Here it is defined exactly. It makes “inspiration” limited to PASA GRAPHE (“every word”) in the original Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek which were “given by inspiration of God” or “God-breathed.” It is ridiculous to have MEN GOD-BREATHED. God did not breathe out MEN, but WORDS.

OK, point taken, basically a grammatical point.

23. He brings up Revelation 16:5 again as a distraction.

24. White said that if Pastor Moorman’s position is correct on the KJB, “Christians for 1600 years could not claim to have had the full word of God. How can that be? That’s simply not a viable alternative.” (simply because of his Revelation 16:5 and a few other verses).

25. White gives a horrific lie about the Greek Words underlying the KJB when he said, the New Testament was preserved, but “It was not preserved in one particular text that had to come into existence in 1611.” In this statement he repeated his lie mentioned before, that Dr. Frederick Scrivener translated his Greek text from the King James Bible. This is false to history and fact. In truth, Dr. Scrivener used the Greek edition of Beza’s 5 edition of 1598. Scrivener did not “back-translate” from the KJV to Greek as White, James Price, and heretic Gail Riplinger have all falsely claimed.

I thought it was Erasmus who supposedly "back-translated" -- in any case the source of the information needs to be produced for whatever the claim is.

But I didn't really get what White was saying about preservation and I'm not sure Waite has understood him either. I thought he was basically just stating the idea that God's preservation has to cover all the legitimate manuscripts, not just one particular set. But of course I don't consider the Alexandrians to be "legitimate." And maybe I still haven't understood what he meant anyway.

D A Waite comments on the Moorman-White Debate

The debate is now available for viewing again here. I'll listen again later but for now I'd like to post the notes taken on the debate by Dr. D. A. Waite, who was of course able to recognize implications of much of what was said that went over my head. These sorts of issues just don't get a fair hearing in a debate format. It would be nice to see a lengthy written exchange on them by chosen experts on both sides.

I have some objections to what Dr. Waite says, although overall I probably would agree with him if I knew enough.

Mostly I object to accusing Dr. White of lying. I hate it when evolutionists accuse creationists of lying -- it always turns out to be a matter of having different information, a different interpretation, or of simply making a mistake. Of course, since White does present himself as expert in all these issues, if he IS wrong it's hard to believe he merely made a mistake. Nevertheless, even if someone is lying, it seems to me we can't rightly say more than that a statement is wrong, not assuming anything about the person's intent.

I also think it's not quite right to accuse White of bragging when he mentions debating with Bart Ehrman, Jehovah's Witnesses, the Jesus Seminar and Muslims and the like. I think he's trying to establish that he's not the liberal ogre he probably feels the KJVOs make of him, but is known for his strongly conservative Christian views, which contending with such opponents should demonstrate.[However, it later occurred to me that by bringing this up as often as he did perhaps his intention was to covertly associate Dr. Moorman and the KJVO position in general with cultists -- sneaky if so].

Since I'd like to see the substantive issues clearly raised and answered, I've reduced the font for the bragging comments so the others will stand out more.

REMARKS ON THE MOORMAN/WHITE DEBATE (2/2/11)
By Pastor D. A. Waite, Th.D. Ph.D.
Bible For Today Baptist Church
900 Park Avenue, Collingswood, NJ 08108
Phone: 856-854-4747; E-Mail: BFT@BibleForToday.org
Website: BibleForToday.org

I. COMMENTS ON JAMES WHITE’S 20-MINUTE OPENING
REMARKS FROM THE FIRST 40-MINUTES OF THE DEBATE:

1. Bringing in Bart Ehrman’s debate had nothing to do with this theme. IT IS BRAGGING.

2. Manuscripts differ, but the TR MSS have minute differences only; whereas his Vatican and Sinai MSS have hundreds and even thousands of differences. In the Gospels alone, they differ in over 3,000 significant places.

Yes, and Burgon points this out as part of the evidence for their corruption.

3. White claims to believe in the “inerrancy of Scripture,” but where is his “inerrant Scripture”?

4. Debating a Muslim has nothing to do with this theme either. IT IS BRAGGING.

5. Debating a man from the Jesus Seminar has nothing to do with this theme either. IT IS BRAGGING.

6. He believes the “Bible is the Word of God,” but which Bible is it, and where is it?

How White and others on his side understand the inerrancy of scripture and the Bible as the word of God does need to be spelled out clearly in relation to the understanding of the KJVO. Obviously they regard many of the current versions as qualifying, with possibly some exceptions. Since the KJV translators regarded the previous English translations as all the word of God despite their needing some revision, this is a fair position to take on principle. The question becomes significant in the context of the contention that the modern versions are all based on corrupt manuscripts and all contain English terms chosen merely for the sake of distancing them from the KJV.

7. He said there was “not a Greek text in the entire world that reads like the Textus Receptus” that Pastor Moorman had. He had the TBS edition of Dr. Scrivener’s Greek text which is the edition of Beza 5th edition, 1598. This is a lie.

It would be good to know the particular facts each side has in mind in this case. As I understand it there are some minority readings in the Textus Receptus, and at least one that isn't in any Greek text -- that the translators nevertheless thought right to include -- but these facts don't justify the blanket statement made by White.

8. He lied horribly when he stated that Dr. Scrivener “created a Greek text that no one had ever seen before Scrivener created that in the 19th century.” It was Beza’s 5th edition, 1598. Scrivener did not create anything.

9. He refused to allow Dr. Moorman’s name of “Byzantine text” as a synonym for the T.R., twisting it to mean only the so-called “Majority Text” (which is not a “majority”of anything) of Hodges and Farstad which has over 1800 differences from the T.R.

10. Stevens 1550 text is NOT the “textus receptus” of today. It is Beza’s 5th edition, 1598 (48 years after Stevens’ 1550.)

11. He said Stevens. Erasmus, and Beza’s texts were the texts that were used for the KJB. It was principally Beza’s 5th edition of 1598 that was used, not the other two.

I would trust Dr. Waite on this. These are all simple questions of facts that ought to be easy enough to establish, however.

12. He lied when he said the KJB translators “did not make a decision to reject anything.” They most certainly did reject the various versions then at hand that were based on the Gnostic Critical Greek Text of Vatican and Sinai and favored the versions that used the Traditional Received Text.

I've certainly heard this and believed it and now also tend to trust Dr. Waite's statement. Again, in a debate you don't get enough information to decide such questions for sure. We need the evidence, the references.

13. He lied when he said Erasmus had only “half a dozen to a dozen manuscripts.” Erasmus visited many libraries throughout Europe and consulted from 100 to 200 other manuscripts as well.

Again I tend to trust Dr. Waite.

14. The Nestle-Aland (NA) text prefers and uses earlier manuscripts than the TR from the point of view of the age of the material on which they are written. Though the age of the material on which they are written is earlier, the WORDS which are written on that material of the Vatican and Sinai are much later than the WORDS of the TR which go all the way back to the original WORDS of the N.T

Interesting if so. I haven't heard this elsewhere myself.

15. He said “The pilgrims detested the King James translation.” “Detested” is
too strong. They didn’t use it at first, but what is his proof that they “detested” it

Yes, what is the proof?

16. Again White brought up that he debates Bart Ehrman and Muslim scholars all around the world. HE’S BRAGGING AGAIN.

17. He said he would have debated Erasmus had he lived in his day. MORE BRAGGING. Would Erasmus want to debate with James White?

18. He pointed to his Stevens and his Erasmus Greek texts he had and said they don’t agree always. But the KJB translators used Beza’s 5th edition 1598, 82 years
after Erasmus and 48 years after Stevens.

Again a question of fact that ought to be easily enough established and agreed upon by both sides.

19. He was in error that Sinaiticus was not found in or near a trash can. In fact, it was found in the area where the monks were getting ready to burn it. Tischendorf rescued it and later bought it.

I mentioned this myself in a previous post. Burgon says clearly that it was found in a waste basket and gives a reference to Tischendorf's account. The actual quote from Tischendorf is still needed.

Later: So I checked Wikipedia on Codex Sinaiticus, where Tischendorf himself is said to have reported finding it in a waste basket but that his claim is disputed by the monastery (the information starts halfway down the page). So Burgon was reporting what Tischendorf wrote.

Now, White may have decided the monastery was right and therefore disbelieves Tischendorf, but it is plainly unfair of him to flatly contradict Tischendorf's own report and imply that his opponents are misinformed. Bad show, Dr. White!

20. Pointing to his favorite Nestle-Aland text, he lied when he said, “That text right there is not based simply on Aleph and “B.” It most certainly is. It is “B” (Vatican) and Aleph (Sinai) when it agreed with Vatican. He would be hard pressed to cite examples of the NA disagreeing with these two Gnostic heretical documents.

But isn't White simply saying it isn't ONLY based on Aleph and B but also on other manuscripts? A misleading thing to say if so but strictly speaking not false.

21. White mentioned debating Bart Ehrman again. MORE BRAGGING.

22. He lied when he said there are no “Byzantine” readings prior to the 4th or 5th century.” There are MSS going back to the 2nd century attesting to Mark 16:9-20 for example which is omitted from B and Aleph. There are also versions or translations that contain Mark 16:9-20 that go back to the 2nd century. There are also quotations from the early church fathers that quote Mark 16:9-20 that go back to the 2nd century.

Yes, as I recall, Burgon has documented all this.

23. He lied when he said that these manuscripts did not come from Alexandria, Egypt. The Gnostic Vatican and Sinai manuscripts certainly did come from Alexandria.

Probably also in Burgon?

24. He denied the multitude of heretics (Gnostics) in Alexandria by using one man (Athanasius) that we know was not a heretic and was from Alexandria.

Yes, I've seen this used by others in this debate too. A really cheap shot, Dr. White!

25. He challenged Dr. Moorman to prove that these MSS (Vatican and Sinai) were influenced by, or tinged by “any heretic that you can name.” Origin is one clearly who doctored the N.T. MSS. And many other Gnostics are named by Dean Burgon in his CAUSES OF CORRUPTION book. He gives strong evidence for the perversion of the Traditional Text by many Gnostic heretics.

I want to read that book eventually. But Burgon says quite a bit on this in Revision Revised too.

26. White says he debates Jehovah’s Witnesses, Mormons, and Unitarians all the time on the deity of Christ. MORE BRAGGING.

Again I'll comment as I did above that I doubt this is bragging, more likely intended as evidence that he is a conservative Bible-believing Christian, since KJVOs often attack the character of their opponents.

27. He lied when he said that the “modern translations, based on the Nestle-Aland 27th edition text are in much better shape to defend the deity of Christ than if you are utilizing the Byzantine text.” Take 1 Timothy 3:16 as just one example of denial of the deity and incarnation of the Lord Jesus Christ.

28. He did not give the manuscript evidence in strong favor of “GOD” was manifest in the flesh versus “HE WHO” appeared in a body. Only 6 or 7 MSS are for either HO or HOS, and scores are for the reading of THEOS. He has lied about this important verse that was doctored by the Gnostic heretics of Alexandria. Dean Burgon has around 75 pages defending THEOS beginning on page 424 of his Revision Revised (BFT #611 @ $25.00 + $7.00 S&H).

29. He lied when he said HOS meant “HE WHO.” It means only “WHO” as a relative pronoun. The “HE” has been added in the NASV and in other versions that do not have THEOS. THEOS was not added 700 years later. It was the original reading which was changed to HOS or HO by Gnostic heretics who denied the Deity of Christ.

30. He lied when he said that John 1:18 does not have a reference to the deity of Christ when it has “only begotten Son.” This is deity. “Only begotten God” adheres to the Gnostic teaching that Christ was a created being rather than having eternal pre-existence.

I had moments of cognitive dissonance listening to White on these things too. I'm sure Waite is correct.

31. He said we in our day have “grown in the knowledge of the Greek language” as if the KJB translators didn’t know Greek very well. This implication is false. We have become dumber and dumber in our day.

Certainly my impression from reading Burgon and reading about the credentials of the KJV translators, and from encountering seminary-trained people debating on these issues who flatly disagree with the KJV translators and with Burgon. They believe they know more and have a right to judge, but the evidence is against them.

32. He lied when he said that the KJB translators were much more familiar with Latin than with Greek or Hebrew. They knew all three languages fluently–more so than our present men.

Another cognitive dissonance moment for me here too. From what I've read the KJV translators were educated in many languages far beyond most scholars since them, many from childhood.

33. “Our God and Saviour” means Christ was God. One of the meanings of KAI is “even” which identifies the Saviour as being God. He muddied the waters here as well in slamming the KJB translation.

Don't remember this.

34. He wrongly demanded that the same Greek word should ALWAYS be translated the same. The KJB made it a point to VARY the English words depending on the context. This is called polysemy.

Yes, Burgon points this out and denounces the 1881 Revisers for stupidity and insensitivity to the task of translation, the task of preserving the sense in the idioms of the target language, that is, for creating an idiotic klutsy rendering of English.

35. Romans 9:5 is clear to the deity of Christ, yet he questioned the clarity of the KJB here.

Hard to see what's unclear about it:

Ro 9:5 Whose are the fathers, and of whom as concerning the flesh Christ came, who is over all, God blessed for ever. Amen.

36. He throws out Revelation 16:5 HOLY vs. SHALL BE which is but a distraction. He said that Beza made a conjectural emendation. How does he know this? Where is his proof? I deny this.

Yes, how? A matter for evidence again.

37. He lied when he said that the vast majority of the Traditional text MSS came only 1,000 years after Christ. No, that text formed the original readings as shown by early versions and quotes from church fathers..

The evidence, especially as mustered by Burgon, does show this.

38. The reason that the Received Text was more popular was because it was the true text of the apostles and had been copied and re-copied by true believers from apostolic times.

Yes, this is the only explanation that makes sense.

39. He said, if we only had one manuscript, we would have to trust that it had not been tampered with. That is exactly what James White has, basically, just one manuscript, the VATICAN. And it has been tampered with by the Gnostic infidels of Alexandria.

If we DID have only one, yes we would have to trust that it had not been tampered with, we'd have to trust God on that. But God didn't leave us with only one, but with thousands of witnesses, against which the Alexandrians are an extreme minority and so different among themselves it's amazing they have been elevated to such prominence.

40. Nowhere did White mention that his minority text of 45 or so MSS do not have continuity from the apostolic times to the present. It ceased being copied after 500 or 600 A.D. because the Christians knew it to be false and refused to copy it. Hence there are only 45 or so manuscripts that are in favor of that false Gnostic text, and over 5,200 are in favor of the Traditional true text.

The most sensible explanation of the actual manuscripts on hand.

I'll save the rest of his notes for the next post.

A short trip down the anti-KJVO rabbit trail

SO frustrating listening to a discussion against the KJVO position. This is a Blogtalk radio broadcast on mp3 I'm listening to, hosted by the owner of the blog Fundamentally Reformed that I've linked to in earlier posts. It's not a recent broadcast, 2007 I think, but I haven't found anything yet on his blog or related sites that disagrees with his points here. (Lost the link but if I find it I'll put it up). These are ex-fundamentalists, converts to the Reformed branch of the church, and just as they formerly completely swallowed the KJVO position they now are close to swallowing the Modern Versions propaganda equally uncritically:

Rejecting the NKJV proves one is KJVO?
They don't get it why the NKJV is not acceptable. The fact that the KJV had marginal notes convinces them that we ought to accept the NKJV because it also has marginal notes. He doesn't grasp that the objection to the NKJV notes is that they refer to the ALEXANDRIAN texts (yes, through the Nestle-Aland Critical Text for one) and they have the effect of denigrating the KJV's translational choices, and really, calling the Bible itself into doubt. I used the NKJV for years and those notes always annoyed me. Mostly they just distract from the text and I couldn't see that they offered anything of value. I found out from reading Burgon that the very similar [identical in some cases] notes in the 1881 Revised Version also misrepresent the facts, for instance referring to "other manuscripts" having such and such a different reading, which implies that it's worth taking those others into consideration, when the fact turns out to be, as reported by Burgon, that the source of the other reading is one or two texts and they are the Alexandrians which Burgon has taken pains to expose as corrupted.

He goes on to say: "So to reject the NKJV in favor of the KJV is to claim that there is something perfect about the KJV." No, it is NOT! The point is that the NKJV is NOT the pure updating of the KJV it claims to be. If it were, I for one would still be using it because for the most part I like its preservation of the "feel" of the KJV, and if a modernizing of the KJV were to be done -- under church authority by the best qualified for the job -- it could be a decent model for that effort.

But EVERYTHING that was taken into it from the Westcott-Hort legacy would have to be abandoned, everything, all the notes that refer to Nestle-Aland or other Alexandrian influenced Greek texts, every English word choice that derives from their work, and an EXTREME MINIMUM of changes, each one THOROUGHLY ACCOUNTED FOR, would have to be its guiding principle. This is because another problem with the NKJV is that it adopts many of the W-H readings in the English, which Burgon shows were not only an indefensible violation of their agreement to make the most minimal changes -- to the tune of over 36,000 changes -- but were also inferior choices for conveying the meaning of the underlying languages.

Ah, now he's quoting a marginal note from the original KJV: "This 36th verse is wanting in most of the Greek copies."

Lu 17:36 There shall be two men in the field; the one shall be taken, and the other shall be left. [it's in italics in the KJV, indicating that it was added by the translators and isn't in the Greek]

This is a problem for a KJVO -- in fact I can see how it would be extremely unsettling to encounter such an admission of a difference in the texts if you've been told the KJV is absolutely perfect as is -- but it is not a problem for me because I don't expect it to be perfect. In the KJV I would expect the marginal notes to be enlightening. Not so the notes in the NKJV. Added later: A big difference is that the KJV translators wrote the marginal notes themselves, on their own work, showing alternatives to their own choices from the texts, of course supporting the superiority of their own choices in their own judgment, while the NKJV notes are alien interlopers from highly questionable sources, that have the effect of calling into doubt the work of the KJV translators who aren't around to defend their choices.

Is too much importance placed on the Biblical text?
They go on to talk about Bible inerrancy, which they both claim to share (I'm not doubting them), but in making the point that the majority of believers have not had a Bible for most of history, both B.C. and A.D., say "There is more to the Christian faith than the Bible." An unfortunate way of saying it. Putting it that way raises questions: It's not that there is "more to the Christian faith than the Bible" if what you mean is that there is more than God's revelation to His people, or God's word, because that leaves it open for claims to new revelation, which I'm sure is not the intention. God's word is also the spoken word, the preached word, it's also declared in the heavens (Psalm 19), and it's in the MEANING rather than in the specific word, at least in the translations.

Advantage in more versions?
They also think that having multiple versions is a help because it gives you the opportunity to compare how different conservative scholars chose to translate a word, which gives you more depth of understanding of the term. Sounds nice but a few comparisons of how different verses were translated in different versions, comparing all with Strong's, might show them that the claim that they are chosen for their meaning is highly questionable.

My own comparisons convinced me that most of the words chosen are all on the Strong's Concordance lists of English alternatives or synonyms for any particular Greek or Hebrew term, from which it seems they were chosen almost at random, chosen not as the best rendering of the meaning but simply to provide enough of a difference in the translation from other translations to qualify for copyright. In some cases I got the distinct impression that the LEAST LIKELY synonym was chosen from the list, as if the motivation were simply to distance the version from the KJV, make change for change's sake alone. Intentionally or not, the result is to undermine the ability of Christians to share in a standard Bible text, creating in effect a new Babel.

If this is the case, as I believe it is, the notion of increased depth of meaning is an illusion and the variety adds nothing for the believer, except a lot of unnecessary busywork that in the end detracts from the work of learning God's word in the light of the Holy Spirit. At the very least the same knowledge could be gained by consulting the Strong's synonyms for oneself, a whole Bible translation is not needed for that purpose.

Since I see it this way of course it grieves me tremendously, as I see Christians being deceived, treating as a great benefit something which is really a terrible disadvantage to the Church.

New versions serve the need for accessible language?
They also think the modern versions are merely motivated by a desire to get the Bible into the common people's English just as the original KJV was, along with the other early English translations.

If the KJV had been handled properly it would have been updated as necessary and this complaint would not hold water. As is, it doesn't hold very much water anyway in my opinion. It's a very flimsy excuse for the modern versions, which are mostly motivated by publishing companies wanting to have their own Bible to sell, which ultimately contributes to the new Babel, to confusion, not to anything beneficial for Christians.

AND the English in the new versions is NOT an improvement. GOT to get posts together to demonstrate this better than I have.

AND we don't need dozens of them for this purpose in any case.

This all misses the point!
Again, the problem with the new versions is completely missed by all those considerations. The main problems are:

1. They all rely on the Alexandrians to some extent or other, accepting Westcott and Hort's validation of these texts against the warnings of those who knew them to be corrupt in their time.

2. They all build from W-H's Revised Version, even from their translational choices apart from the Greek texts, substituting inferior alternatives completely gratuitously, creating only confusion, contributing nothing of real value.

How the Fundamentalist KJV-Onlies have polarized the debate

Just found this blog, which also advertised the Moorman-White debate. Haven't found a discussion of the debate there yet. The blog owner is an ex-fundamentalist, now Reformed, in fact attending John Piper's church, so it's interesting for me to compare our different experiences, since I've been Reformed (Calvinist) for some years but am not completely happy with it. I have no fundamentalist background at all, but I have found what I consider to be some good studies of the Bible Versions issue among the fundamentalists, and I reject most of the Reformed contributions to the debate because they completely accept Westcott and Hort and their legacy.

I did spend some time on an extreme fundamentalist forum a few years ago and that was quite an experience: "hidebound" comes to mind. I got kicked off for refusing to affirm that the KJV is perfect as is (probably also for admitting to being a Calvinist, though this wasn't the immediate reason, also probably for arguing in favor of the woman's head covering -- they believe 1 Cor 11:2-16 requires long hair). I learned quite a bit about the KJV Only arguments while there, some of which are good.

Coming from the other direction as this blog owner does, I can see that he may be led into arguments I've now rejected. As I sift through the pages related to the site I am impressed with how much the fundamentalist emphasis is on proving the KJV to be perfect. That part of the debate I tend to avoid, as I don't think it's the point, that's why I'm not a KJV-Only and that's why it's very frustrating when their position is imputed to me. When I run across claims that the KJV is MASSIVELY flawed, of course THEN I may get into the fray. But I accept that there are bound to be some things about the KJV that need to be changed, and the Textus Receptus as well.

For me the KJV is the Standard but I don't regard it as perfection itself, merely the historically established benchmark that should have been left in place, gradually and reverently updated and corrected as necessary from time to time, instead of overthrown by the Revised Version of 1881, especially considering the dishonesty of the committee involved, the false Greek texts they substituted in place of the Textus Receptus, which they were certainly not authorized to do, and the 36,000+ changes they made in the English, that amounted to a defacement of the King James Bible.

All that is to me a horrendous crime and a disaster for the church. This is not a KJV-Only argument as such but because the debate has so often been cast in those terms, because the fundamentalist KJV-Onlies are so aggressive about their position, it's hard to get a hearing for this.

Their opponents aren't any better, as they sometimes spend all their effort against the extremists like Ruckman as if there is no other point of view.

The main legitimate job for me is arguing that the Alexandrian texts and the English substitutions are unworthy and a disaster for the Church, not that the KJV is perfect.

================================
At least this site and its links may help me stick to the important points.
Here I'm just going to post a list of links.

http://www.fundamentallyreformed.com/kjv-only/
http://www.fundamentallyreformed.com/2007/02/06/a-kjv-only-manifesto/
Article on the 400th anniversary of the KJV at a fundamentalist site, Sharper Iron.
KJV Only Debate

John MacArthur discussion on the whole controversy:
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4

Fundamentally Reformed Partner Sites
KJV Only Research
Forums at KJV Only Research.

A Few Leftover Scattered Notes on the Moorman-White Debate

Remembering more of the debate. I'll listen again if it's made available.

Happened to run across Burgon's reference to the finding of Sinaiticus in a waste basket in a convent, in his Revision Revised. Now I can't find where he said that although I thought I'd marked the page -- senior moment I guess. But he certainly did say it. The point of course is that James White said in the debate that this common belief is false, that no manuscript was found in a waste basket, so now it remains for someone to come along and prove it one way or the other by quoting from the writings of its finder.

FOUND IT: page 319 of Revision Revised, with a footnote to the source in Tischendorf's description of its discovery, p. 23. Don't have that document of course so it still remains to find the actual statement in it.

Another thing I remember from the debate is White's concern to answer the leaving out of references to the deity of Christ in the Alexandrian texts and the Bibles based on them, by identifying one place where they affirm His deity that the KJV doesn't. This simply obscures the fact that many such references ARE missing from the Alexandrians that are present in the KJV, not to mention whole passages that are also missing.

Then he objected to the description of any passages as "missing" at all because this implies a standard, the KJV and its Textus Receptus of course, from which they are missing. From his point of view this would be begging the question although from the other point of view his objection is an insupportable usurpation of the prior claim of the KJV to be the standard. The reasoning in support of the KJV as the standard seems to me to be irrefutable, as Moorman elucidated at the very beginning of the debate. If I get to hear it again I'll take notes.

White also said that describing them as "added" is misleading as well, but really, either they were subtracted or they were added, there are no other alternatives, and Westcott and Hort did theorize that they were added into the Byzantine line, since they take the Alexandrians as the standard. There is really no choice, you take one or the other line as the standard.

Another point I just remembered: White says he isn't in favor of all the different Bible versions, which was good to hear, and that the reason for so many is that the different publishing companies would rather produce their own than pay for another's.

He didn't mention the point I've heard and repeated here that all the gratuitous changes are due to the requirement that each version be different enough from the others to qualify for copyright.

What a horrendous mess all this is. It shouldn't be talked about casually it seems to me, but exposed as a great evil.

One more thing, White said that the KJV translators did not know anything about the Alexandrian type of manuscript. I thought Moorman said something that implied that they did but I'm not sure. White insists that if they had they'd have welcomed and used it. HIGHLY unlikely if you grasp any of Burgon's criticism of them.

The "Archaic Language" flap

This was brought up in the Moorman-White debate. White gave a list of some of the archaic terms. These are words in the KJV nobody today recognizes, he said.

Of course this is supposed to be a slam at the KJV, but I couldn't help thinking that although language does change over time and there would be nothing wrong with a judicious choice of alternatives for what is really a very short list, perhaps instead we should lament the very fact that the words are no longer recognized, as this is simply because the KJV was eclipsed by the 1881 desecration of the Bible. Martyn Lloyd-Jones points out that its English was to be credited with raising the standard of the language in general, including for the common people. But no longer. Now we have the dumbed-down versions.

I know I have to get around to documenting this better than I have so far, can't just go on declaring it, have to give examples. It involves tedious comparisons so I put it off.

I did make comparisons with the first part of Psalm 91, and posted on them in this blog. This isn't an example of dumbing-down, however, but in fact an example of the use of mystifying technical language, but off the top of my head I'd point to the ridiculous substitution of the unfamiliar term "pinions" for the simple English term "feathers" in the KJV. I have to admit that all by itself the choice of that term makes the NASB a horror to me -- an experience that is repeated the more I read in that version.

However, there is nothing in principle against updating the KJV. It should be done with GREAT care by the RIGHT people, that's the thing, and that may be impossible. That's why whenever I acknowledge that it can, maybe even should, be done, I vacillate. What we have at the moment is so many manglings of the Bible I hate to suggest that we could improve things in any way with another revision. But in principle, yes, a VERY CAUTIOUS updating SHOULD be done.

Caution is certainly required, EXTREME caution. Even KJV supporters are sometimes unable to cope with its archaic language, but this can go way beyond the clearly archaic terms. I know of some who are unable to cope with even ordinary words. I know of one who doesn't know that "dumb" means "unable to speak," but imposes a modern slang understanding on the term. He also has NO idea what the word "mirth" means, having never encountered it anywhere before apparently. This sort of thing makes me cringe, and really, it just speaks to the current level of illiteracy more than to anything to do with the Bible itself. I certainly don't want the Bible dumbed down (in the modern slang sense) to his level, I'd like to see him brought up to its level.

So deciding just what constitutes an archaic term that really truly does need to be updated is already a problem that needs to be addressed. As Jack Moorman pointed out in the debate today, some of the KJV terms capture the original meaning of the Greek and Hebrew better than any term we might substitute for them today. In that case, they should be retained and people should be educated up to their standard.

Then there is the general complaint that the language of the KJV is somehow hifalutin while the Greek of the New Testament was in the language of the common people, justifying the abominable English of some of today's versions. This was James White's answer to Jack Moorman in the debate today, as Moorman had noted that the KJV doesn't read "like the morning paper" but "sounds like the Bible."

THIS DOES NOT MEAN KJV ENGLISH IS grandiose or over the common person's head. Moorman did try to say that "Bible language" doesn't mean that, but in fact the KJV has always been known for its simplicity of expression, yet that its simplicity is appropriate for conveying the majesty of its subject. I agree. I think it takes a literary dead ear to prefer modern cadences and expressions suitable for the morning paper. That is NOT the sense in which the koine Greek was the common man's Greek. And the KJV translators themselves affirmed the importance of writing in a manner so that the Bible would be "understanded of the people." (That's in the Martyn Lloyd-Jones quote I posted on earlier in this blog -- which I now see imputes that quote not to the KJV translators but to the Protestant Reformers. My mistake. Here's that post.)

The fact that this sort of problem becomes big in people's minds unfortunately does not bode well for an intelligent updating of the KJV in our time, much as it might be desirable.

The Moorman-White Debate today in London

So I watched the debate between Jack Moorman and James White and as with just about every debate I've ever heard I end up frustrated. I suppose it's a good thing for at least allowing the basic controversy to get an airing from time to time, but it produces a garbled version of the controversy overall. Truth really doesn't stand a chance in such a format.

Now I'd like to see a transcript of the debate so I can take it apart myself. I'd also like to see a list of all the controversial points that get raised on this subject, very briefly and succinctly stated so they can be ranked in order of importance and pondered at leisure. One problem is that there are too many issues and the attention paid them is not always in proportion to their importance -- although some attempt at controlling this problem was made here at times. 90 minutes is a very short time for dealing with even the most important questions, and side issues just waste time.

Partly what's frustrating is the role allowed to the audience, in studio as well as by email. Some of them raise some of the core issues, which of course can't be given the time they deserve, but the overall effect of audience participation is bedlam. Arguments from complete ignorance and confusion are allowed to take up part of the precious 90 minutes allotted for the entire debate. Very frustrating. Perhaps it's a good thing to get an impression of just how confused people are on this subject, but a very little goes a long long way.

Most books on the subject are frustrating in a similar way because they tend to focus on the writer's particular hobbyhorse and miss the big picture -- or at least miss other people's hobbyhorse issues.

Jack Moorman started out with some very good statements about why the KJV should be regarded as the standard English Bible. They were very good, but James White didn't address them. He preferred to change the subject to specific questions about the content of various verses and texts, of course seeming to challenge Moorman by implying faults in the KJV that would discredit his position. This is mind-rattling. I have no doubt he can be answered but it becomes nearly impossible to juggle the issues in one's mind when this is the method of operation.

It's good for James White to state that the most important thing we want to get at is what the original writers said. Who can disagree? On that point Pickering states that although of course the scholarly effort is always in that direction, we can never finally know exactly what they said in every case, all we have in the end is faith in God's preservation of His word to us, and that HAS to mean the previous English versions, not the 1881 overthrow. But not enough could get discussed in such a short time to compare the two sides.

Tired and frustrated.