The Mischaracterisation of “Biblicism”

It’s important to make a solid and balanced defence of King James Bible only, Creationism, Protestant Fundamentalism, Classical Pentecostalism and Word of Faith/Prosperity doctrine by rejecting the loaded term of “Biblicism”.

Biblicism properly is the Protestant approach of having the Bible as a primary and sole authority, but still understands there is a historical context, history, creeds, confessions and commentaries. Tradition is not equal to Scripture but it helps give good input. Tradition can be good or bad, so it also needs to be judged by the standard of Scripture itself.

Those who take a strident anti-Biblicist approach are probably doing so to attack some aspect of Biblical doctrines to allow their particular bias through. The question on whether a doctrine is Biblical is vital, and it should not be resolved by those who have an anti-Biblicist stance. Often, these days, the anti-Biblicist stance is one laced with the leaven of Infidelity.

Let’s take the example of the perfection of the King James Bible. This is asserted on Biblical doctrinal grounds, yet such a view is much vilified and attacked. This leads to the King James Bible only view being misrepresented to the broad spectrum of Protestant Christianity.

A proper acceptance of the specific correctness of the King James Bible is on the firm commitment to Scripture as the primary authority in matters of faith and practice, which of course is the hallmark of classical Protestantism. Yet, despite the long history of the acceptance and elevation of the King James Bible, it has come under increasing attack.

One only has to go online to find critics painting those who hold to the KJB and Scripture-alone authority as irrational, extremist and even cult-like. Such critiques deliberately ignore or misrepresent the reasoned doctrinal and Biblical foundations to these convictions. Moreover, these attacks frequently stem from those driven by certain emotional motives, social media prestige grubbery, the parasiting of Enlightenment scepticism, the power games of the theological academic mafia and the modern publishing industry’s vested economic interests.

Of course they are going to say these things. Who are they? They are a divergent group of people who are unnaturally motivated to emphasise their views of the imperfection of the King James Bible.

So, then, on a Biblical basis, we should be able to show good Scriptural as well as other reasons why the King James Bible is right. At the risk of the pejorative use of the label of “Biblicist”, we should go through four key dimensions of the consistent King James Bible perfectionist position.

The first area that is brought up is the underlying text of the King James Bible.

Before we do anything, we must turn to Scripture itself, to its promises. Rather than start with the alleged natural objective phenomena of science, we must start from God who speaks to us today by His Word. This is a presupposition that is vital. Without this presupposition, we would just be having a scientific and even misleading discussion on matters where there is no final authority, because sadly even objective phenomena and mere data is misinterpreted, misused and made to be subject to the whims of every magician/scholar.

So, the Scripture’s promises, statements, prophecies, nature, doctrines and so on are all vital, as based on a sound, believing interpretation of Scripture itself.

We are now seeing that presupposition and interpretation are key mediators to even looking at the question of the Biblical text or textual criticism, and unless with have a “Biblicist” (i.e. Bible is authority in line with the Holy Ghost’s guidance and the secondary plethora of other believing, factual and reliable sources).

So already, today’s evangelical is debilitated, they don’t expect that there is anything said in the Scripture about its text or textual preservation or implications about criticism. They already have bias-glasses on because of the creeping poison of Infidelity that has entered into so much of Protestant theological presuppositions, frameworks and theological methodology and culture. We are talking about Christians here, ones who believe creation, who use the ESV, LSV or whatever, who bend reformed, who like the bumbling John Piper, etc. These people, who are brethren to the true believers I mentioned in the opening paragraph of this article, yet seem to make themselves implacable enemies.

TEXTUAL: THE TEXTUS RECEPTUS VS. MODERN CRITICAL TEXT

So after having begun with our Scriptural-based approach, we now actually enter into the most well known conflict in KJB defence, which is the question: Which Greek New Testament text is the most accurate and reliable?

The KJB is based primarily on the Textus Receptus (TR), a Greek text compiled and preserved through the Byzantine manuscript tradition, with strong ties also to the Latin. Advocates argue that this text represents the providentially preserved Word of God, used faithfully by the church for centuries. The TR is tied directly to the text types historically read, memorised, and preached in Christian communities.

By contrast, modern critical texts, such as Nestle-Aland or the United Bible Societies editions, rely heavily on recently discovered corrupt manuscripts which sometimes contradict the historical church tradition and lead to changes in well-known verses.

Reasoned arguments in favour of the TR include:

  • Historical Continuity: The TR reflects the text historically received and used by the church, not a reconstructed scholarly attempt based on fragmentary and sometimes corrupted manuscripts.
  • Providential Preservation: Classical Protestant confessions affirm that God has preserved His Word not only in original autographs but also in the copies used by His people.
  • Textual Stability vs. Instability: The modern critical text undergoes continual revision, undermining confidence in its reliability.

Critics of the KJB often dismiss the TR without engagement, appealing instead to modern critical scholarship influenced by the secular assumptions of Infidelity.

TRANSLATIONAL: THE KJB’S METHOD AND LEXICONS

We must likewise deal with translation from a Biblical viewpoint. What does the Scripture say about it? What does it promise about the Scripture going to and speaking to the nations, and about the nations’ responses? This far outweighs the allegedly “neutral” considerations of those who practice the so-called science of this field in trying to determine the meaning of original language words and how to render them in English.

Only then do we look at translation methodology and the translators employ.

The KJB translators were most learned scholars, who utilised:

  • A leaning toward formal equivalence (“word-for-word”) translation principles, aiming to retain the original languages’ grammar and vocabulary faithfully, and putting into an exact comparative form in English.
  • Classical lexicons and grammatical texts, consistent with the historical and theological understanding of Scripture.
  • A balanced approach that respected the sacred nature of Scripture, avoiding the contemporisation common in modern translations.

In contrast, many modern translations wrongly prioritise transient readability or faddish idiomatic English at the cost of literal accuracy, which naturally introduces interpretive bias, conceptual change and theological shifts.

The classical lexicons used by the KJB translators, though centuries old, remain remarkably sound and consistent with biblical theology. Modern lexicons often incorporate findings from secular linguistics, including non-biblical sources, or reflect theological presuppositions that depart from sound Protestantism.

EDITORIAL: THE PURE CAMBRIDGE EDITION AND PRINTING ACCURACY

Again, like every area, we must do science with our first and primary guide as the Scripture itself, its prophecies and promises, and what it indicates into the question of what it says or indicates about the editing of one particular English Bible.

The Pure Cambridge Edition (PCE) represents the standardised editorial form of the KJB, meticulously presented to avoid printer errors and unauthorised editorial changes that have crept into earlier or alternative editions.

Why is this important?

  • Precision in the English editorial text reflects a reverence for Scripture’s divine inspiration and preservation.
  • Minor differences between editions (e.g., “Spirit” vs. “spirit,” “son” vs. “Son”) may seem trivial but are conceptually different, even to the nuance of a hair’s breath, and therefore carry theological weight and affect interpretation.
  • A stable, standardised text is crucial for teaching, preaching and doctrinal consistency. It is consistent with the unity of the faith that the Church must achieve before the return of Jesus Christ.

Opponents to the King James Bible do recognise the need for consistency, a standard and indeed the qualifications of the Cambridge printing and editorial traditions, but can dismiss the weight that is placed on correct copyediting or even the emphasis on exactitude as legalistic or pedantic. Yet, maintaining textual fidelity is a natural and necessary outgrowth of a high view of Scripture.

INTERPRETATIVE: THE KJB AS THE PRIMARY RELIABLE ENGLISH BIBLE

We finally enter into the field of interpretation itself, that is, the sole and primarily reliance on the English of the King James Bible as the basis for interpretation.

The doctrine of whether right interpretation of the Scripture is even possible must be decided by the Bible itself. Let alone whether the KJB should be used for interpretation.

In the evangelical churches we hear about their hermeneutics, their grammatical-historical approach and their sound exegesis techniques, but is that really so? If we begin from Scripture itself in interpreting, would that not be very different from the Enlightenment-based influences we see in the modern approach to interpreting?

To tell the truth, deism is overwhelming the entire field we are discussing. Many Christian teachers are presenting the history of the Bible’s transmission as one where God inspired and then let natural forces bring about the state of affairs we find today. They are deistic in their views, and see the King James Bible as just a natural phenomenon.

The evil of deism has far spread, making it a false presupposion to the anti-King James Bible view that is promoted today. We don’t hear pro-Latin people rejecting the King James Bible because it is not approved by the Curia but we do hear people who are affected by deistic assumptions say that the King James Bible’s text is recent, that the Greek is better than the English, that it’s stuck in 17th century English with a “18th century makeover” (i.e. 1769) and that it’s essentially reckless and irresponsible to rely on it as perfect for interpretation. These are people that believe that perfection is impossible, that God cannot get through and that we are stuck on the other side of a wide gulf of time and context to when the Bible was written, and therefore are most hopelessly unable to know exactly what the Bible really means.

Like the Westminster Confession and other sources allow, that the very fact that the Bible was translated into English was for the purpose that the Scripture in English was used for doctrine, teaching and Christian living.

This does not mean that the KJB itself was made by inspiration in 1611, but it does mean that God has supplied His word to the world which is speaking English more and more.

The ultimate point here is that God wants us to know His truth, He wants His truth established to all mankind and He most certainly is moving and acting by His Spirit in this endeavour.

We must then point to some of the motivations of why there is a special attack being made on the King James Bible. It is, not surprisingly, the work of the devil to do so.

Modern biblical scholarship is largely influenced by Enlightenment principles emphasising human reason, scepticism toward supernatural revelation, and naturalistic assumptions. This worldview tends to deny the supernatural, and leads to a distrust of any position that affirms Scripture’s perfection in English.

Modern Bible versions are a major concern of powerful publishing houses and organisations (e.g. Bible societies, etc.) with significant economic interests. These entities profit from releasing new versions and study aids, encouraging a market for their brand name translation rather than allegiance truth itself.

KJB advocates resist this perpetual novelty, challenging the financial incentives behind promoting new versions, often to the annoyance of these powerful interests.

Defenders of tradition and established churches and organisations would see the idea of KJB-only as threatening the status quo of institutional authority. The rejection of ecclesiastical tradition and creeds as primary authorities undermines hierarchical control and liturgical uniformity. Thus, attacks on the KJB can be really about the priestcraft of the modern scholar maintaining control.

The most vicious opposition arises from personal animosities and emotional motivations of former King James Bible advocates. Often those people were in a poor form of such beliefs, and have spiteful vengeance as their former beliefs were not consistent. In other words, not having a genuine and thoughtful position means that they are then deceived to fight the KJB.

Often these people lump those who support the KJB with fringe groups as a guilt-by-association propaganda tactic to unfairly belittle the soundness of the KJB and the position recognising its perfection.

The King James Bible and its associated Protestant “Biblicist” theological framework remain a serious, thoughtful and historically grounded position. The attack on the proper Protestant “Biblicism” is really a sneaky means to attack a whole gamut of correct views by Christians who are often one degree away from right views in a range of areas. These can be good Christians, but it’s like there’s a fly in the ointment with these kinds.

Our proper approach calls Christians back to Scripture with fearfulness, zeal and doctrinal soundness. The Word of God is available in English and it is our supreme authority in a shifting and confused world.

“Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ.” (Colossians 2:8).

Assessing the Chicago Statement on Biblical Hermeneutics

by Matthew Verschuur

While presented as a push-back statement on various modernist and post-modernist positions on Bible interpretation, the pushback from the Chicago Statement on Biblical Hermeneutics is almost like modernist-influenced evangelicals fighting against even more progressive modernist and post-modernist positions.

It should be evident that those making the Statement were already turning away from the King James Bible, and were already beginning to weaken or fray at the edges in their view on the fundamentals. These were people who did believe in creation, in the plagues of Egypt, miracles of Jesus, the virgin birth and the resurrection.

This article evaluates key textual, translation and hermeneutical principles and the assumptions behind them in the Chicago Statement on Biblical Hermeneutics (1978). This article will particularly evaluate elements from Articles XV, XVI, XIX, XXII, and XXIV. It argues that the Statement reflects a capitulation to Enlightenment rationalism, naturalistic textual criticism and modernist translation practices that undermine historic, Spirit-led, ecclesiastical interpretation of the Scriptures. In contrast, the King James Bible as based on the Received Text and a believing Protestant approach is presented as the theologically consistent, providentially preserved and ecclesiologically grounded expression of Scripture for the world.

The modern shift toward the grammatical-historical method and the influence of the modern critical text theory and modern translation basis not only reflects an epistemological departure from the Reformation but also has long entered through the door of subjectivity, human autonomy and a diminished role for divine preservation in the transmission of Holy Writ. Most importantly, it denies the role of the Holy Ghost using the Scripture to speak to every man, “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).

The Chicago Statement on Biblical Hermeneutics was crafted in 1978 to respond to increasing theological liberalism and assault on the inerrancy of Scripture, with a focus on grounded, literal interpretation of Scripture. While its intent is commendable, its underlying framework and a good deal of its presupposition (including in the area of hermeneutics) ironically reflect the very modernist assumptions it sought to oppose. By embedding Enlightenment-born methodologies and promoting critical text theory, the statement effectively undermines the theological foundations of the Reformation and opens Scripture to priestly gatekeeping in the guise of scholarly interpretation. It only served to hasten the slide away from Christians actually relying on interpreting the Authorized Version (King James Bible) as the legitimate and providentially preserved Word of God in their hands.

In many ways the Statement is at war with proper, believing and sound Bible interpretation mythology.

So what is the grammatical-historical sense? This is a problematic approach arising in the 19th century out of the 18th century Enlightenment. In the grammatical part, it puts emphasis onto the original language, rather than to be able to trust the Scripture as has been properly translated, which is what the Westminster Confession of Faith even affirms is the word of God. If Scripture is not in English, and not to be interpreted in English, then it allows much subjectivity, priest-craft and confusion as to the alleged “real” meaning of words and language. Whereas God is actually speaking to the nations, and so we should trust the Scripture in English. Further, in the historical sense, this puts lopsided emphasis on the Bible in its original context, and on the human authorship and “first audience” readership, rather than on the Holy Ghost and on God speaking to believers today. It is deeply ironic that modern-influenced teachers, including the likes of the late John MacArthur, are people today telling us what it was like in Bible times, or how Bible times hearers understood the Bible. This again is priest-craft and can be done with bias-lenses of the modern, anachronistic and infidelity-influenced perspective.

As an aside, the Bible should be read literally, but obviously that should not excludes types, allegories, symbolism, figurative language, spiritual meanings, etc.

Article XVI is likewise troubling in its tethering to modernistic textual critical views which are necessarily set in battle array against the Reformation-era received text.

The endorsement of textual criticism further betrays the statement’s modernist commitments. The elevation of the eclectic critical text as composed from an unstable array of manuscripts using Enlightenment-based principles of internal and external evidence reflects a naturalistic view of Scripture’s preservation. Scholars such as Kurt Aland and Bruce Metzger openly acknowledged that their work operated on scientific, not theological grounds (Aland & Aland, The Text of the New Testament, 1989).

This methodological shift is not merely academic; it has profound theological implications. The Received Text, which underlies the King James Version, reflects the providential preservation of Scripture as it was recognised and utilised by the believing Church across centuries. To abandon this textual foundation in favour of readings found in obscure or recently discovered manuscripts (e.g. Codex Sinaiticus and Codex Vaticanus) is to prioritize archaeological novelty over ecclesial consensus and divine preservation.

Article XIX is damning against the statement, because a Deistic mentality is brought by these very people in how they view the transmission of Scripture, that they see God inspiring the autographs, but put very low and even a cessationist overlay on how the Scripture went from the first century to the Protestants since the 16th century. In other words, they have a completely naturalistic perspective in how the King James Bible came to be.

The Reformation doctrine of providentia specialis (special providence) affirms that the same God who inspired the text also preserved it through the church. The King James Bible, standing upon the Received Text tradition, represents the fruit of centuries of ecclesial usage, liturgical function and divine guidance.

In Article XXII, we find the inconsistency of how evolutionary, modernistic, secular humanistic thinking is allowed to effect their translation, for example, changing Bible words like “dragon” to “jackal”, and in Genesis 1 changing “heaven” to “heavens”, the Spirit “moved” to “hovered”, “firmament” to “expanse”, etc. etc.

Article XXIV is also not consistently followed, for huge emphasis is placed on the influence of modernist thinking in textual studies (e.g. modern critical text, for example Kurt Aland was driven by Enlightenment-based thought), lexicons (e.g. the infidelity of Thayers, BDAG, etc.) and hermeneutics, which is the subject matter at hand, there are huge problems as people like John MacArthur and so on rely on people like Ramm and especially Milton Terry, who himself was based on the work of arch-infidels as Ernesti.

While the Statement may have been noble in intent, it was fundamentally flawed and deeply compromised in execution. Its perpetuation of Enlightenment-based hermeneutics, critical text theory and modern translation ideology undermines the very inerrancy and divine holy write it seeks to defend. In contrast, the King James Bible, standing firmly on the Received Text and translated by spiritual men under the superintendence of providence, remains the most consistent and theologically sound expression of God’s Word in English.

To recover the authority and clarity of Scripture, the Church must return to the theological foundations of the Reformation, reject modernist intrusions into hermeneutics and textual studies, and affirm the King James Bible not merely as a historic artifact, but as the living, sufficient and preserved Word of God.

Most especially, in this time of darkness, believing study must prevail and understanding must increase. We should believe that we can come to right and proper understanding of Scripture, to interest correctly, and this will not be by continuing one step further down the road of the doubt- and human-based methodologies which have crept into the Church.

“A wise man will hear, and will increase learning; and a man of understanding shall attain unto wise counsels: To understand a proverb, and the interpretation; the words of the wise, and their dark sayings.” (Prov. 1:5, 6).

“Turn you at my reproof: behold, I will pour out my spirit unto you, I will make known my words unto you.” (Prov. 1:23).

The nature of modern translation and interpretation

The New Testament of the Bible was written in Greek. (Some people don’t think so, but that’s how far confusion and unbelief have covered this topic.) Anyway, let’s say we are at the time of the Reformation, we have a Latin Bible which has meanings, and Greek, and we want to make a translation to English, so we have to know what the Greek means in order to make a better translation than if we just went from Latin to English.

Say now, you are one of a group of men under the reign of King James I, and you can see various translations having been made into English, you’ve learned Greek in regards to classics and religious literature in Greek, and you know Latin and information from Greek and Latin Church Fathers too.

You are involved in a massive project to make a new translation. Now the question is, do you believe:

  1. You are handling the very words of God in Greek?
  2. God has moved in history to providentially supply you with the knowledge and resources you have?
  3. The others you are working with a believing Christians and you are collaborating and cross checking with them?
  4. You are producing a really good and improved English translation?

The answers of course are yes. So the results, as we know them, are an accurate English Bible which has been accepted and widely used as the standard.

So, then, is the King James Bible’s translation based on human standards, that is, since men made it, is it not therefore limited and subject to error? And further, as a human work, it would then be theoretically possible that other learned men would have come to a different outcome? The answer to this is a resounding no, in that, if we believe in providence, then we are believing that God got the right people to make the right “human” decisions but they were in line with truth. So, essentially, it must be that the King James Bible is what God wanted, but He did not resort to robotic or puppetry “inspiration” to make it happen.

So far we have established the reliability of the King James Bible’s translation, but what happens is that Christian teachers use this for interpretation. The study and principles of interpretation are called hermeneutics, but the practice of interpretation, to actually find out what the Scripture means, is called exegesis.

Since I believe that the King James Bible is precise, accurate and exact to the very nuance, and since I believe that the Holy Ghost is present to lead people into all truth, then I believe we can know how to interpret the Scripture and come to understand what God is communicating to mankind.

I think it is easier to show the modernist and unbelieving techniques, approach and theology as being called “hermeneutics” and “exegesis”, while the believing approach is better called “sound teaching” and “proper doctrine”, etc. We can therefore contrast the fancy scientific words with the practice of good teaching.

You see, something has happened. People departed from a believing view about the Bible and the Holy Ghost. Higher Critics took on the foundational world view of the Enlightenment, and even good Christians like Granville Sharp erred in their approach. This has led to centuries of attacks on the King James Bible and much waywardness in beliefs (including unbelief, shallowness and confusion).

If we fast forward over the years, past the Enlightenment and the French Revolution, we notice something very different about Bible translation and Bible interpretation today.

First, the divine has essentially been kicked out of translation, so the whole approach and methodology is done based on science. Science is good, but science that is absent from the divine is foolish. The science of modern translation can be practiced by an atheist, and in effect, is done by Christians who are really taking deistic assumptions.

(In fact, the whole of how present day Evangelical Bible scholarship works is to only believe that God intervened in history with the making of the autographs of Scripture, and not really in the copying, nor really in the translating and, as we shall see, not really even with the interpreting of Scripture.)

So let us take a blinded person today, who does not recognise that the King James Bible is right, and they are wanting to make their own translation, or to change or adjust the King James Bible in some ways. This could be a person who actually uses the King James Bible, but is wanting to (in their mind) “correct” it.

So this modern translator or modern adjuster gets a lexicon. Specifically, they would get the modernist one which is most respected by them called “BDAG”.

BDAG is based on the idea that all usage of the Greek language is human, that there is no special divine use of Greek by God, that there is no “Biblical Greek”. BDAG instead takes a Greek word, and then supplies all the different ways or meanings that word could have, based on examples of usage. This is called the Empirical approach, because it is looking for real and existing examples of word usage from all manner of literature of history. They have a maxim which is, “Usage determines meaning.” In other words, how Greek words have been used by people outside of the Scripture will determine what the apostles and evangelists were meaning when they wrote with Greek words when writing Scripture.

It should be pretty evident there are a lot of flaws right there: you don’t have to believe in inspiration, and you are making present day documentary evidence (with present day determinations on what meaning was there) the authority to what you would supply in the BDAG under every word entry.

So, BDAG uses the historical-critical method in how it applies meanings to words for translation, it will claim to not start from any theological bias or position, but will try to be neutral and scientific and descriptive only.

Of course, we only have limited data as to how Greek words were used in all of the literature and documentary evidence we have today. And being objective is still a human measure, we cannot be infallibly objective. And further, having a secular bias is still a religious bias, it’s just a bias against religion or the strand of true religion. Thus, the method to compile the BDAG lexicon, that is, a catalogue like a dictionary of meanings, is not based on any tradition (i.e. pre-Enlightenment) and is based on an anachronistic method of trying to suppose what a word meant to an apostle using that word, as determined by a modern, western, critical and secular perspective.

This all can be shown as well by the people who made BDAG, specifically, the founder of BDAG, a German philologist and higher critic named Bauer, who was heavily influenced by the approach that one should view the Bible just like any other text. He was not known to have believing evangelical beliefs.

Another maker of BDAG was Gingrich, a liberal arts teacher, again, connected to higher criticism and not believing evangelicalism. Next also was Arndt, who had higher critical tendencies. Fourth was ecumenist Danker, who embraced historical-critical approaches and maintained theological neutrality.

So now, a modern translator uses BDAG and says, “Words don’t have meanings, they have usages. Words have a range of meanings, and the intended meaning will be determined by context.”

So, they will seek to choose the right meaning for a word, doing complex grammatical analysis. Is the word being used literally, metaphorically, theologically or idiomatically? What is the genre? Is the human author being metaphorical, polemical or pastoral? How does that human author usually use that word? How was this Greek word used in 1st-century Greco-Roman or Jewish literature? Are there are syntax limitations with the grammar that limit or point to a meaning? Is there a parallel passage?

Notice how far in the realm of human intellect is being employed to decide how to translate a word. Given that there are numerous pre-existing English translations, one could derive consensus and also consider theological implications too.

How far in the realm of utter unbelief this foolishness exists in, where the Bible is being treated as a human book, written by humans, translated by humans to be understood by humans. It hardly deserves to be called God’s word, but that is exactly what antichrist appellation they apply to their abdominal workings.

And so modern translations differ and be subjective in their translation. And we have not even come to interpretation.

Consider now a person who says that they accept the King James Bible is a legitimate translation, but perhaps they use their BDAG to move the meaning, or perhaps they are now trying to interpret the King James Bible under the influence of modernist hermeneutics.

You can start from the King James Bible, but misread it. This is because the same false assumptions behind BDAG are also the kinds of false assumptions used in modernistic methods of interpretation. Those modernistic methods have seeped into evangelicalism, confessionalism and Pentecostalism and are even the edges of fundamentalist belief.

If someone wants to argue that some Christians should know Hebrew and Greek to better interpret and understand the King James Bible, then they have been mislead. The very “Greek” to learn is itself a tainted source. Where do you get the “Greek” from? Strongs, Youngs, Thayers and BDAG? Such lexicons are all corrupt in different ways.

If we believingly interpret the English of the King James Bible, we are going to be far better set than taking anything from the “Greek”. Greek itself is not evil or wrong, it’s this whole modernist approach of assigning meaning to Greek words.

Instead of believing what we see in the King James Bible as an accurate translation from Greek, and then interpreting the English, some people are mistakenly thinking that they can go to “the Greek” to better understand what the King James Bible is saying. That approach is a huge mistake. We ought to have a believing respect towards the English itself, and interpret that properly.

It is the Holy Ghost who determines meaning, not mere usage. We can understand God’s meaning from usage, but the meaning is still from God, not from what ancient (or 17th century) minds thought.

Unless we are tapping into the Holy Ghost’s meaning, and understanding from good teachers and good church tradition, we are going to be led astray. Yes, there is bad tradition, there are mistakes from teachers from history, but that is not corrected by the modernist historical-grammatical approach of interpretation, but by proper believing study and understanding.

PROVERBS 1.

5 A wise man will hear, and will increase learning; and a man of understanding shall attain unto wise counsels:

6 To understand a proverb, and the interpretation; the words of the wise, and their dark sayings.

23 Turn you at my reproof: behold, I will pour out my spirit unto you, I will make known my words unto you.

Rick Norris’ “Revised Cambridge KJV’s” (part 2)

The self-published book “Revised Cambridge KJV’s” by Rick Norris is rather telling by its appearance: a ragged Bible on the cover communicates exactly what Norris really thinks of our “grand old Bible”. The addition of a clip art butterfly invokes the idea that Norris does not see a standard, but something transient, morphing and whimsical.

However, the tradition of printing the King James Bible by Cambridge is quite the opposite. Norris needlessly omits much praiseworthy information of the Cambridge tradition of King James Bible printing.

Instead of promoting accurate history, he mentions a scattershot of facts and some varying information in order to carry home his true point, which is not one of conveying history or of education, but of undermining the trust of King James Bible supporters in the authenticity and work done by Cambridge. Norris has one aim: to ensure his reader will question as he does the reliability of the King James Bible’s printed and editorial history.

Norris fires many pellets of information — you could call them little factoids — but little bits and pieces by themselves don’t communicate what the authors he was quoting meant, and Norris weaves together a whole patchwork of quotes with the hope of building some Frankenstein of a narrative where Norris must hunt down others who will say what he wishes to say. (No original ideas, just quote mining for someone who said something that Norris wants to say, or else, someone saying something that Norris thinks he can make out to be very wrong.)

In order to understand what this is all about, one simply should start with Norris’ conclusion at the end, which is that the Concord and the Pure Cambridge Edition are allegedly inconsistent and therefore do not match claims made about them.

Strangely, Norris barely can overtly identify anything about either the Concord or Pure Cambridge Editions, so he bewrays his real motives: his actual attack is aimed squarely on people who use the King James Bible, on people who rely upon it. He attacks these (and all normal) editions of the King James Bible because he does not want people to rely at all on it, and he wants to attack those people who teach to rely upon the King James Bible. It’s a strange hatred that motivates him, but Norris is playing the role of a Nutcracker Suite soldier from a soviet-era cartoon.

Norris knows that I think the use of “ye” and “you” in their respective places throughout the King James Bible (Pure Cambridge Edition) is right. Norris of course doesn’t agree. He runs to modernists like David Norton, he runs to “the Hebrew”, in fact, he will run to anything which will say otherwise. If some King James Bible supporter, who might say correct things 99.9% of the time questions something on this subject once, Norris will no doubt have collected that quote and put it into his repertoire.

Consider this. Norris quotes Bryan Ross, “According to Brother Verschuur, only the circa 1900 Cambridge Text is totally free from errors of any kind and constitutes the perfect Word of God.” Well, already Norris is eagerly perpetuating falsehoods, because if I really believed and said that statement, I would be saying that the Scripture was not perfect in Heaven, that the Scripture was not perfect as written by Paul, that the Scripture was not perfect as read by Timothy, that the Scripture was not perfect as believed by the Greek Church, that the Scripture was not perfect as translated by the Reformers and that the Scripture was not perfect in 1611 or in 1769! That is how ridiculous and wrong such a statement would be. Bryan Ross was either taken out of context or is mistaken, but Norris is doubly the child of error for perpetuating such clear and blatant untruths.

What Bryan Ross should have said was, “Brother Verschuur has recognised that the Cambridge edition from the early 20th century is free from editorial errors and represents exactly the perfect Word of God.” There’s a huge difference between my belief in editorial correctness and a claim that one thing only is the very Scripture to the exclusion of all things. But Norris is not being kind to me, and is thrilled at Bryan Ross’ “suspicions”.

But then, Norris makes all kinds of mistakes, including when talking about the spelling of “rasor” and failing to identify D. A. Waite’s “Defined KJV” as a (badly typeset) Concord Edition.

Even more laughable are the litany of gaffes Norris makes in his willing blindness: “Like it had done before, Cambridge at some point left or abandoned its own new standard edition that it produced and printed in 1873.” In fact, the 1873 Scrivener Edition was not a standard, nor was it printed in normal editions issuing by the cart load year by year in the late 19th century.

Norris continues in his Bacchic stupor, “In the early 1900’s Cambridge developed, edited, and printed some new editions [its Concord edition, its Pitt Minion edition, its Cameo edition].” In fact, Cambridge was printing its normal Victorian editions continuously from the 1850s to the 20th century, besides Scrivener’s edition being made. But Norris here is even more wrong, the Concord Edition appeared in about 1956, the Pitt Minion (bold figure refs) appeared in about 1951 and the Cameo appeared in 1925. What’s bizarre is that Norris will not admit that the very same editing (the Pure Cambridge Edition) appears in the Cameo and the Pitt Minion (despite some minor variations, which I discussed already years ago in this work: http://bibleprotector.com/norris.pdf and the “house tops/housetops” variation I discussed in https://www.bibleprotector.com/blog/?p=1080 all of which easily pre-date Norris’ work).

Norris stumbles further, “These new revised Cambridge editions departed both from the standard 1873 Cambridge edition and from the other typical Cambridge editions printed in the late 1800’s that were based on the Oxford standard. Compared to a Cambridge edition printed in 1887, the new editions departed from Cambridge’s late 1800’s version of the Oxford standard in as many as 50 places. Since the source of the change at 1 Samuel 2:13 from ‘priest’s custom’ to ‘priests’ custom’ is the 1873 Cambridge, it would also be the more likely source for the other changes to Cambridge’s 1800’s previous version of the Oxford standard.” The fact is that Norris weirdly admits that there were indeed other normal KJVs, not Scrivener’s, in the late 1800s, and he claims these were following the 1769, and that changes made to these late 1800s editions (in the 20th century) were the result of the influence of Scrivener’s work. Absurdly, instead of identifying the actual editing that took place, Norris jumps straight to the Cameo, Pitt Minion and Concord, and mentions the year 1931 in regards to such changes having been made (as was stated by Norton). Norris clearly misses the fact that the editing of the Pure Cambridge Edition happened in the early 20th century and was evident in various editions printed by Cambridge years and decades before 1925, 1951 or 1956!

Norris sides with Norton hating on the very exactness of “an hole” (Ex. 28:32) and “a hole” (2 Kings 12:9), “an hammer” (Judges 4:21) and “a hammer” (Jer. 23:29) and “my hand” (Ezek. 20:15) and “mine hand” (Ezek. 20:22). Norris cannot abide that there are reasons why it should be one way in one place, and another in another. He cannot see it for he must apply his simplistic rigidity and sweep away exactness by making things in his mind uniform. But the grammar of the “hand” examples is very clearly a difference between a subject-object relationship which is observably different in the two verses from Ezekiel. The “hammer” examples seem to be the difference between what seems like a passive voice and the active. As for the “hole” verses, besides what has been mentioned, one might take further considerations as well of other factors, like meter, euphonics and rules of grammar which we not so aware of.

Norris also reads Norton hyperliterally, conflating the Pure Cambridge Edition of 1931 which Norton’s correspondent called “the current text” and the Concord Edition of the 1950s which is a specific edition only printed in some selective offerings. In Norris’ mind, the “current text” and the Concord are made to be the same thing, even thought they very noticeably are not. How can Norris find fiddling variations in hyphens and apostrophes and yet be so blind on the blatantly obvious common form of 20th century printing being by far the Pure Cambridge Edition?

Norris makes a passing comment about “unpaged documents” on my website as though urls or (especially) pdf page numbers don’t exist.

Norris ties himself in writhing knots trying to philosophically explain about my using twelve passages to identify the Pure Cambridge Edition. Thankfully his readers won’t understand what he is saying, because whatever he is saying is not reflective of reality.

I have consistently shown that there is a consistent Edition, printed many times, in many sizes, made by Cambridge in the early 20th century. Not only did Cambridge print it, but so has Collins, and other printers and publishers.

In order to identify an edition, you have to have some way of knowing it. Well, I am not going to give www.bibleprotector.com/editions as the list, because it is way too long. Instead, there are twelve passages to look up, and that’s sufficient. Remember, we are talking about an Edition, and that means that we do not expect that the Holy Ghost made the Cambridge printers do immaculate work so that there’s never a blemish of the press or something.

Norris is very wrong to make out as if I am arbitrarily dictating and pronouncing something when the Pure Cambridge Edition was being printed for many decades before I was born.

It is also strange that Norris seems to be unable to admit that there is a “Pure Cambridge Edition”, instead, speaking of the Cameo, Turquoise and Pitt Minion having an agreeing editorial text … it seems that Norris is very reluctant to admit the facts about this agreement, because it seems to curdle his blood to have to use the word “pure” in a positive sense.

Norris wrongly implies that people are being ruled by fear when they exclusively use the King James Bible. Norris has missed out on the proper and sound fear that believers should have, which would not lead them to attack Bible words like Norris does.

“Hear the word of the LORD, ye that tremble at his word; Your brethren that hated you, that cast you out for my name’s sake, said, Let the LORD be glorified: but he shall appear to your joy, and they shall be ashamed.” (Isaiah 66:5).

Norris’ primary research on peculiarities of different editions is useful, his secondary research on the history of editions is average, but it is his inflexible interpretation, turgid writing style and contemptuous disdain of the exclusive use of the King James Bible which are especially poor. One and an half stars.

Rick Norris’ “Revised Cambridge KJV’s” (part 1)

Rick Norris was a well known online commenter in bulletin boards and Facebook groups on the subject of editions of the KJB.

Norris comes across as a neurodivergent who gathers many quotes from others and presents variations in King James Bible editions to pedantic degrees.

While his interpretations are faulty, and methods are in the direction of a modernistic view, his data collection skill is quite good. As the Scripture teaches, what Norris thinks for ill, God uses for good.

And Norris thinks quite ill of the King James Bible.

His May 2025 book “Revised Cambridge KJV’s” is a setpiece example of his neurodivergent-like approach.

His primary aim is to argue that those who uphold the King James Bible don’t align to “verified facts” and that the King James Bible is inconsistent (with his own sense of propriety). Apparently facts are only verifiable by Norris and he selectively chooses sources that present his modernist-leaning views, like David Norton, Webster’s Dictionary, David Daniell and Mark Ward.

It is also telling that he deliberately quotes King James Bible supporters who say something he likes against others, thus, he favourably quotes Laurence Vance and Bryan Ross, while he goes out of his way to quite unnecessarily quote mine for a few favourable statements I have made about Pentecostalism. (Norris is clearly trying to make propaganda.)

Norris begins by laying out his doctrine of inspiration. In the main this is not extraordinary, but Norris keeps trying to imply that those who support the King James Bible believe in inspiration of version, translation or maybe even edition. Weirdly, Norris goes out of his way to try to deny that the Old Testament Scripture Timothy or Paul had access to was inspired, as if inspiration was only in the original autographs and not in the words themselves that were faithfully copied.

Norris then discusses the King James Bible supporting view that changing the Bible is a bad thing. Norris seems willingly ignorant that talking about changes between versions or translations is very different to talking about changes between editions. Yet he conflates these areas, takes what people have said about version changes and then tries to apply that to edition changes. The fact is that a change in correcting a typo, spelling or an editorial regularisation is very different from changing the underlying text and translation.

Norris then goes through some of the Cambridge editions, but his information is inexact, because had he been more thorough, he might have identified more editions from Cambridge along the years, e.g. talked about the work of Anthony Scattergood. While Scattergood’s work was known (mentioned by Scrivener), it is good that some work into looking into this edition has been done by Bryan Ross’ circle in February 2025, but evidently poor old Norris missed those exciting discussions.

One of Norris’ favourite subjects, and I agree with the facts about this, is that we are not using the Oxford Edition of 1769 today. Norris wants to make out as King James Bible supporters are ignorant for saying they do, but the problem is this ignorance is on Wikipedia, in AI and in modernists’ materials, like James R. White’s, who ignorantly has a chart comparing the “1769 Oxford” with the “1769 Cambridge”. And this is where we see just how horribly biased Norris is: he wants to make out as if supporting the KJB is akin to foolishness, but he completely ignores the foolishness of a leader of his own side.

Years ago, Norris had this kind of obsessive fight with D. A. Waite. It’s about D. A. Waite’s clumsy but well-meaning scholarship as opposed by Norris’ slightly more pedantic but stained belligerence. The big issue was that Waite used to talk about the “1769 Cambridge” and Norris would smugly show that Waite’s own Defined KJV was no John Archdeacon printing from 1769. Norris really went on about it, and that same indignation manifests in this latest book, written many months after Waite’s death. The weird thing is that Norris cannot (refuses to) identify that Waite was using the Concord edition.

In fact, for a work that is supposed to be about KJB editions printed by Cambridge, Norris seems strangely obscure about ordinary Cambridge editions between 1817 and 2005. It’s not like my books and information like in “Vintage Bibles” were unavailable to him. I put that online for free at the start of 2025, and my previous book, “A Century of the Pure Cambridge Edition” was also freely available for months before that. (Norris charges people for his books, which happily keeps his boring and misleading information out of many people’s hands!)

Unsurprisingly, Norris does make much of one particular edition: a perverted one, which is Scrivener’s 1873 Paragraph Bible. There’s something attractive to Norris in Scrivener, and in David Norton’s work in 2005 and 2011, which of course is their wild changes to the King James Bible. That spirit of modernism loves anything radical, it loves to question and to doubt and to put down and to disparage.

Once Norris discusses the 20th century, he happily quotes Vance and Norton and then moves to editions being printed by Cambridge after the year 2000. He dedicates one page and a half to describing the Pure Cambridge Edition without even mentioning the Pure Cambridge Edition. There is something wrong here, clearly, because Norris’ approach is clearly not to educate nor to be fair. He tries to imply that changes happened essentially by Cambridge taking some of Scrivener’s editing choices, and then he’s off talking about post-2000 editions.

I wrote two books which are freely available to download which contains over 100 pages worth of information that Norris basically pans, and yet Vance’s book, which was published after both of mine, is favourably quoted by Norris. (Norris of course is trying to be a propagandist here in his selection of material.) The problem for Norris is he presents a really hazy view of Cambridge editing from Scrivener’s time to Norton’s time because he wilfully ignores the facts because of the person (i.e. me) rather than the information itself. But I will let him be ignorant, it undermines his position all the more that I will quite happily be looking at differences between 1769 and the PCE while he almost can’t bear to regard anything I say.

When Norris then comes to mentioning the Pure Cambridge Edition by name, he does so in such a way as to present it in the worst possible light he can, which is laughable. He obsesses over a few minor quotes I made about Pentecostalism while ignoring the wealth of other information.

It is evident that the real purpose of Norris’ book is to attack the Pure Cambridge Edition, and he spends his time trying to argue that to have a corrected edition is a fallacy, which is a very bizarre line of reasoning, since the whole purpose of an editing is to have a corrected edition. Logically, Norris must reject Scrivener and Norton if he is to reject corrected or standard editions (and in truth those editions are not very correct nor standards).

Norris vaguely discusses the Concord Edition, knowing next to nothing about it, and even ascribing quite a wrong date to it.

Norris then turns to all the reasons he thinks there couldn’t possibly be a corrected or standard edition. He talks about spelling, italics and so on. But what is the measure for his judgment, and what is the rule for his consistency? Nothing other than his own mind, and the words of modernists, who claim that nothing can ever be perfect. (Norris loves to say that perfection cannot arise from imperfection which is a belief consistent with Deism.)

It is telling that in Norris’ neurodivergent-like thinking he cannot abide reference to the “holy spirit”, for example, because he must have capital letters … and if any edition differs, as some do in wayward ways, this is all the more something he cannot abide. It is like he goes into a kind of overload someone on the spectrum experiences, and because editions differ, and he cannot have irregularity, and because he thinks that “holy spirit” must mean “Holy Spirit” he has already spiralled far off into error.

Superficial judgment and personal opinion are Norris’ light. He fails to recognise that the King James Bible could have words in lower case and that those instances are right and really mean something.

It’s actually the height of hubris to take one’s own standards and claim that something must be wrong in the King James Bible as based on nothing but opinion. (Are all those learned Cambridge editors wrong and Norris right?)

Absurdly, Norris tries to claim (with suitable quotes from Bryan Ross who is equally insensible on this specific topic) that “always” and “alway”, or “ensample” and “example”, etc., have no difference at all. I’ve written a book and taken information from the Oxford English Dictionary showing the various distinctions between these words.

Norris quotes Ross talking about two passages, 2 Peter 2:6 and Jude verse 7. They try to argue that these two passages must be identical (or substantively the same) so that there is no difference between the words used. But this is wrong.

An ENSAMPLE is an internalisation of a sample, whereas an EXAMPLE is something observable externally. These are clearly two different words with two different meanings.

So, when we read 2 Peter 2:6 we find that the sinners are to take Sodom as an ENSAMPLE, because it is a warning to them in their own selves (conscience) even in their sin. Whereas Jude verse 7 shows that Sodom is an EXAMPLE, because it is a warning to all, it is an open shew (show), so to speak.

There’s a real blindness that someone like Bryan Ross (on this issue) and modernist Rick Norris cannot recognise that different words have different meanings.

Norris shows he is not interested in being factual in that he accuses me of speaking “ex cathedra” about the Pure Cambridge Edition (which he editorialises to cast doubt on by referring to it as the “Pure” Cambridge Edition).

But Norris cannot question that this Edition was printed for about 100 years before my website appeared. He cannot question its content, except by his own unjust weights and measures.

As one source stated, “Mr Norris exhibits a hyper-fixation on minutiae, often missing the broader implications of the editorial history he examines. His tunnel-vision approach leads him to overemphasize trivial discrepancies while ignoring more meaningful editorial patterns. And while his ability to catalogue detail is notable, his analysis often lacks context, resulting in a kind of pedantic literalism that undermines his broader claims.”

Any of the handful of people who wade through Norris’ work ought to get a real education by reading www.bibleprotector.com/VB.pdf