By MATTHEW VERSCHUUR, author of Glistering Truths.
OVERVIEW
I was unaware, until 28 November 2025, that Bryan Ross had written a book in 2017 which contains a number of attacks and misrepresentations of my position.
His booklet, “The King James Bible in America”, is designed to be an attack on the idea of there being a pure edition of the King James Bible, and an attack on the idea that we can have the King James Bible letter perfect.
One can only conclude that Pastor Ross, who does make some good and interesting points in some of what he talks about, is misunderstanding or being intellectually dishonest on these issues.
I suspect he is so wrong on this topic because he has a flawed interpretation methodology (i.e. some influence of modernist hermeneutics, such as in how he reads Matthew 5:18), and because he is not approaching divine providence in history as interventionist but rather merely examining things with some degree of Enlightenment reasoning (e.g. variations are observable therefore there is not final perfection) and most especially because he is not adhering to a worldview that says that manifestation on Earth is to reflect perfection in Heaven (thereby denying a perfect knowledge of fixed words of God on Earth as being able to match a heavenly prototype).
Bryan Ross wants to argue that “alway” and “always”, “stablish” and “establish”, “ensample” and “example” and “throughly” and “thoroughly” are not distinct, deliberate words, with some element of specific meaning that makes it unique to its counterpart similar wordform.
At the outset, I want to make it clear that these words can be very similar, in appearance and in usage, but there is still something specific, distinct and particular about them. We cannot just broadbrush and replace all instances of one word to another. They are not just merely variant spellings or variations of orthography of no consequence. The fact that these words have been listed distinctly in dictionaries, and were not edited to be replaced by Dr Blayney or in the PCE shows that indeed there is every reason to retain them.
Pastor Ross can argue that some words might come from the same root word, or that at times historically usage appeared interchangeable, but I think this does not counter the peculiar “glistering truth” nature of these words. I suggest that there may be other reasons why there was some looseness, and am inclined to hypothesise that less educated compositors and especially American printers have been less exact. We see how much a spirit of wanting to change the King James Bible has manifested in America, including the stupendous amount of changes made by the American Bible Society and also in more recent editions, which thankfully propriety, market forces and diligent Christians have rejected.
I wonder whether Pastor Ross is arguing that God cannot, will not or has not provided the King James Bible with distinctions, even shades of meaning, in accurate printing. I cannot understand how Pastor Ross would be siding against accuracy, exactness, fixedness or certainty to allow the ideas of those who wish to modernise, simplify and deny precision.
I will now give a survey of some of the issues in his book.
MIXED DEFINITIONS
On page 1, Pastor Ross begins with a false accusation against my view that I claim that “modern printings of the KJB, do not possess the ‘pure word of God’”, and that believers “need to purchase a copy of the King James text which is devoid of these changes in order to possess an uncorrupted copy of God’s word in English.”
This accusation is wrong because he is (deliberately) confounding the purity or perfection of a version or a translation with the totally separate idea of the correctness of editing and printing. These are entirely separate concepts. Version is not translation, and editing and printing are their own things.
As such, if I say that the King James Bible is the word of God in English, then I cannot be denying the King James Version and Translation. I must be accepting that version and translation even if it was printed by Clarendon at Oxford.
In fact, I accept what Paul wrote before English even existed.
PUTTING WORDS IN MY MOUTH
On page 7, Pastor Ross says that we assert that, “ ‘throughly’ was of entirely different meaning than ‘thoroughly’.” This is incorrect. That word “entirely” is his embellishment. In fact, I could be prepared to concede that in some cases the different meanings are so close, as to constitute a 99% similarity. But they are, I am sure, still different.
He goes on to discuss me and my book, Glistering Truths. (Note that over the years I have done some minor work on this book, not to change its central thesis, but just normal editing.)
Bryan Ross wants to reject my idea that every letter in the Pure Cambridge Edition of the King James Bible is exactly correct. He says, “Brother Verschuur maintains implicitly if not explicitly that any Bible that changes the spelling of ‘always’ to ‘always’ or ‘ensample’ to ‘example’ is a ‘corrupted’ Bible and not capable of expressing the exact sense of scripture. So unless one possesses a particular printing (circa 1900) from a particular press (Cambridge University Press) they do not possess the pure word of God, according to Bible Protector.”
This is false and absurd. This is not my position at all. It almost seems as if Pastor Ross is deliberately misrepresenting, for he is certainly mistaking, my position.
The King James Bible has both a correct, pure and perfect version/text/readings and translation. The King James Bible has gone through many valid historical editions, which exhibit both printing mistakes and editing. I certainly do not call such editions as “corrupted”. While obviously a printing mistake is not right, I am not attributing some moral evil to this, which is what detractors to my position are falsely accusing me of.
We all know that editing has happened and that there have been some adjustments in orthography, but such things have been within the parameters of the normal, natural printing and presswork of the history of the King James Bible, and to correct and to standardise spelling and grammar have all been commendable trends.
Since I know that the Word of God was there in the writings of Paul, or in Latin, or in foreign Reformation translations, or in old Protestant Bible translations, I must steadfastly refuse Pastor Ross’ blatantly false accusation that I am saying that if it is not Pure Cambridge Edition, it is not the Word of God.
The problem arises as well that modern publishers, who want to (despite whatever historical precedents) bring out new Americanised KJB editions — and the problem is not restricted to them, because David Norton also brought out a very modernised edition with all kinds of modernised changes in spelling and grammatical forms — this is inherently a bad thing, it is changes by stealth, it is an undermining of the idea that we have a tradition which reflects the work of divine providence.
WRONG CRITERIA
On page 12, he writes, “Bible Protector makes no mention of the fact that the same Greek word translated ‘always’ in John 12:8 is elsewhere rendered ‘ever’ six times, ‘always’ five times, and ‘evermore’ two times by the King James Translators. Please also note that no English language resource is given to substantiate the difference between the two words. One is simply asked to take Brother Verschuur’s word for it. ‘Always’ and ‘always’ appear to be another distinction without a difference.”
The first and by far biggest problem here is that Bryan Ross is not judging English, but is imposing from the Greek onto English. This is a massive fault, because he is essentially denying the providential distinction in English by the authority of himself or modern scholarship or some external misapplied standard of the so-called Greek.
Pastor Ross also claims that I have given no source for why I stated in my monograph that “alway” is different to “always”. However, here is the basic fact. My monograph is not a deep academic work, but one which is only superficial in nature, inviting much further study. I don’t have an extensive bibliography, extensive footnotes or careful examination of various historical dictionaries or lexical sources. I fully expect that lots more study could be done.
However, I am confident, even in my “infant” study, that to approach the Bible, in the providential perspective of what Blayney (1769) and the PCE present, in the distinction in words like “alway” versus “always” is because there is really some meaning difference. I am sure that further studies will only vindicate this on a much more comprehensive level.
Bryan Ross is asking us to take his word for it that I expect the reader to take my word for it. My view is that as people look into these matters, and if people like Ross’ friend Nathan Kooienga do, if they are going to be honest, I expect based on just a simple faith approach, that “alway” and “always” do have peculiarity, and could not just be arbitrarily made to be just one word only. We know that a modernist approach would do tend to do so, and just have “always” at every instance. Either Bryan Ross is tipping is toes into modernistic thinking or at least he is giving them comfort with their way of looking at King James Bible editing.
ACADEMIC SNOBBERY
On page 19, Pastor Ross says, “Much has been made by King James Bible Believers of the alleged difference between the English words ‘ensample’ and ‘example.’ … Bible Protector, Matthew Verschuur maintains that there is a difference in meaning between these two words … Once again, please note that Brother Verschuur does not reference any English language reference book to support these statements.”
This is slightly laughable in that there are several ways in which to detect a different, which should be taken in concert, which include, King James Bible usage, proper dictionaries and etymological observation.
I also stress that the King James Bible itself is superior to any dictionary.
So my simple examination of the matter could well be a first step, regardless of whether I somehow referenced the Oxford English Dictionary. (W. A. Wright’s Bible Word Book is also a source which I note Ross does not mention at all in his work.)
Now, the fact may be that Ross has looked at a bunch of old dictionaries. Generally, I may have looked at the OED, Johnston and Wright’s book. I can even admit sometimes I didn’t look at them that much. Why? Because my monograph is the proposing of an idea rather than the rigorous testing of it. I am inviting such rigorous testing from a believing perspective! And because I started from believing what the Bible actually has, i.e. the word “ensample” being different to “example”, I was able to suggest, even just by observable etymology, that “en-” differs to “ex-”, one being inside (taking it to heart) and one being outside (a pattern to conform to).
I don’t mean that my “off the cuff” definitions I have just given are to be treated as the absolute full definition, but I think that this is far in the right direction, and God is working to clarify these things, because it is His will for us to understand.
Perhaps this is more to the point another issue. I actually believe God wants us to know and that we can know. Proverbs 1:5, 6 is about us attaining the needful, perhaps hithertofore hidden, knowledge. I see it in many places, including 1 Corinthians chapter 2, etc.
If Pastor Ross wants to cast doubt because I didn’t cite a dictionary, I will counter far more simply that I am starting for believing what has been providentially supplied to us in Blayney and more especially the PCE.
Let me add that despite the variations that appeared from American presses “accidentally”, and worse, deliberately in the middle of the 19th century, and again deliberately from World publishers a decade or two ago (after they had printed the PCE when aligned with Collins), I will note the irony, that is, providence, that has Ross and his Scofield-loving friends using copies which do get these words like “stablish”, “alway”, “ensample” and “throughly” correct.
STUDYING IT OUT
Bryan Ross goes to some length to attempt to discredit the idea that “example” and “ensample” have distinctions in meaning. Yet, upon reading the King James Bible, the distinction is apparent and applicable at every place.
If I am proposing a hypothesis, and it works, it is a theory. And as a theory, we should be able to get to a fact.
We will not, as Pastor Ross wrongly does, try to use the Greek to change the English meaning. Instead, we can look at 1 Corinthians 10, and see whether the distinctiveness holds ground.
In verse 6, we see that the happenings to Israel in the wilderness are examples, which means a patterns to conform to, of things which are an external warning to us, for example, it is not of the nature of a born again Christian to lust, though one might submit to the alien invasion of lust, but the warning is clear. We cannot “internalise” the punishment against lusters because Christ in us is not a luster.
But now, in verse 11, we are told that the things that happened to Israel are for our teaching, our learning, and therefore, we do internalise knowledge, we are admonished, we take it to heart, they are ensamples!
I can only suggest that Bryan Ross is deliberately trying not to see or discern the difference between example and ensample in 1 Corinthians 10.
DICTIONARY POWER
Then, on page 22, Pastor Ross goes on to criticise the distinction between “stablish” and “establish” which can be shown from the Oxford English Dictionary.
The problem that Bryan Ross has is how he selectively interprets the OED to try to make it have “stablish” and “establish” as interchangeable or the same thing. He writes on page 31, “It is obvious that the supposed difference in meaning does not arise from the words themselves since the OED indicates the words are equivalents. What is evidently occurring is that each zealous defender of the KJB has pre-decided that ‘stablish’ and ‘establish’ have different meanings. Since neither the OED nor other dictionaries support such a distinction, each KJB defender has had to manufacture a supposed difference in meaning which does not exist. Thus, one observes that they invent different meanings. The fact that they invent different meanings is proof the supposed distinction between stablish and establish is not real, but contrived.”
In fact, Bryan Ross has started out with the assumption that the words are really just the same. (There would be common roots the etymology.) But instead of seeing a difference, Pastor Ross wants to make it interchangeable. He does so, not on the basis of any merit, but on his assertion that people are apparently making up meanings and that some people had different meanings. (This is like saying because someone was wrong, therefore my view is right.)
Ross wants to take the smudging road that differences are really just the same thing. (Sounds like the same argument NKJV supporters use when saying that they accept both the NKJV and the KJV… but then always say something is wrong in the KJV. In this case, Ross is saying, by implication, something is wrong with having “stablish” when he thinks it really just is “establish”).
Ross claims, “A host of English language resources stretching all the way back to early 17th century, when the translation work on the KJB was being conducted, report that the words are equivalent in meaning.”
That is a mistaken thought. First, because the words are listed separately. And second, because at least some dictionaries, good ones, identify something different about each word.
Here’s a quote from the OED which shows that the words were not merely synonyms: “From the 16th c. there seems to have been a tendency to confine the use of the form stablish to the uses in which the relation of meaning to stable adj. Is apparent, i.e. where the notion is rather ‘to strengthen or support (something existing)’ than ‘to found or set up’. The modern currency of the word is pure literary, and reminiscent of the Bible or Prayer Book.”
The point here is not whether the OED is right, but it is touching on the important point that there already existed in the minds of people centuries ago a difference.
The 1604 Table Alphabetical shows that stablished means “sure, confirmed, one made strong”, while establish means, “confirm, make strong”. In this case, this work does not give identical definitions, though obviously there is a lot of crossover. I’m not suggesting that we should use some work by one man designed for ladies to define religious and Bible words as being used by KJB translators, but it does give us valid insight as far as it goes. The point here is that the definitions are not strictly synonymous, and also they contradict the reporting in the more thorough OED.
As to the point that I might be starting out with my own view of a difference, and inventing my own arbitrary definitions, I think we have already seen too much from the dictionaries to prove otherwise. Furthermore, I didn’t approach the Bible imposing my view upon it, I found two different words, and wondered why. I didn’t just assume (as apparently Pastor Ross wants us to) that the words are just the same. I followed the hint from Dean Burgon, that every distinct word is distinctly different, that every distinct word is exactly correct at its place. I then humbly began to learn why it was so, without just denying or trying to explain away the difference.
(Bryan Ross saw all these differences in 19th century American Bibles, and seems to have concluded quite wrongly that there was no hand of God in these matters. He has pushed very hard to make a case against there being an editorial standard, skirting far too closely towards the thinking of David Norton.)
DISTINCTION VERSUS AMERICAN FUZZINESS
On page 32, Pastor Ross writes, “Not only will this problem not go away for the standard editions of the KJB between 1611 and 1769; but … the problem is compounded when one considers the printed history of the KJB in the United States. As early as 1792, nearly one hundred years before the publication of the Revised Version (1881), American Bible publishers were already ‘Americanizing’ the spelling of words in King James Bibles printed in the United States. If one is going to persist in the belief that KJBs exhibiting these spelling changes are ‘corruptions’ then they must also conclude that generations of unwitting American Christians who used these Bibles did not possess the pure word of God.”
We know full well that there were orthographic, spelling and grammatical work taking place in editions of the King James Bible from 1611 to 1769, especially in 1769. We know that in America, it obvious went haywire doing this.
It’s not a “problem” if we know that the issue has been resolved. It’s not a “problem” if we know that the 1769 Edition and the Cambridge tradition leading to the Pure Cambridge Edition kept in place a proper usage of these various word forms.
It’s not a problem that if we examine closely the usage, in the editorial form we have now, that we can see how “ensample” differs to “example”.
Was the distinction between these two words clear in 1611? I think so, but I also think that the conceptual clarity, especially as we see through other kinds of examples of grammatical standardisation, really becomes a notable phenomenon more and more in time.
We can fairly assert that the translators’ intention was to communicate the ideas as we are now able to discern them, through acknowledging distinctness. Of course, we can certainly argue in a retrospective sense that since we have these distinctions fixed and known, thanks to Blayney and the PCE, that we have knowledge of God’s providentially intended distinctness in words.
REALLY PUSHING AGAINST THE GOADS
Pastor Ross dials up the rhetoric, asking on page 61, “Do we really want to say that generations of American Christians possessed ‘corrupt’ King James Bibles because they did not come from an Oxford or Cambridge University Press? Is it our position that in order to possess the ‘pure word of God’ in English one must possess a particular printing, from a particular press, produced on a particular continent?”
This is an absurd set of questions, because we know the King James Bible is good, regardless of the “disparity” or “interference” or “lack of precision” in American printings. I have a London BFBS printing from about 1806 or so, and it is fraught with bad typography. Bad typography or historical looseness in American editions do not invalidate the Scripture, but they are issues thankfully that people today can address and have the answer to, being accurately printed editions.
The Cambridge press has traditionally been the best, and people should read my books on the subject from my website to see how good Cambridge has been. However, Cambridge has also made mistakes and done the wrong thing. The Revised Version was wrong. The Concord Edition was not a good step. And changing the PCE in places as has been done silently (e.g. at Acts 11:12) has been a bad thing. But I am not saying that KJBs which spell “Hemath” as “Hammath” must be cast into the fire. Ironically, there are plenty of Pure Cambridge Editions that have, and yet I myself have used them. Of course, it should be “Hemath” at 1 Chronicles 2:55. Therefore, if someone is using a Scofield Bible, except if he was doing it out of rebellion, I am rather just encouraging conformity to the PCE in a positive sense.
I suspect that Bryan Ross does not like that which God’s providence has favoured and wishes for a libertarian approach, which might just allow him to fashion something else. For why is it that he has to react so strongly to the set and particular orthography, spelling and grammar of Dr Blayney and the PCE? Is he really just moved against the PCE, is he really just motivated to reject it?
THE REALITY
The distinctions of “throughly,” “ensample,” “stablish” and “alway” existed pre-1769. Dr Blayney and the PCE preserved and standardised these distinctions rather than inventing them. The retention of these, largely stable from 1611, and certainly stable from 1769, shows editorial recognition of meaningful distinctions.
The work of the editors was not arbitrary. Orthographic choices were meaningful, reflecting nuance, register or function. Editors did not standardise or erase “stablish” or “ensample” or the rest because they understood they were functionally distinct.
Early lexicons and glossaries are not technical, and therefore should not be over-invested with authority. Johnston and particularly the OED are about usage patterns and the record of usage, and from this, we can infer they are reporting a record of semantic distinctions with these words.
Definitions of course have become more clear to us, but that doesn’t mean they were not existing in the past. It’s just that these days we have precise orthography, stable editing and of course a universal means (the internet) to communicate and understand that words like “alway” really are special and particular.
Overlapping definitions of words does not invalidate specificity.
1611 compositor errors, historical orthographic variation or US printing inconsistencies do not erase distinctions.
The record of normal, standard and proper KJB editions, especially from Cambridge, are a witness to stabilisation, not wild, random, erratic orthographic, spelling and word variations, which means that meaning was stable and preexists any issue about apparent changes is orthography in places, which kind of editorial work is consistent particularly with Dr Parris and Thomas Paris’ and Dr Blayney’s editing.
I have engaged in a methodology of studying the editions and the words, and the editorial weight is with the consistency of the Pure Cambridge Edition. We can safely say that 1769 and PCE editorial decisions present the intended distinctions in English usage, as to the differences between the words, and the English language standardisation has served to help clarify distinctions that may have been historically more blurred.
Therefore, Pastor Ross’ objection that the KJB words are more chaotic, or less distinct, or exist in some level of editorial, semantic and conceptual uncertainty is a position which is antithetical to both reality and to the revelation of divine providence.
CONCLUSION
If Ross is right, he must explain why “alway”, “ensample”, “stablish” and “throughly” display remarkable stability across centuries of KJB printing.
If no meaningful distinction in meaning existed, and these words are just synonymous pairs, we would expect far greater instability, especially in the fluid orthographic environment of the 1600s and early 1700s. But we see general stability.
If these words were really just synonymous, the printers and editors would have had every reason to standardise or modernise them long ago, yet these words resisted elimination. Such survival does not reflect random orthographic drift or mere accident, but a continuity far more consistent with providential preservation of distinctions.
Surely the only answer is that these words exist precisely because they are providentially placed, and because their theological meaning and nuance matters.