If all translations “teach the same thing” then they are all equal; but if “some modern versions are better than others and he sympathizes with KJ only advocates concerning some of atrocious modern translations”, then they clearly do not teach the same thing. This is because the quality of a translation will be having an effect on content/concepts. Thus, all translations are not equal, they do not teach the same thing. James White is therefore wrong to say that they all teach the same thing (i.e. that they are in that way equal). The accusations against KJB are false anyway. “What he takes issue with [is] the belief that the KJB is the only viable or even inspired version of scripture.” I take issue with that too. And that’s not what KJBOs believe. Maybe a very few do, but to say that KJBO is wrong because of that is basically to malign and misrepresent KJBO.
Also, you say, “Its the fallacy of equivocation to speak of the KJB translation and the inspired text of scripture as the same thing.” What you are saying is that that the KJB is not Scripture, because the KJB was not made by inspiration. Whereas, we know that the KJB was not made by inspiration, but we know it is Scripture, and that Scripture itself is inspired by its very nature. Now, probably, you are making a difference between the process of inspiration (the making of the autographs) and the nature of inspiration (the words being spirit and life). The fact is that the inspired words of Scripture are to be found in Bibles of many kinds, whether Latin or whatever, because they are Scripture. Now, even though the KJB was not made by inspiration, the argument about transmission is that it has recovered the correct text by Providence, and likewise made an exact English translation. In this way, the KJB has today what exactly was written by Paul or whoever, only that the KJB is in English, and has all the Canon together. The problem is that modern infidelity / liberal modernism has invaded many Christians’ thinking. They think that we cannot have a perfect Bible today because Enlightenment philosophy disallows the possibility of such an occurrence/phenomenon.
To suggest that we must doubt the Scripture about God’s preservation of His words, and God’s ability, simply because of the carnal, rationalistic, sight-based exercises of modern scholarship is unspiritual absurdity. We are to rely on God’s provision, not on the revisionist, relativistic and rationalistic scholarship which denies Scripture promises about transmission. They say that we must look at the oldest extant MS copies, because that is what they are stuck with: the idea that error is prevailing, entropy is ruling and ignorance is reigning. Whereas, we begin from the Scripture itself, what it says about itself, and the promise that God has been able to supply it to us properly. This idea that the Church since the days of Constantine has not had the Bible properly, and that we must turn to near autograph copies for authority is putting your faith in that theory and in pieces of vellum/papyrus, not in the very power of the words themselves which have come to the ends of the earth.
