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 19^th century out of the 18^th 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 16^th 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 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 17^th 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.

by Matthew Verschuur

This is a review and refutation of two videos: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4QsEsEspKs and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=81OXcdQl62M

THEISTIC REALISM

Theistic Realism (i.e. Theistic Conceptual Realism) argues that truth exists in eternity, in the mind of God, and that everything is conceptually perfect there. This means that thought existed, and of course, when God speaks in Genesis 1, He has language to use. The key component of language is words. Words represent concepts. And since this is God’s use of words, this would be God’s use of exact words to mean exact concepts.

Further, God communicates to man, as He begins to do in Genesis 1 before men exist, yet He speaks and afterwards reveals the record of it, so that we see it by the writing of Moses, which we have this day, and so we can read or hear what God said.

When God spoke, He communicated the exact concepts He was conceiving and used specific words to convey those concepts.

In fact, we can be sure that God knew in eternity all about the creation, fall and salvation of mankind and the “Bible” message He was going to communicate to man to inform them of this salvation.

We also know that in the beginning when God created the heaven and earth in Genesis 1:1, that in Heaven He has a place there which we shall call the Heavenly Sanctuary, and that this has a book. This book is the Book of books, the perfect form, the Holy Scripture.

When we read in 1 John 5:7 (an heavily attacked verse) that God, now manifesting in three Nicaean persons of the Trinity, bare record in Heaven, we can see that this is a legal document, and that they, the members of the Godhead, are bearing record of the Holy Bible, the Book of books, in the sanctuary in Heaven, known in Psalm 40 as the volume of the book.

It is only proper that God revealed the contents of this Book of books in Heaven to believers on Earth. And so, piecemeal by piecemeal, the holy words were written by inspiration, over many centuries by many good men, which revealed below on Earth what was in the perfect form above.

And so, the same God who inspired also preserved textually, which is to say there was actually scattering and gathering. And there was also a preservation of the concepts of Scripture. Not by identical markings on the page, because at some point the Hebrew and Greek were being translated. So there was never this false notion of “verbatim identicality” which Bryan Ross cannot even explain (identical to what?), but there was rather the turning of the same concepts in one language to the concepts in another.

Now there are promises in the Scripture that in time there should be the exact words of God in Earth. Let us consider for a moment the Reformation English translations. Take one like the Tyndale or the Geneva, it was the Scripture, but it wasn’t exact, there are issues in its readings, its translation, etc. but not so much as to not make it the Word of God.

So then, when was the Text settled? It was settled with the King James Bible. And likewise the translation into English.

Now we know that the KJB men were not inspired, but acting in line with providence.

THE PLAIN PERFECTION

The question then arises as to where are the perfect words of God, since the Bible makes continual reference to “words”. Believers have been able to say that they believe that the King James Bible words are right, that they represent that words of the Autographs. But where is this perfect Word? At one time many years ago as I was thinking about these things, I thought maybe it could be the unknown master copy that was sent to the press in 1611, that this was sort of like a perfect form. But it is pretty obvious that the master copy written in pen of the KJB, which might have been a bit messy, certainly did not have standardised spelling, etc. Like the actual Autographs of Scripture, the print master of 1611 is lost because the whole process is ultimately based on the fact that the Scripture in Earth is reflecting that there is a perfect master copy in Heaven.

The fact is, all we see are imperfect copies in the original languages and imperfect former translations. We see the Text and the translation there in the first printing of 1611. But we don’t have perfect printing back then.

When I say perfect, I am not playing games by using the OED to (re)define the meaning, I mean actually perfect, immaculate, spotless, pristine, pure and precisely exact in this context. (The OED is a descriptive dictionary not a prescriptive one.)

We see a trend of editing in the King James Bible over the years, and we see the standardisation of the language, we see the correcting of press errors, we see spelling and grammar being adjusted to a proper format.

All of this shows that it was morally right that Blayney did what was necessary and edited the KJB. When I first interacted with Bryan making this point, he literally mocked me and his friends laughed me to scorn. They did not seem to comprehend that it was morally correct for Blayney to edit as an important work in the line of history of editing the KJB.

I actually don’t know why Ross mocked me for that, but it showed that Ross did not see a line of improvement from 1611 to the 20^th century in the editions of the KJB. In a way it seems to me like a kind of anti-authoritarian approach, that they could not have God working in history towards a standard, because Ross wants to allow for all these different editions which differ on various minor spellings and punctuation etc. to be acceptable without having to nail down that God would be working with a specific care for the editing.

In this, Ross does not seem to exemplify the same fear King James Bible supporters (going back to the Puritans) have spoken of when they have referred to trembling before the words and syllables of the Scripture.

“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).

Ross argues that the KJB can be giving the message of God and that this message can be accepted even if it is altered within parameters. For example, he would view the Geneva as fine, because it is different without “substantively” altering the words. While he seems to think that the KJB words are the best words out of options, he is open to a certain matrix of variation.

This looseness in the moorings of the KJB’s Text and translation is one thing, but it means then that he is loath to say that there is an edition which is exactly right or a standard or presenting the Text and translation in a acceptable fixed way.

It’s like arguing for a kind of libertarianism, to say “free choice of editions”. This doesn’t sit well with me and indicates potentially a small rebellious streak.

Words have meaning. Therefore, like law, words are important. And who wants to undermine the rigidity of the law? The devil himself. Therefore anything undermining the certainty of fixed concepts with precise language is likely to drift in a direction away from God.

THE VERBATIM INDENTICALITY STRAWMAN

Ross is also intellectually unfair in how he labels anyone who doesn’t have a “looseness” of possibilities (within paramaters) approach like him as being someone who is essentially like a Robotic Photocopier Machine adherent. He presents his views as a kind of King James Bible libertarianism while he labels those who believe in the literal Law of God as existing in a rigid fixed form as being promoters of something called “Verbatim Identicality”. What he is trying to say is that those who aren’t like him for the King James Bible must be saying that the KJB is Robotic Photocopier Machine copy of the original Autographs… or something.

If Ross’ enemies are believers in “Verbatim Identicality”, then what are they claiming “Verbatim Identicality” with? Clearly no one credible and normal is claiming that actually.

For example, I claim Conceptual Identity between the KJB, the Originals and the Heavenly Book. But where is Ross’ conceptual standard Bible, since he does not believe in absolute and finite accuracy of punctuation, spelling and so on?

You see, you need, for legal reasons, accuracy of words and punctuation. I am not a maths person, but in the maths universe 20 + 30 + 50 = 100, but it seems like Ross is more into ~20 + ~30 + ~51 = ~100. He genuinely seems to think that there is no strict relationship between words, punctuation, word order etc. that must equal absolute conceptual accuracy. Therefore, God’s words are near enough when it comes to editorial work. He’s okay with the Text and translation of the KJB, but when it comes to actual conceptual accuracy through editing, suddenly he literally cannot tell the difference between “ensample” and “example”.

Dean Burgon said of the KJB translators, “Nay, even when they go on to explain that they have not thought it desirable to insist on invariably expressing ‘the same notion’ by employing ‘the same particular word;’ — (which they illustrate by instancing terms which, in their account, may with advantage be diversely rendered in different places;) — we are still disposed to avow ourselves of their mind.”

Ross will take that the wrong way, that this “freedom” to render means that any option is a live choice. But Burgon makes clear it is the opposite, that in fact there are reasons compelling specificity, that the same original word does not require the same English word is true, but the exact English word to be used is important.

Burgon wrote further of the translators, “Here also however, as already hinted, we are disposed to go along with them. Rhythm, subtle associations of thought, proprieties of diction which are rather to be felt than analysed, — any of such causes may reasonably determine a Translator to reject ‘purpose,’ ‘journey,’ ‘think,’ ‘pain,’ ‘joy,’ — in favour of ‘intent,’ ‘travel,’ ‘suppose,’ ‘ache,’ ‘gladness.’ But then it speedily becomes evident that, at the bottom of all this, there existed in the minds of the Revisionists of 1611 a profound (shall we not rather say a prophetic?) consciousness, that the fate of the English Language itself was bound up with the fate of their Translation. Hence their reluctance to incur the responsibility of tying themselves ‘to an uniformity of phrasing, or to an identity of words.’”

Conceptual accuracy requires the variation of English according to the nuance. And we can apply that on editorial level, it is not open season to say editing can remain in a state of flux, but the opposite, that editing must reflect the very nuance of the concepts, and they are communicated by the very niceties and fine details of English, and that in turn is a mirror to the Heavenly volume of the Book. Therefore, editing must come to a definite form.

THE FAITH WALK

Ross tells a story of how in 2011 he read Norton, and began to question David Raegan’s shallow views, and question KJBO talking points. At least Ross did not reject KJBO like so many others have done in the same circumstances.

I will quickly reiterate part of my own story. Back in the early 2000s I knew there were variations in editions, and I was reading everything I could, and communicated with many of the following: Burgon, Hills, Holland, Riplinger, Ruckman, Waite, Raegan and David Norton before he ever published. (Read more from the following sources: https://www.bibleprotector.com/GUIDE_TO_PCE.pdf , https://www.bibleprotector.com/norris.pdf , https://www.bibleprotector.com/blog/?p=1080 and https://www.bibleprotector.com/VB.pdf ).

I was critical of the “simplicity” in general of the KJBO side already between 2003 and 2007, and could refute all kinds of problems with what people were saying about editions and other KJB argumentation, which I did publicly from 2007. One important thing was that I did not allow the seeds of modernism (i.e. David Norton’s approach) take me away.

Here’s the important point: I did not allow “sight” to dictate how to interpret faith in the promises of the Scripture about the KJB. In fact, I have been very much about the Scriptural argument FOR the KJB rather than KJB being a fight (reaction) against modern versions/translations.

Whereas Bryan Ross began in 2011 from an empirical approach of seeing things that Norton showed and then reacted accordingly. (Sadly, walking slightly by sight rather than by pure faith.)

Thus, I had already strongly understood God’s work in the course of history toward having a perfect Earthly form of the Scripture, whereas Bryan Ross seemed to be trying to accommodate different editions like there was no final certainty and that there was no conceptual absolute perfection in relation to having a standard and correct edition of the KJB. (Norton’s exact position!)

In fact, Ross has in some ways tried to create a “fire storm” to not have a universe where God has not worked towards mankind having access to a copy of Scripture where there are words with punctuation and lettering that communicates exactly knowable meanings, but instead, that God’s message is sort of rolling around like a loose joint in the various editions of the KJB without God actually intending to have finality, perfection (in the blatantly obvious meaning of that word) and exactness of one precise set of words of an edition of the KJB.

Meaning, in fact, is in the mind of God, and this comes to a derivative concept, which is that God has communicated His Word with words with the intent that the world know the truth, and not only so, but be able to know properly, which is to say, that proper interpretation is accessible.

“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.”

(Proverbs 1:5, 6, 23).

Of course, Christians can tap into this spirit of knowing, but to argue otherwise is to argue for not knowing, ignorance and is counter to blessing. This may be illustrated by Ross being unable to tell the difference between “example” and “ensample”.

My point in saying this is that if a person does not take the faith step towards understanding God’s work in history of having a standard edition, it is in this case because there a little bit of the modernist thinking which is blocking clarity. In fact, that lack of clarity is shown in Bryan Ross floundering around about “terms” versus “words”, which idea I have surpassed in addressing in the section Theistic Realism.

MISCELLANEOUS POINTS

Ross goes on to show how Ruckman did not believe that the Autographs and the KJB were letter for letter identical. Of course they are not, but Ruckman wanted to argue that somehow God was intervening to make the KJB better than the Autographs originals beyond how God actually made the KJB better than the original autographs. (While the world now speaks English more and more and we have a full 66 book Bible with a perfect Text, that’s not what can be said about the partial, varying and foreign original manuscripts, nor the elusive and varying TR editions.

Ross mentions the marginal material at Psalm 12, but does not seem to understand that what is in the margins is the rejected “chaff”. In the case of notes beginning with “Heb”, this means an literal rendering but which was considered an incorrect sense by the 1611 translators. Thus, in Psalm 12 the margin gives a different translation than what was in the main rendering. The marginal translation is technically possible but not is equal to what was placed as the main rendering. By which I mean that the margin (centre column) represents something which hypothetically could be valid because the reader was invited to check, but since it was reasonably rejected by the translators, and after of 400 years of public checking, it is confirmed as invalid. As God requires purity and perfection in Text and Translation, so He has not kept a question or allowed a state of (lingering) doubt as to what is correct. Thus, the centre column material should never be regarded as inspired scripture but as providentially rejected and otherwise informative material.

Ross also discusses the area of jots and tittles in Matthew 5:18. I have argued that the idea of the promises and prophecies being fulfilled in history is needful, but also it must have a meaning about the very lettering of the Scripture. There are those who try to tie the promise to the Hebrew language since they say jots and tittles are parts of Hebrew letters. But the words “jot” and “tittle” are English words, and therefore can then apply to English letters. Now Jesus is referring to the promises, and the promises are written, and the written Scripture is made up of words, and words have meaning. Since we have Scripture in English, and it is for the world, then it follows that Jesus can have been prophesying specifically about the King James Bible.

But Ross tries to downplay the promise about having accuracy of letters of Scripture, because he is trying to create a system of non-specificity, where he is not locked to an actual conceptually accurate standard in a written form when it comes to the editorial perfection within the printed and edited presentational history of the King James Bible.

Ross draws his interpretation here from those commentators influenced by modernism, which does not highlight the importance of the accuracy of the letters of Scripture as being requisite parts of words which in turn present exact concepts. (There are plenty of promises where the very exactness of the passage hinges on a letter, as in Galatians 3:20, “Now to Abraham and his seed were the promises made. He saith not, And to seeds, as of many; but as of one, And to thy seed, which is Christ.”)

If Ross believes that the KJB is God’s words in English, then why cannot he extend that God has outworked for a standard edition? The irony is that Ross cannot point to a standard edition (for example when discussing italics) yet has to use some standard edition to compare between today and 1611. He surely knows that it makes sense to have a “point of reference”, but as such, he is reluctant to allow for the precision of an edition. Essentially, he can accept the version of 1611, the translation of 1611 but will not go further and allow for an edition. In doing so he begins to loose the bands that point to the correctness of the KJB, and he begins to accommodate the possibility for something to change within the KJB. This is certainly a danger in his small movement.

In fact, there is a kind of a hint that they do not believe in actual a perfect, exact, final translation, as much as they are content that the KJB merely is good and the best translation.

PSALM 12 AND THE PROCESS OF PURIFICATION

Psalm 12 is a prophetic psalm. Ross specifically argues that Psalm 12:6 is not about any process in history, where it states, “The words of the LORD are pure words: as silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times.”

Ross rightly understands that God’s words are pure, and were pure when David wrote Psalm 12, and at any time in history, so the pure Word of God must have been preserved from King David’s time to 1611. This is true, but he does not go into full detail how.

In fact, people in general point to many varying and incomplete copies so they wonder how could the Word of God be pure from the inspiration of the Autographs until 1611? The answer is very simple: that as long as the Scripture exists and is copied, regardless of minor flaws, and as long as the Scripture existed also in translations, then preservation was the reason why the Scripture existed, and since the Scripture itself is pure (God’s words themselves are pure) then the pure Scripture has endured through history.

Let me explain it using Theological Realism as a presupposition: God has the pure Scripture in His mind in eternity. The Trinity have it in Heaven in Creation (and today). And it is written on Earth by inspiration. The Scripture, wherever it is, and where it is incorrupt in its existence, though in torn, badly written and various copies, it is not the ink and skins which are the important thing, but the “inspiration” in the words themselves, passing down by copies through time.

So then, Scripture is pure. The words exist.

But how is Scripture purified? Well, since inspiration there was a scattering in readings, so there needed to be a gathering of readings, and the TR editions are part of this.

So it is not the purification of the Scripture itself, but rather a purification of how the Scripture is presented or its form, both that the Text went through stages, and we can especially find fulfilment to the prophecy of Revelation 10 in the fact that there were seven major English translations of the Reformation period.

We can count seven times, and that leads us to the King Jame Bible. But it is very important to show the difference between purification of Text and translation and the fact that the Scripture is always ever pure.

This same logic applies to the King James Bible. The King James Bible we can say is pure. But what about typographical errors? What about the unstandardised spelling and grammatical forms of 1611? What about the need for regularisation (including work on italics)?

So then, there is purity and there is a need for purification.

Purification in editing means that in time the KJB came out in better editions, it means that there were important editions with corrections and work to ensure standardisation. So then the end of that process would be a pure edition that doesn’t have typographical errors, has standardised spelling and grammar and proper regularisation.

Sadly Bryan Ross is not at all clear about this. He knows about the work that happened, but he doesn’t seem to perceive the process of improvement is working towards a goal of purity even of the printing and presentation.

In an ironic exchange, he told his interviewer that the mechanism for correcting press errors and editing the King James Bible is through the interaction of the Body of Christ with the KJB. This is a very revealing exposure of Bryan Ross’ mindset, because he must therefore have to accept the editing of the King James Bible, yet, at the same time, he seems to refuse an editorial standard.

CONCLUSION

While Ross was right to not just take a blind view with some sort of redneck KJBO position, at the same time he has not articulated a good enough response. Instead of finding that God has outworked in history towards a pure edition, he has jumped the wrong way in his engaging with “sight”.

“But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts: and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear” (1 Peter 3:15).

The King James Bible is very clear in its words and meanings, in line with Theistic Realism, (e.g. stablish vs. establish.)

I argue for the precise accuracy and necessity of every word, letter and punctuation mark in the Pure Cambridge Edition of the King James Bible, asserting that even seemingly archaic or minor differences carry distinct theological and linguistic weight.

I believe that the language of the King James Bible should be considered as “Biblical English”, distinct yet completely communicable to ordinary English. I believe that the best truths, best Bible and best theology is in English, so according the Scripture prophecies, English should be taught all over the world.

Every jot and tittle in the English of the KJB is necessary for exact meaning. Words that appear interchangeable — such as alway vs. always, flieth vs. fleeth, ensample vs. example— are distinct, with differing nuances and theological implications. Changes such as spelling alterations, punctuation shifts or word replacements alter meaning and undermine doctrinal clarity. Modern revised works and American variant spellings are threats to the unity and doctrinal exactness of Scripture.

The Pure Cambridge Edition of the KJB presents exactly the perfect, divinely preserved English scripture. My monograph Glistering Truths is a meticulous defence of the King James Bible’s linguistic precision, arguing that every specific word, spelling and punctuation in the Pure Cambridge Edition carries divine intentionality and matters for biblical doctrine. Any change, even seemingly minor, is seen as a potential compromise in conveying the truth as God intended.

So I can point to actual words today, just as the Scripture promised, actual letters, jots and tittles, which are correct. Sadly, Bryan Ross cannot identify a word perfect editorial text, he can only identify a Bible version and translation which is conceptually correct, but no edition of that version and translation that is exactly correct in its communication of concepts to the very jot and tittle.

Bryan Ross and Dan Haifley discussed me (Matthew Verschuur / bibleprotector) in passing in a video.

Their argument for the transmission of the Text from inspiration to the King James Bible (KJB), which includes the Latin as a witness, is correct.

The “Verbal Equivalence” view, which says that God’s law does not seem to have a particular form in Heaven nor on Earth, is a weakened view, because it does not allow for the conceptual accuracy of God’s words, it allows for some conceptual variation, e.g. not detecting the difference between “ensample” and “example”.

The idea of there being standard editing and accurate printing should be common sense. But it is a misrepresentation to say that unless a Bible is standardly edited and perfectly printed it is “wrong”. The Word of God was in Hebrew and Greek, and that’s not even English. The Geneva Version was the Word of God and is a different Text and translation. Early editions of the KJB were badly printed and they are the Word of God. The Oxford Edition has some editorial differences and it is the Word of God.

So it is wrong to say that one person in Australia is saying that only one Edition of one Bible is the Word of God. Ross and Haifley are clearly misrepresenting me.

The whole idea of there being a standard edition of the KJB is so that we have an agreed standard (e.g. for comparing the 1611 to today), have a correct representation of the KJB (conceptually accurate as far as spellings goes) and having a standard for correct typography (the complete elimination of typos).

It has been well established and accepted that Cambridge editing and printing is the best, and also, as people make minute examination, they can see that the Pure Cambridge Edition (PCE) is representing the KJB properly, fully and as a standard. In other words, the PCE was already qualified as a standard before my website appeared in 2007.

In response to false claims, I have never claimed a vision, a dream or any such thing as to why the PCE is best or right. I have consistently stated and shown that I came to understand about it by study and by looking at providences.

It is not some arbitrary standard set up by me, which is what the modernists might imply, nor did I pronounce by some fervent prophetical means, which is what others might wish to say.

It is notable that I have refuted the false claims over and again and yet there is still a propensity for certain people to repeat them. Therefore, it is very bad that someone should go so far as to say again that I had some vision or whatever (the first misrepresentation) that the PCE is the only word (the second misrepresentation). The Bible did not appear on Earth in 2007 nor did I even make the PCE, which dates back to about 1910 or so.

And lots of people have and can look into the PCE, and into the issue, and come to their own view, and the fact that they understand that it is a good thing is of God. It is very wrong to then say that people should not have a standard and exact printing of God’s words because of some misrepresentation about the person who promoted the idea.

But because the PCE itself is verifiable, that is the point. Otherwise people will have to reject the KJB because King James I was not a Baptist or something, which would be a propagandistic approach. And people will then have to say, the KJB is just an arbitrary work, and why should we follow it and not make a new Geneva translation that might be better? In this, I detect the error of the “Verbal Equivalence” spirit which actually can lead away from the KJB itself as a standard.

The way to determine a correct Edition is like the same way to determine a correct Bible translation etc. It is on the basis of examination of the editorial history of the KJB, internal factors of editorial variations, external factors of providences and a reasoned desire for a standard and elimination of typographical errors. Most importantly it is based on Scripture statements.

These are all reasons we would want to make sure we have a correct representation of the King James Bible as based on standards of copy-editing and typographical exactness. If the PCE is not the “best one” then what is? The “Verbal Equivalence” view seems to be against the many Scriptural passages which indicate that God has an exact standard and concepts like (for example) “Shibboleth”, “seeds many”, “ought” and “jot”, i.e. it is consistent with the nature and work of God, and with other actual Scripture promises and prophecies themselves, that we should indeed have precise lettering and proper and full knowledge of the exact concepts of His very words.

I submit that I am not making that up, but that it’s a Biblical doctrine and consistent with the nature of truth. So it is not “aberrant” to have a correct edition, just as Cambridge editors in the 17th century corrected printings, or 18th century editors edited towards standardisation. It is not “leading to a falsification” just as leading 19th century publishers spoke about striving for printing textual purity, or that I put on a website files that printers, publishers, software developers and websites could use as a typographically correct file.

Also, I admit, I’m a traditional Pentecostal and I promote the (Reformed) idea of the actual perfection of God’s law and message, but that shouldn’t be an issue if we are talking about Anglican Cambridge University Press printing an Edition in many of its KJV printings from 1910 up to 1999 that is being taken as the standard; and that this Edition was also printed by the Presbyterian Collins publishers in the same era, and frankly, both Cambridge and Collins were getting quite secular in that period.

But if good Christians, whether Baptist, Calvinist, Pentecostal, etc. are able to recognise and use one Edition as the best and standard one of the KJB, that alone is surely a positive.

By the way, I don’t believe in “Verbatim Identicality” as such as that position is nonsense. I believe we should have exactly on Earth what is in the Heavenly Book (Psalm 40, etc.) and exactly in English what was in the original language Autographs. Yes, the Autographs took time to appear. Yes, the King James Bible took time to appear. So it is that we have the standard Edition of it now, the Pure Cambridge Edition. I unashamedly hope and pray all true Christians are coming to it in agreement. God Bless Bryan and Dan for the many good things they say and do.

[Editorial note: This was first a youtube comment and then a facebook comment, but in that process I was able to correct some spelling and typos in what I typed. What is here is “better” for those reasons, and because this is my “official” blog, obviously this would be the “standard” form of what I wrote.]

ADDITIONALLY, I sent a message as follows:

Dan thanks for letting me correct you if are wrong about me, and sadly, you are quite wrong about me.

I do not claim that only ONE edition of the KJB is the actual Word of God to the exclusion of anything/everything else. I have never claimed, nor believe that, God spoke to me in a vision or some other prophetical way, to confirm or tell me about Pure Cambridge Edition, nor to say it is the only pure Word.

I believe that the Autographs were pure, and all Scripture copies, manuscripts, texts, versions, editions, etc. of Scripture are pure, in that Scripture itself is pure.

Textually, while the Textus Receptus is pure broadly, and that the KJB’s readings are pure specifically.

Translation-wise, while Reformation Protestant translations were pure broadly, the KJB is pure English specifically.

Edition-wise, while Editions of the KJB, in and following the 1769 are pure, the PCE is pure specifically (as an Edition in its own right).

And setting-wise, while Cambridge KJVs with the PCE have been very accurately printed, the files on my websites were thoroughly checked so that there is no errata in the typesetting, and full “critical” standardisation, i.e. jot and tittle kind of purity.

And even after I have insisted for years that the accusation of me drawing on some sort of Pentecostal experience was the means of discovering or confirming the PCE was wrong, you have still repeated that.

You may disagree with things I say, believe or stand for, but I hope you will accept my correcting you regarding this matter.