Tim Berg, a young rejector of the perfection of the King James Bible, on increasing his scholarly repertoire, was reading David Daniell.

David Daniell, a literary scholar who has now passed away, much preferred the Tyndale Bible to the King James Bible and wrote quite negatively of the King James Bible.

In the Preface to his book, The Bible In English, he bemoans the collapse in knowledge of the Scripture. One might offer to him the solution to the problem: reinstate the King James Bible. But it is apparent that DD did not want to do that, because he wanted to tear it down.

I want to focus on one paragraph, called “Lighting”. He writes, “Some of the work in this book has to be the switching-off of special lighting, to reveal an illusion for what it is.” He is trying to say that the King James Bible has been wrongly exalted and loved, that the KJB is really false light and its beauty, power and magnificence is merely an illusion.

DD exhibits absolute blindness to the achievements of the KJB, and is clearly fighting against the Providences which are with it.

He writes, “The sudden elevation of that 1611 ‘AV’ (KJV) to near divine status in 1769, and, for many people, for ever after, so that ‘Avolatry’ went hand in hand with the mindless adoration of Shakespeare (‘Bardolatry’) for two hundred years and more, is a strange phenomenon, especially as it went with the radical alteration of both texts.”

This statement is packed with lies. It seems strange to assert that the KJB suddenly was elevated in 1769. He doesn’t provide documentary evidence for this assertion. (Why isn’t it a good thing that the KJB has been upheld?)

Second, he exhibits his cynicism towards Shakespeare, but links the KJB and Shakespeare — something which ordinary Christians haven’t gone out of their way to state, though some literary types will praise the KJB and Shakespeare, but this seems quite mad to question.

Third, he charges the KJB with having been radically altered. This is a clearly delusional charge, as the KJB has barely changed at all, except mainly in orthography.

He goes onwards, writing, “Stranger still is a twentieth-century insistence in large parts of the United States of America that this version, imagined to be the personal work of King James the First, and known. often as the ‘Saint James Version’, is the ‘inerrant Word of God’, unchallengeable even to its merest dot and comma.”

Here is conflates two different things, one is that there are some people who ignorantly think that King James made that Bible, and they even call the Bible the “St James”. The other is that the KJB should not be changed even in a dot or comma.”

Well, those two things are completely unrelated, yet for propaganda purposes he affixes them. In reality, the second position is a real one, and has found expression in the doctrine of the Pure Cambridge Edition, which came to world attention after DD wrote his book in 2003.

But to make it clear, the purity of the KJB to the dot and letter is not based upon some special “revelation” or special inspiration or something, which is what DD is really implying is being believed. He doesn’t describe the believing side well at all, here or in other places in his book.

DD really is the same as the rest of the unbelieving scholars who hold a low view of the King James Bible, such as F. H. A. Scrivener, C. Hill, M. Black, D. Norton, D. McKitterick, A. Nicholson, etc. (Three Davids among their number.)

DD’s desire to bring back the Bible is good, but he could not have been trusted to do it since he quite unscholastically believed that the KJB had suffered “radical alteration” of its text since 1611.

There is of course no proof of that. The same readings and translation that is there in 1611 is there today. We have a history of editorial work, but that is not designed to change the actual work of 1611, just do things like correct printing errors, standardise spelling and other such editorial regularisation.

Tim Berg would do well to not uphold David Daniell as a guide or hero. Notwithstanding DD did make some good points about the need to recognise the Bible in 16^th century history and the importance of the KJB over the Geneva in the minds of mid-17^th century Christians, he nevertheless had many negative and blindingly bad views of the KJB.

One cannot wish for the permeating knowledge of the greatness of the KJB on one hand, and yet pull it down and delegitimise it with the other. That is why I say DD was mad.

Near the end of DD’s book is a whole section dedicated to ridiculing those who use the KJB, mischaracterising the exclusive use of the King James Bible and making some very strange, ignorant and downright untrue charges, all of which is designed to make a Bible lover look a maniac. (There have been actual extremists and problems of course.)

DD shows his colours in making out that the lovers of the KJB are “anti-communists” while drawing a quote from the heretical Dietrich Bonhoeffer. This is the early 2000s way of saying that KJB precisionists (to draw on the old name for Puritans), are worse than a certain political ideology of the 20th century.

He is driven to label the KJB “already archaic in 1611, often erroneous, sometimes unintelligible”, and he seems perplexed that people still uphold the KJB in present day America.

Tim Burg has chosen his side, aligning to those who would dethrone the KJB and to besmirch those that uphold it. It’s a sad thing to see that Tim Burg didn’t instead think that he could promote and uphold the KJB better than those he saw doing a bad job of it, and instead has shaken his fist at it.

SETTING THE SCENE

There are two examples that enemies of the King James Bible’s perfection like to bring up. The first is Ruth 3:15 and the second is Jeremiah 34:16.

In Ruth 3:15, the First 1611 Edition read at the last part of the verse, “and he went into the citie.” Compare that to today, where it says, “and she went into the city.”

The change from “he” to “she” happened in the Second 1611 Edition. Sometimes it has been printed “he” over the years, but most editions have “she”, and that is by far the common wording seen today.

The other example is Jeremiah 34:16, where today’s Cambridge Editions read, “But ye turned and polluted my name, and caused every man his servant, and every man his handmaid, whom ye had set at liberty at their pleasure, to return, and brought them into subjection, to be unto you for servants and for handmaids.” But Oxford Editions have, “whom he”.

Enemies mention these two examples because they ask, “which one of these two words are inspired? Is it ‘he’ or ‘she’? Is it ‘he’ or ‘ye’?” Etc.

RUCKMAN

Peter S. Ruckman was a well known King James Bible only teacher in the second half of the twentieth century. He even wrote several articles on these issues.

“Our problem text today is from Ruth Chapter 3. This is one of the ‘last resorts’ used by the Cult to prove a ‘contradiction’ in the AV. The thinking behind this is that some editions of the AV had ‘SHE went into the city’ while others said ‘HE went into the city’ … Now the fact is, they BOTH ‘went into the city.’ Observe Ruth 3:16 — Ruth’s mother-in-law, Naomi, is IN THE CITY. Observe Ruth 4:1 — Boaz had to go into the city to get to ‘the gate.’ Either reading would have been the truth of God without contradiction.”

“’She went into the city’ has been corrected from ‘He went into the city’ (Ruth 3:15), which constituted no error for both of them went into the city, which is perfectly apparent to anyone who can read two-syllable words.”

Ruckman approaches the King James Bible as if it literally is the truth of God, and if he finds it saying “he”, then he says that that is true, and if he finds it saying “she”, he will say it is true, and now he finds that some editions have “he” and others “she”, he is forced to say that both are concurrently correct, that both must be right.

He does the same when holding an Oxford and a Cambridge on his desk. I wrote to Peter Ruckman years ago about this issue, his secretary wrote back saying that either are correct, though that he preferred the Cambridge.

“Well, BOTH variants in the AV (Jer. 34:16) were correct grammatically, if one deals with the English text or the Hebrew text. They (‘ye’ in the Cambridge) were being addressed as a group (plural, Jer. 34:13; as in Deut. 29), but the address was aimed at individual men (‘he’ in the Oxford edition), within the group. Either word would have been absolutely correct according to that great critic of critics, the word of God (Heb. 4:12-13).”

Ruckman did not seem to insist on the idea that there was one true set of words, or that one reading should be preferred over another. In fact, he went as far as D. A. Waite did, and talked about the Hebrew.

MY RESPONSE TO RUCKMAN’S POSITION

God’s word is truth. When it comes to Ruth 3:15, this was clearly a typographical error, because it was corrected straight away the same year.

Now I know that Scrivener thought that “she” is the typographical error, but even his fellow scholars disagreed with him on that point.

The reality is that we are to regard the very words of God.

But he answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God. Matthew 4:4.

God does not speak in contradictions, and he does not have alternative readings to what He said.

But as God is true, our word toward you was not yea and nay. 2 Corinthians 1:18

God’s true word in Heaven is an absolute set of words, there is no shadow of turning with them. Purity demands the right words, not two differing and opposing words!

Thus, it is madness to think that “he” and “she” could both be correct, when it has to be one or the other.

Again, truth compels us not to serve two masters, but we must choose between Cambridge and Oxford.

Importantly, since the Cambridge can be shown right at all such places of difference between it and the Oxford, it must be right here also.

One simply does not have to go to the Hebrew to explain or find any truth.

Continue reading →

PART ONE

Bryan Ross, an American Baptist pastor, used to believe that Matthew 5:18 was referring to the jots and tittles of Scripture.

For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled. (Matthew 5:18).

Even Textus Receptus Onlyist D. A. Waite understood that this verse was speaking about the written Scripture, though he applied it to the original languages only, at least saw that it applied to the New Testament as much as it did the Old.

But Bryan Ross has come to question this interpretation altogether, seemingly denying God’s care for the very parts of letters of His Scripture, and now taking a position, in alignment with modernists, that this verse is only talking about promises in the Old Testament about Jesus, and not about the words and letters that contain those promises. In other words, Pastor Ross has completely disconnected the meaning of the passage from the implication that God’s words, God’s law itself, is made up of words and letters.

People win court cases over a comma in the constitution or a law! When we are told that God’s law is perfect, surely the very form of it, the very writing must needs be perfect in and of itself!

How did Bryan Ross come to question the obvious, natural interpretation of this passage? Well, he began by being bamboozled by walking by sight. Specifically, he read in a book by David Norton that there had been changes made by editors in the King James Bible. (How that was a shock to any Norman Normal out there, I don’t know.)

Now this is rather strange, since F. H. A. Scrivener had written about this in 1873 and 1884. And that D. A. Waite had made copies available of Scrivener’s book. I’d written about the subject since 2007 online too. So how is it that Bryan Ross turned to Norton’s book, and instead of thinking like I did, or like D. A. Waite did, he started to approach the thinking of Norton and began to think like the modernists?

And so, seeing editorial changes (more than just Norton’s data), he accepted elements of Norton’s perspective.

Bryan Ross has written, “My decision to use David Norton’s book A Textual History of the King James Bible to frame this discussion came under scrutiny this past week on social media. It has been asserted that Professor Norton is unsaved and therefore is not to be trusted in his reporting of textual data/facts. This assertion is coupled with the premise that Norton edited his own edition of the KJB from Cambridge University Press called the New Cambridge Paragraph Bible (NCPB). I have never supported or advocated for the NCPB. Just because Norton makes editorial decisions in his NCPB that I would not approve of does not mean that his presentation of the textual facts as it relates to the printed history of the KJB text are in error. One needs to distinguish between Norton’s cataloging of textual variants in the printed history of the King James text and his editorial work on the NCPB.”

I personally questioned why Bryan Ross was relying heavily upon Norton, but it certainly was not me who said that Norton could not be trusted in his reporting of data/facts. I in fact, do trust what he records about the 1611 to the present time. What I strongly disagree with is his interpretation of that data, his turning to an 1602 manuscript as being an alleged draft and his going to the original languages in how he then makes judgments on editing. (Besides his modernisation of the KJB and weird changes in places.)

Further, I said that it appeared that Norton was not an evangelical.

But if Bryan Ross is representing what I said, then he is grossly misrepresenting me, as badly as he has accused others of misrepresenting others.

Let me say that I am very much against the New Cambridge Paragraph Bible, and it is pleasing to see that Ross says he is also not advocating for it.

Bizarrely it appears as if he is attempting to lecture me on distinguishing between Norton’s catalogues and Norton’s editorial work, when that is exactly my position — has Bryan Ross read my materials?!

Norton’s method is to compare editorial variations in the printed history of the KJB with an annotated 1602 manuscript from the Bodleian Library (which may have been annotated after 1611) and reference to the original languages.

What Bryan Ross is fighting against is the simplistic idea that spelling changes and typographical errors are the only thing that ever happened in the printed history of the KJB. I understand that. But instead of taking a balanced or reasoned view (e.g. consulting multiple sources like Scrivener, Norris, me etc.) Ross has limited himself to only Norton. Now, I don’t actually advocate for the so-called “balanced” view, but that’s how modern academia works, which is that you should look at multiple perspectives when studying a discipline, not railroad yourself to the scholarship of one man.

Free self promotion here, but my material is freely available and Ross could use that to augment or “counterbalance” a sole reliance on Norton… of course, he could primarily follow in my path, which is at least is not discounting D. A. Waite and Gail Riplinger … and I am not 100% with either of those two people’s positions, but I think we should be fair and friendly and take up when teachers have said the right things or helped further the good cause of God’s words. To be very honest, I could not have written my monograph Glistering Truths without having read materials from both Waite and Riplinger.

So it almost looks like Byran Ross is disconnecting with all of one side, but connecting with Norton and liaising with anti-King James Bible agitator Mark Ward (without being in full agreement with either of those two.)

Though the warning is:

Can two walk together, except they be agreed? (Amos 3:3).

Continue reading →

There’s a website called “Original Bibles”, which I won’t link here, but which is purporting to have the “Pure Cambridge Edition”. Except it isn’t. What they have on their website is the 1611 Reprint as edited by W. Aldis Wright, which was made in 1909. It’s a good resource text to know what was printed in 1611, but it clearly is NOT the Pure Cambridge Edition.

I’ve contacted them, or tried to find out what their reasoning is, to no satisfaction. They obviously have their aim of listing various pdfs of old Bible printings. That’s reasonable enough, but it’s evident that they are using the words “Pure Cambridge Edition” inaccurately.

They admit that their 1611 Reprint does not match the PCE, since the PCE has spirit not Spirit in 1 John 5:8, saying that this test “is not met. We are looking into this matter and should post further updates in due course.”

To find out about the real Pure Cambridge Edition, just read this website. Have a look at the blog articles below.

Especially useful is this book which shows the actual dates of the PCE and also that their 1909 is a 1611 Reprint:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1OvPV46NKLxcH5UT8v7y_SNNnhqeif4CW/view?usp=drive_link