SUBHEADING: The KJV Store’s pet project, Bryan Ross’ misrepresentation on 1 John 5:8 and why the Trinitarian Bible Society’s text is diverging.

If anyone thinks the 1769 Edition is a standard, they must be made aware that there are ongoing divergences from it.

In fact, there is a problem that there have been divergences made from the proper standard of the Pure Cambridge Edition. This is not good, for where the Body of Christ needs to come to a standard, there are those who are pushing after their own standards.

“Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter! Woe unto them that are wise in their own eyes, and prudent in their own sight!” (Isaiah 5:20, 21).

The solution is that we need to come to the standard. That requires humility and that requires aligning with divine providence.

Rejecters of the Pure Cambridge Edition

For whatever reasons, the KJV Store, a company based in the USA, has sided with Cambridge’s current text against the Pure Cambridge Edition with their production of their “Sacred Syntax” edition.

Cambridge’s main edition has been in a state of flux since the 1980s, in important ways, with their small but vexing changes to the Pure Cambridge Edition.

In 1985 they began to wrongly implement the change from “spirit” to “Spirit” at 1 John 5:8. From 1990, Acts 11:12 and Acts 11:28 began to be changed.

These are changes to the Pure Cambridge Edition as opposed to the London-Cambridge Edition which was published in the Emerald and Royal Ruby, which has been the base of the Trinitarian Bible Society printings, which themselves have been further changed.

There are examples of Cambridge Bibles printed in that period with various combinations of changes from “spirit” to “Spirit” at 1 John 5:8, Acts 11:12 and Acts 11:28.

There are those out there who explicitly reject the Pure Cambridge Edition. One of the reasons they do this is to align with the in-flux status of Cambridge University Press.

As it is, Cambridge University Press themselves are still making available material which is Pure Cambridge Edition, such as, through sales of old stock, through their preferred second hand vendor(s), and through some new works like the calligraphic Gospels.

The slippery slope

To be clear, Cambridge’s text has been changing since it printed the PCE from about 1910 to 1999/present.

There’s one change that was made in the PCE printings by Cambridge in the late 1940s, which was to change “Hemath” to “Hammath” or “Hamath” in several places. That’s not a significant issue, in that this change is not historical nor accepted by other publishers.

While it should be “Hemath”, I certainly am using Bibles with “Hammath/Hamath” … because I am not on the spectrum and know that God has outworked to rectify that issue.

(You really can’t be worried that your Bible is missing a dot accidentally, and we have knowledge of what is right now, so all things can be rectified.)

Some years ago, the British arm of the Trinitirian Bible Society announced it was going to change the word “spirit” to “Spirit” in a whole list of places. This wasn’t Cambridge, this was the TBS! By taking this misguided decision, they were pushing against even Cambridge or accepted standards as manifest by Divine Providence.

We must be exceedingly careful if we are to undertake to make some change. I have striven to align with the proper Cambridge tradition and the general witness of post-1769 editions, and I have also been honest and open about what I’ve done, for example, in putting it out there about how I have treated the letter “s” on the small capital word “LORD’s”.

We need to come to a standard, to a unanimity, a uniformity, not continual divergence of every man setting up his own idol, which has been a problem in Protestantism.

Without an anchor, it will be like how Bryan Ross has all these variations in American editions of the KJB, and somehow he is reluctant to come to the standard.

Let us have an excursus with Isaiah 59, because it’s not just the modern version/translation issue we see, but the rebellion in some against the PCE:

BEHOLD, the LORD’s hand is not shortened, that it cannot save; neither his ear heavy, that it cannot hear:

4 None calleth for justice, nor any pleadeth for truth: they trust in vanity, and speak lies; they conceive mischief, and bring forth iniquity.

9 Therefore is judgment far from us, neither doth justice overtake us: we wait for light, but behold obscurity; for brightness, but we walk in darkness.

10 We grope for the wall like the blind, and we grope as if we had no eyes: we stumble at noonday as in the night; we are in desolate places as dead men.

13 In transgressing and lying against the LORD, and departing away from our God, speaking oppression and revolt, conceiving and uttering from the heart words of falsehood.

14 And judgment is turned away backward, and justice standeth afar off: for truth is fallen in the street, and equity cannot enter.

15 Yea, truth faileth; and he that departeth from evil maketh himself a prey: and the LORD saw it, and it displeased him that there was no judgment.

18 According to their deeds, accordingly he will repay, fury to his adversaries, recompence to his enemies; to the islands he will repay recompence.

19 So shall they fear the name of the LORD from the west, and his glory from the rising of the sun. When the enemy shall come in like a flood, the Spirit of the LORD shall lift up a standard against him.

The layout issue

The KJV Store Reader’s Edition Bible with so called “Sacred Syntax” has some non-traditional elements.

I am not against people doing artistic and other representations of Scripture, but going against the verse by verse layout and blocking the text into a continual running paragraph can be a bit disconcerting.

There’s a place for it, I grant, but not as liturgical literature. I know Schuyler likes these new metrical layouts too, and they’ve been around for a while, for example, with Scrivener’s Paragraph Edition.

I personally don’t prefer that layout, but they say it is to make the Bible “like literature”. I think the Bible has to retain it’s superiority to being mere literature, and have no problem with the flow or pattern in the traditional layout.

Having said that, to make a particular work in that style, like Brandon Peterson’s Story of David, is probably a positive example.

But hidden behind these layouts of Psalms or other Books of the Bible like that often is a modernistic spirit, and it does tend to design to undermine the truth of the Scripture itself by implying something against verse and chapter increments.

One also wonders about these ways people make new layouts or new study systems of the Bible. While innovation isn’t evil, sometimes there is a level of gimmickry. Having said that, words of Christ in red has remained popular even though it was really popularised only in the 20th century. And likewise, having prounciation marks on Bible words, something which I really appreciate, was pushed by Henry Redpath at the same time as the words in red was done at Oxford in about 1901.

Why “spirit” lower case matters

Bryan Ross wrongly said that I said that 1 John 5:8 was not about the Holy Ghost. (The tradition from 1629 is that the King James Bible has “spirit” lower case at 1 John 5:8, including in the 1769 Edition.)

I have explained about this over the years, but it’s very clear that “spirit” has a lot to do with the Holy Ghost. So Bryan Ross is wrong.

Here are some examples to consider:

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

And yet we also know that the Holy Ghost leads us in truth, in understanding of the Scripture and in things to come.

“And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh; and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions:” (Joel 2:28).

We know that this is “of” the Holy Ghost when we read Acts 2.

“Teach me to do thy will; for thou art my God: thy spirit is good; lead me into the land of uprightness.” (Psalm 143:10).

God’s “spirit” obvious means the way and work of the Holy Ghost, and that in the heart of a man. Thus, when we read Acts 11:12 we surely can see that “spirit” should be correct.

“Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God.” (1 Cor. 2:12).

It is obvious that this “spirit” is the impartation of knowledge, of being born again and knowing God. That’s very helpful for seeing why 1 John 5:8 should be lower case, since our born again spirit is witnessing to us of God, that we are wrought of God.

(So, anyone who claims that this is some sort of Pentecostal plot to want to have this in lower case at that place, in fact, there is no specific connection to that, except that proper Pentecostalism should have proper doctrine about being born again! Also, I doubt Cambridge was being motivated by Pentecostal doctrine in 1629, nor Blayney in 1769, when they had “spirit” there too. In fact, if anything, modern Pentecostalism has become very anti-tradition, so they would want to change things up.)

“We are of God: he that knoweth God heareth us; he that is not of God heareth not us. Hereby know we the spirit of truth, and the spirit of error.” (1 John 4:6).

The spiritual way of truth is obviously the way the Holy Ghost moves.

Therefore, one might be very bold, and say that the Pure Cambridge Edition is aligned with the spirit of truth.