INTRODUCTION

In his latest attempt to discuss my work, Bryan Ross, from Grand Rapids MI, has focused on part of my book Vintage Bibles, and some other things.

I do think Ross is flogging a dead horse in what he is trying to do. I mean, his scrutiny is only showing what I have said to be defensible anyway.

And to be honest, if people need clarity, it’s a good thing. I’m not trying to throw out empty name-calling, or mistreat Ross. We do disagree on some points, but as can be seen from the following, it should have been clear enough from reading my original writings.

There are good things from scrutiny, and I hope Pastor Ross can privately be glad that it was really him that helped me to go and check out the “throughly and thoroughly” situation.

Also, in these remote “interactions” I’ve had with Ross, I don’t want there to be mission creep on other side topics like political debates on Libertarianism. I’m sure there are plenty of topics to both agree and more unimportant ones to disagree upon, and to be honest we are all learning too.

In this case, prepare for a bit of a deep dive into what might be to some a bit boring.

CHAPTER ONE OF MY BOOK

Ross has been reviewing my book Vintage Bibles.

One of the main areas that Ross and I disagree on is hermeneutics. The specific application of those issues can be observed in how he interprets Zephaniah 3 and Isaiah 34 differently to me. I would also think he has the same view of Isaiah 28. Although he doesn’t lay out specifically why he doesn’t agree with my interpretation in a theological sense, he does lay out that he rejects my view because of what he thinks are various logical fallacies, eisegesis and verbally he indicated a different timeframe for prophecy fulfilment.

All of those things are answerable in two ways, first because I think Ross has accepted some of the errors of modernistic thought which has seeped into theology in how they do hermeneutics, and second, because Ross does not actually address or understand things in a proper framework of multiple fulfilments, including historicism, and therefore has a presupposition of a different divine-oeconomic framework (his form of dispensationalism, seeming single fulfilment of prophecy, etc.)

He also implies that I am not using a scholastic method to build a theological case. One must understand that in writing a book, one is referring to things established or discussed elsewhere, one is not obligated to lay out the theological argumentation to build something, but all works are built on some level of what we might call suppositions, e.g. that English is already understood, that Christianity is already true, that God really exists, that the King James Bible is really right, etc. etc. It is not fitting, in a narrative that focuses much more on the history of Bible printing and an overview of prophecy, to have to establish and lay out all the groundwork which exists elsewhere.

In short, such ideas are presented as is, not as if they need to be established to be. Just because Ross may have a pre-commitment to his own views, or an “arrogance” as to their correctness does not mean that I have to write to argue a case to suit his starting points.

CHAPTER TWO OF MY BOOK

Ross demonstrates a poor and incorrect understanding of the history of the printed forms of the Pure Cambridge Edition (PCE), even though I have supplied all readiness of information in my Guide, my Century and my Vintage Bibles books (here).

In the book being discussed, I show empirically the earliest known PCE and rationally the earliest known PCE. These are the Cambridge Lectern Bible of 1911 and the Jasper Bible of 1910.

Unlike Ross’ attempt to talk about a “shift”, I am talking about evidence. I was showing in 2025 evidence that had come to hand. This evidence is in support of the PCE, it appears to be utter obduracy that makes Ross try to say anything else.

Ross has in his mind this idea of a “single event ‘circa 1900s’” versus “a gradual emergence across many Cambridge printings circa WWI and emerging in the 1920s” versus “locating the first known PCE to the year 1911”.

Ross is creating a false trichotomy here. I can answer it by showing how it all began with David Norton.

For one moment, also, Ross seems to disparage the idea of using Norton, or that I’ve looked at Scrivener, or even the RV! This is surely a propagandist technique that says that if you admit that the Vulgate has a right reading (say 1 John 5:7) you must be a Catholic and heretic! Ross himself has been much influenced by David Norton, so it’s hypocritical if he attacks me for looking at facts and also showing when these things might have something right. It is evident that that the RV has places right where it agrees jot and tittle with the KJB, let’s be sensible about it. But maybe Ross can’t be sensible since he seems to have a real problem with jots and tittles, and yet, his “verbal equivalency” view is even more tolerant of the RV, so people in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.

Anyway, back to the trichotomy, and I don’t know why I have to explain it when it should be evident, but:

1. In about 2001 or 2002 David Norton told me that the PCE (he didn’t name it that) was made around the turn of the 20th
2. century.
3. Early online discussions included a person who said they had seen a Bible they thought was from the late 1890s that matched the PCE.
4. I could see by comparing KJBs from Cambridge that there was a clear difference between a PCE and the Victorian era Bible printings.
5. Everyone else in the world who has looked or commented, including Cambridge University Press and Rick Norris, knows that at some time there was a set of readings distinct which is what I have called the PCE.
6. Logically the PCE editions that we have came from a common origin.

So thus, my three points are this, which addresses Ross’ false trichotomy:

1. There is a specific editing that took place in the early 1900s, approximately between 1900 and 1910.
2. There are multiple known different editions across the 20th century from Cambridge, e.g. the Lectern, Amethyst, Cameo, Turquoise, etc., which match this editing.
3. The earliest known copy extant is from 1911 and possibly 1910, but that is not definitive, that is evidentiary.

Ross is seeking to try to apply a false standard of “jot and tittle perfection” because that is his antithesis. He objects to the jot and tittle view that he must try to apply his “enemy logic” in a foisted reductio ad absurdum fashion as though I must have, produce or believe in an absolutely immaculate printing of an editing from Cambridge.

Further, because Cambridge has not specifically identified any such editing, he then tries to imply that it doesn’t exist. (Norton knew something happened though.) Or worse, if he does find sheafs of paper with corrections or notes written on it by the editor, he will want to use this as his absolute “gotcha”.

All of this is ridiculous because no one is seeking nor proclaiming an immaculate printing from Cambridge. The Pure Cambridge Edition editing that was done was correct.

I have already explained that I copy-edited which is to say, using existing copies, ensured typographical correctness.

(I know Ross has already rejected the levels of perfection argument, but just as there is a difference between a version and an Edition, and that a version can have various Editions, so there is a difference between an Edition and settings of an Edition. It is possible to have a correct setting of an Edition of a version.)

I have also already explained that if we were to take a Lectern Bible of 1911 and a Cameo of 1925 and compared them together, besides any specific printing errors in either, that they would completely agree, except for essentially a hyphen or two and the case of a letter “A” on “And” at an obscure place.

Gen. 41:56 And

Josh. 17:11 En-dor

Song 6:12 Ammi-nadib

LECTERN PCE

Gen. 41:56 and

Josh. 17:11 Endor

Song 6:12 Amminadib

TURQUOISE & CAMEO PCE

And compare to these:

Gen. 41:56 and

Josh. 17:11 Endor

Song 6:12 Amminadib

1611

Gen. 41:56 And

Josh. 17:11 En-dor

Song 6:12 Ammi-nadib

1769

Gen. 41:56 and

Josh. 17:11 Endor

Song 6:12 Ammi-nadib

SCRIVENER

And this is my copy-edit:

Gen. 41:56 And

Josh. 17:11 Endor

Song 6:12 Amminadib

BIBLE PROTECTOR PCE

That’s what Ross is fighting, he is fighting about two hyphens and the case of a letter “A”.

So, let’s easily answer Ross’ false trichotomy from before. Yes, the PCE was made circa 1900s, yes the PCE was printed in many editions and yes, the earliest printing known right now is 1911.

MORE MISINTERPRETATIONS OF CHAPTER TWO

Ross wilfully misinterprets because he wants to reject or belittle my position ad nauseam.

Ross quotes me saying that the PCE is not based on any single first edition. But he misinterprets that to mean that “According to this citation, there was no single ‘first PCE Bible.’” His statement seems to be utterly false. What I am saying is that it is not about faithfulness to the jot and tittle of some edition that we don’t know when obviously even if we saw it, it would have printing mistakes. But since that same editio princeps is a PCE, it obviously is as PCE as all printings of the PCE are PCE. So, Ross is just trying to reject out of nonsense.

Ross goes on saying, “Verschuur now argues that once the PCE first appeared in 1911”. The fact is I said the first known edition that I have at hand is from 1911 is not the same as saying it is the first printing. It may be, but we cannot say categorically.

He says, “According to Verschuur, Cambridge established the Pure Cambridge Edition around 1910–1911, but instead of creating entirely new plates, they gradually corrected existing ones, resulting in a transition period where some Bibles were fully PCE and others only partly corrected.”

This is not right. I said it is possible that the PCE was first made in 1910-1911, not that it certainly was. Also, the discussion about correcting printing plates is entirely a separate issue. A few things happened:

1. Cambridge printed new PCEs by making new sets of plates (e.g. from the early 1920s).
2. They also made changes in existing plates in copies we see from the broad World War One period.
3. They didn’t change all plates, e.g. the Brevier.

Ross goes on, and says, “Differences in verses like Matthew 4:1 and Mark 1:12 show which plates had been updated.”

Actually, that’s not quite right. It’s a signal to us. But we can see physical differences in the print copies. There are a number of Victorian-era editions from Cambridge which have capital “S” on “Spirit” at those two verse references. This editorial change very likely happened prior to the PCE because it is observed in Oxford Editions from 1893, it is observed in the Interlinear Bible, in Scrivener and as I said in a very recent blog article, in some Victorian era printings such as one I have from 1910.

The point is that if the printing plates were changed to be “near-PCE”, then there is wholesale changes in these editions throughout which indicate that they were Victorian era editions now changed to PCE readings in many places, but the fact that Matthew 4:1 and Mark 1:12 were not changed or only partially changed shows that the PCE editor did not make that change as part of his “making” of the PCE, it was taken because it was already in existence in the copy he used prior to the editing of the PCE.

Ross says, “The editor likely used the Interlinear Bible as his reference, causing some readings (like capital “Spirit”) to appear in early PCE printings such as the 1911 Lectern Bible and the 1910 Jasper Bible.”

Yes, but it is not certainly so. Also, the Jasper’s plates were made in 1910 as well, and they have “Spirit” capital in Matthew and Mark there. But I have a copy from a few years later only.

It’s like someone else has made his written notes in places and Ross doesn’t always know what he is saying when he is presenting his information, and so gets things wrong. He has admitted that he gets help from sources, but I think he is being mis-helped by some.

MISINTERPRETATION ABOUT THE RV

If Ross read my Guide, and instead of being obsessed about Pentecostalism allegedly affecting my copy-editing (which is really what he would have to say, which means that hyphens, the letter “A” on “And” and the end of the word “LORD’s” is actually chosen for Pentecostal doctrine, which of course he doesn’t say because he can’t say), he should have actually concentrated on my main argument which was:

1. A number of people in the 19th century said that the KJB needs to be revised, which evil people took to make the RV
2. Scrivener indicated in action with his misguided work, and Burgon and other good people said that the KJB needs to be revised (carefully)
3. The PCE was the quietly accepted revision which rose by degrees over the years

(Someone actually said they could not find a PCE. That’s simply not true, online sales and new sales from budget to premium abound with available PCEs!)

Then it should be understood that the RV might reflect some editorial or copy-editorial things which are correct, as it was made on the basis of KJB, and when printed by Oxford and Cambridge in an interlinear format, was representing in the AV parallel (or horizontal, as we might term it), the state of the KJB in some representative way at that time.

Let us take Jeremiah 34:16 as an example. The KJB at that time had “whom he”, whether from Oxford or Cambridge. The PCE editor, around the 1900s, possibly in 1910 or 1911, editing the Victorian KJB to the PCE changed “he” to “ye”.

What do we find? The RV also had “ye”. So the RV got something right when the KJBs at that time had “he”. But, and this is important, did all KJBs have “he”? No. Old KJBs had “ye”, Scrivener had “ye”, and some other editions too.

THE CASE OF THE WORD SPIRIT IN THE GOSPELS AGAIN

Ross says, “Thus, Verschuur is not accurate when he says that the capitalization of “Spirit” in Matthew 4:1 and Mark 1:12 was not present ‘in other normal Bibles printed by Cambridge.’”

I actually have shown and said it was in some editions, like in Victorian one from 1910 from Cambridge. Yes, if you take a quote in isolation I said it wasn’t in normal editions, that’s true, but it was sometimes in some editions. In general, however, the normal Victorian edition from Cambridge which may well encompass printings from 1860 to around the Second World War, they didn’t have capital “S” at that place.

I actually mentioned the 1910 a few days before Ross did his broadcast too, on my blog, so he obviously is picking quotes and presenting them in such a way as to suit his narrative. I know he looked at my blog because he spent some pages talking about it in his document.

NEAR PCEs

Another concept that Ross goes all over the place on is that of Victorian Cambridge printing plates that were changed to be like the PCE except that they missed (i.e. had not itemised) Matthew 4:1 and/or Mark 1:12. Thus, I show that amended copies do not touch those places, and so there’s a mixture in the printing plates in one or both of those places.

Ross says, “His classification is based on the type and nature of deviations rather than their count, and he identifies certain Cambridge series (such as Small Pica, Minion, Bourgeois, and Brevier) as examples of these nearly aligned editions without ever defining a numerical cutoff.”

This indicates that Ross does not understand the issue. The issue is that these editions are the same PCEs as far as they agree in many places throughout, that is, according to this example list bibleprotector.com/editions, but not at Matthew 4:1 and/or Mark 1:12, which happen to be key tests. Thus not technically PCE for those faults but having all the other PCE editing present.

For this reason, it is a simple matter to hand annotate the correction(s) and that Bible would essentially represent the PCE, and be used like as it were indeed a PCE. In fact, they have mistakenly been used as PCEs by some anyway, so there is no problem just to make the little annotations or amendments.

To be clear, there are other printings at other times from Collins that also match the PCE, but might have minor differences, including in one of the tests, such as at Ezekiel 11:24, or even, with the wrong change that happened in 1985 at Cambridge, at 1 John 5:8. It would be a simple enough matter to hand correct or stick a little correction in a Bible which would be satisfactory enough.

It seems like Ross wants us to be represented as over-zealous as if we would commit such things to the flames. But the fact is, we are about knowing the truth, and since when was it evil to use a Cambridge Bible that only needed to be pencil-corrected at 1 John 5:8? I’ve done it to other Bibles, you could carry out the endeavour fully in an Oxford Bible printed by Allan if you wanted to.

ROSS’S SILLINESS

Almost 20 years ago I suggested in forums that if people thought to conform non-PCE Bibles to just the 12 tests of the PCE, without general consistency in the editing throughout, that this would not be a correct approach.

Ross points out that other editions, including the 1611 and a particular American printing, have some of the places close to the PCE if using the 12 tests in an isolated way. Of course they would, because:

1. The proper PCE tests indicate correctness that happens to be in some or many other editions
2. The 1611 Edition is one of the sources for the correctness of the PCE, but some can be the 1769 Oxford

Ross tries to accuse me of fuzziness around this matter, when in fact he is trying to make fuzzy about the clarity of the issue. It’s like he is deliberately trying to make something silly, when it is evident that using something like bibleprotector.com/editions there is going to be consistency with the PCE the whole way through in many places.

So yes, we identify and determine the PCE by tests, but the PCE itself has a list of more and particular differences in an editorial sense if we were measuring the PCE between what was printed in 1911 (an extant copy) and what was printed in a Victorian KJB from some years before (another extant copy).

I think Ross didn’t understand things before he looked at all things I wrote, and has progressively learned things over recent months as he read what I wrote, and worse, because he has an a priori reason to reject what I have written, he is always approaching in an antithetical mode.

Ross says that Edmund Cushing in 1829 in his edited KJB has some places that agree to the PCE (because of adherence to the 1769 tradition and obviously at times people looked back at 1611 and made corrections, Scrivener mentions some editions of this sort).

Just notice how silly Ross goes: “This Massachusetts printing from 1829 is incredibly telling. It proves that readings Verschuur wants existed before 1900 and it also proves the theological bias of Verschuur. The publisher Edmund Cushing had no Pentecostal affiliation, yet one edition from the early nineteenth century had most of Bible Protector’s desired readings. It shows that Bible Protector must arbitrarily pick and choose readings to make his PCE argument work.”

First, Cushing’s work shows that editing, even with some good choices, was happening over the years. That’s no problem, that’s a pro-PCE argument, because it reiterates that editing is good and that others made good editorial choices, and that can be recognised in hindsight.

Second, and this is where Ross gets really silly, he talks about readings that I want. Now stop right there. Proper readings in the PCE is what Cambridge wanted. It’s nothing to do with my will that Cambridge printed a Bible with those readings in 1911 (or earlier), and likewise that Cambridge printed the same Edition (the PCE) in many different editions for 90 years.

How can they be readings I wanted when those readings prevailed in many copies, in Cambridge and Collins Bibles for a century?! I wasn’t even looking at this issue until the year 2000.

Third, Ross says, “It proves that readings Verschuur wants existed before 1900”. Yes, I know, many PCE edits are restorations of 1611 wordings, that is, Barker editions from 1611 to the 1630s. Of course the PCE is a lot to do with Cambridge restoring 1611 readings, just check out these examples, non-exhaustive, limited to Genesis to Psalms only:

Genesis 10:7 Sabtecha, Genesis 25:4 Abida, Joshua 10:1 Adoni-zedek, Joshua 13:18 Jahazah, Joshua 19:2 or Sheba, Joshua 19:19 Hapharaim, Joshua 19:19 Shion, 2 Samuel 5:14 Shammua, 2 Samuel 21:21 Shimea, 2 Samuel 23:37 Naharai, 1 Chronicles 1:38 Ezer, 1 Chronicles 2:47 Geshan, 1 Chronicles 2:49 Achsah, 1 Chronicles 5:11 Salchah, 1 Chronicles 7:1 Shimron, 1 Chronicles 7:19 Shemida, 1 Chronicles 7:27 Jehoshua, 1 Chronicles 23:20 Michah, 1 Chronicles 24:11 Jeshua, 2 Chronicles 20:36 Ezion-geber, 2 Chronicles 33:19 sin, 2 Chronicles 35:20 Carchemish, Ezra 2:2 Mispar, Ezra 4:10 Asnappar, Nehemiah 7:30 Geba, Job 30:6 clifts, Psalm 148:8 vapour, etc.

These are some places where the PCE was changed from the Victorian Cambridge, and these are all places where the PCE matches the 1611. It’s clear that the PCE restored a lot of 1611 stuff.

But Ross says, “and it also proves the theological bias of Verschuur.”

How? I mean, what theology am I upholding to support the restoration of 1611 spellings in places?

Ross says, “The publisher Edmund Cushing had no Pentecostal affiliation, yet one edition from the early nineteenth century had most of Bible Protector’s desired readings.”

And so we have it, the utter silliness. This silliness stands for itself.

Ross I think is now engaging in what appears to be deception, for he has already wrongly tried to say that the 12 tests for the PCE are somehow “Pentecostal”, which itself is based on nothing but his own wishful thinking, and now he says that other editions matching the PCE in some places has something to do with (or not to do with) Pentecostalism. Which just is silly, it would be like me saying that Ross is a clown, but because I don’t have a photo of him dressed in a clown, then Ross must be hiding that he is a clown. I really need not go on with this.

THE PRINTING PLATES

Ross says, “Verschuur does not provide documented historical evidence in Chapter 2 for his claims about World War I affecting Cambridge’s Bible plates”.

Actually, it is mentioned in Cambridge materials about printing plates being donated, and it is evident from printed Bibles that printing plates were amended. Like anyone doing scholarship, I am mentioning the facts and possibilities.

We know that in fact Cambridge was turning towards Monotype, and that a new series of Bible plates were made from after the war. This is evident from Cambridge sources as well as the evidence of extant Bibles themselves as a product of that process.

Ross then says, “Verschuur then asserts that ‘all new Bibles’ that were set after WWI followed the Lectern Bible form 1911.” Actually, it appears that all new Bibles printed were the PCE as the Lectern also was, that would be consistent with scholarly practice in examining all the information and extant evidence.

We are told in quotes from Cambridge historians that a new round of Bibles was made in the 1920s, we can find reference to this happening from Cambridge, and we can also see it by evidence of Bibles like Sapphires, Cameos and so on.

Ross seems more interested in casting doubt, including around putting way more emphasis on the melting of book plate, but does admit, “even if Verschuur’s WWI plate-replacement/melting narrative is not proven, his specimen-based evidence still supports a narrower claim: many post-war, newly originated Cambridge settings (e.g., Sapphire, Cameo, Turquoise, later Ruby 32mo, Brevier Octavo, Pitt Minion) match the PCE markers, while legacy plate lines show mixed corrections that produced both Pure and near-Pure outcomes during the transition”.

Surprisingly factual there. Even his use of “Pure” without quotes is good.

But he goes on, again to cast doubt, “he offers no CUP archival directive”. This is a foolish and pointless point, because Cambridge doesn’t know. They have not brought out any archival material on the subject in any direction.

Everything being pointed to is based on extant literature on the subject and primary source analysis. If we knew of Cambridge’s archival information, we would consider it. So Ross is being very unfair, because he is doubting good scholarship because it lacks “omniscient knowledge” as though research must be doubted because it is only based on extant facts (empiricism) and justifiable conjecture (rationalism). It’s really because Ross wants to reject what I have to say that he is treating me so grossly unfairly.

He then tries to question the conjectural list I produced of the 26 different Cambridge Bibles from 1921. The documentary evidence says there are 26. People can judge my scholarship in trying to guess the 26. He doesn’t say anything about that, rather, he tries to doubt that all new Bibles from Cambridge are PCE.

The evidence is that all new Bibles from Cambridge were PCE. We can see them historically and today. The evidence is that there were some that were not changed, the Victorians, and I’ve bought them online, so I can see them. The evidence is that some plates were changed to be PCE, but missed the Spirit leading Jesus into the wilderness sometimes.

Ross writes, “the categorical ‘all new Bibles … were PCE’ overreaches the evidence and is better restated as ‘most newly set, post-WWI Cambridge Bibles align with the Lectern/PCE baseline; plate-based carryovers varied.’”

He is trying to be pedantic but actually, it is so far evident that there are old Victorian plates unchanged, Victorian plates changed to be PCE (or near PCE), and new printings made which are PCE.

So what I have said about the state of KJBs and Cambridge and what was happening in 1921 stands.

What Ross may be trying to do is to get rid of the concept of the PCE as being descriptive of historical editions, and just talk in pure empiricism about the 1911 Lectern Bible as being of the same editorial variety as the newly printed Sapphires, Cameos and Turquoise, and perhaps without saying they are PCE, because he might want to make the words “Pure Cambridge Edition” only apply to my electronic text of the 21^st century, and because he then could highlight, in a naturalistic sense, the few little differences between the Sapphires, Cameos and Turquoise as compared to the Lectern, on the pedantic grounds of two hyphens and the case of a letter “A”. If indeed he is trying to do that, he would be doing it to create a propagandistic lie that there is no PCE in the 20^th century.

Ross directly says, “Add to this … that Cambridge University Press has no institution [sic] knowledge of ever intentionally editing the text to create the PCE.” So the intention to imply that there is no real editing to even make the editorial text as is evident in the Lectern KJB of 1911 could be designed to build his propagandist lie. He is not denying that it is different, he is using Cambridge not knowing to cast a doubt upon it. Even though David Norton said it happened. And even though the empirical examination shows the editorial differences between the Lectern KJB of 1911 and other Cambridge KJBs around that time.

This editing has a name, and has a name for all different settings which followed, they are called editions of the PCE.

However, happily, Ross does at least admit “Cambridge was printing multiple streams of King James text” and includes the PCE, so thankfully he hasn’t fully denied reality. At the same time, he states the error that Victorian and near-PCEs were printed “throughout the 20th century”. Actually, no, near-PCEs faded out and the last time Victorian PCEs were printed that I know of, besides in the Interlinear AV/RV was the Brevier NTs for the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II.

So in the 1920s, “all newly set after WWI were PCE” is correct. Here I detect Ross trying to make the Lectern of 1911 “the PCE” and the PCEs of the 1920s not PCE because he is trying to specify or limit PCE-ness to only an original prototype rather than an archetype.

His faulty reasoning is to ascribe a specific print-run or set of printing plates as “the” PCE, with all its minor faults that may be from human typesetting and so on, rather than the holistic and consistent approach which requires a critical representation, which is what the Bible Protector text file copy does for the printed PCEs.

Ross’ approach seems scholarly, but is also pandering to an Enlightenment approach.

For example, Ross could argue that the original autographs of Scripture are the perfect singular originals, or that the 1611 printing is the singular premier standard. The problem is that we access the originals by looking at many copies of it, not a singular prototype. Likewise, even Ross cannot hold up the 1611 printing by itself since he considers the input from drafts and alleged drafts, as well as obviously the need to consult consecutive printings from Barker, Bill and Norton (Royal Printers, London).

I have laid out very clearly that while the work of the editor to make the PCE is good, we are looking at copy-editing which is a whole other field, which must take into account various printed PCEs, and thus, a critically copy-edited text was published by Bible Protector.

THE PCE IS HISTORICAL

Ross goes on, “The data highlighted above from Verschuur’s own list of Cambridge editions in 1921 significantly weakens his claim that the PCE had already emerged as a unified, dominant, or even clearly defined textual standard by that time.”

No, my information represents reality. Look at when the KJB was first printed, how Geneva Versions popped up until the 1640s.

The PCE took over, that’s the point. Taking over happens by degrees. It happens by changing plates, it happens by printing new Bibles. That’s why every new KJB made by Cambridge until the Pitt Minion were all PCEs. Then they made the Concord, the new Crystal and the Compact.

Ross writes, “Rather than showing a decisive editorial breakthrough around 1910–1911 that produced a new, pure standard, the evidence instead suggests a gradual, uneven, and largely undocumented drift toward certain readings—while the Press continued to publish numerous non-PCE editions for decades.”

The Press did continue with a variety, yes, but that’s not a failure of showing that there was editing. It is logical that there was editing to even make the PCE. When you only have one correct printing plate set of a new edition, you have to keep printing other sizes and styles that aren’t updated. Yes they didn’t amend all the plates, yes there were near Pures for a while. But that’s all reality, so for a while there were various different printings. This is not evidence which Ross illogically tries to frame as if there is no “editorial breakthrough”. Where does that terminology even come from? The argument sounds very weird, like it was conceived by AI.

There was very clearly a PCE in 1911 that was very different to Victorian Era Cambridge KJB Bibles we can see from a few years before. Just because AI cannot “see” it doesn’t mean it didn’t happen.

It is true that there were still Victorian editions listed as being available in the 1950s. Why would we expect that only PCEs exist, that Cambridge would somehow know to expunge everything and only print the PCE? No, they didn’t know how important the PCE really was, they acted as providential agents.

Ross goes on to say, “Verschuur furnishes no evidence that anyone identified the PCE as a distinctly ‘pure’ form of the Cambridge text until he did in the early 21st century. The influence of the popular Scofield Reference Bible published by Oxford would also need to be considered.”

I can only present actual evidence, not invent archival information that may or may not exist at Cambridge University Press or their library. I can only present what can be induced from common sense about what has been written, and what can be observed empirically, and what can be understood. In this, it should be a judgment of scholarly soundness and reality that the PCE exists, that it is proper.

And just because the Scofield Oxford was used by certain classes of Christians is not a factor as to its editorial integrity. The Scofield was never by any providential means upheld as more typographically or editorially accurate than Cambridge KJBs, but we have Waite, Ruckman, Riplinger, Vance and many others all preferring Cambridge.

ROSS’ ROBOTIC POINTS

I suspect that Ross actually used AI to make his points, because this statement from Ross is very easy to refute: “The result is an argument that is stronger than a bare assertion yet short of a complete scholarly proof, because the book never reproduces the actual twelve PCE test readings from the 1911 Lectern Bible itself.”

Hmm, really, so now I have to reproduce 12 tests from a 1911 Lectern Bible for some reason?

Here’s another doozy that sounds very AI, “As a result, while his argument is plausible and directionally suggestive, it falls short of the rigorous historical proof typically required to establish an exact origin point for a major textual standard.”

Um, I don’t know what is the first printing of the PCE, that’s not my fault.

And again, “identifying 1911 as the first confirmed exemplar”. No, an exemplar is the first printing which I have said I don’t actually know if it is. It might be probable, but I don’t actually know certainly. I’m not trying to prove that it is. I’m not trying to robotically adhere to the first prototype copy. I can imagine that AI would interpret that way about my book.

Ross says, “Instead, Cambridge produced multiple parallel textual streams—including PCE, near-PCE, and Victorian editions (according to Verschuur’s classifications)—that disagreed in spelling, capitalization, and wording, with even PCE-labeled printings differing from one another.”

There’s a massive amount of nuance there that is missed, or is misrepresented for propagandistic purposes. The difference between a Victorian KJB and two printings of the PCE are very different things. One is on the level of editing, the other on the level of copy-editing.

Ross then says, “As a result, the first fully consistent PCE was not any physical Bible, but the 2006 electronic text file assembled by Verschuur, making the digital edition a new, harmonized construction rather than a reproduction of a historically standardized printed text.”

So, because I didn’t photocopy a Bible (the false charge of “verbatim identicality”) but had a text file which I printed (and I did), that somehow invalidates something?

In other words, Ross has falsely charged me with believing in a fake belief called “verbatim identicality”. This is because he believes in his own recently made up doctrine called “verbal equivalence”. In fact, there is a true position that is between both wrong castings.

The PCE represents the best editing of the KJB, and we have a copy of it that is without typographical error, which is a blessing.