[Will Kinney]

A Bible Believer’s Response to the book 'King James Onlyism: A New Sect'.

As many of you know, Dr. James D. Price, chairman and Old Testament editor of the New King James Version, and O.T. professor at Temple Baptist theological seminary in Chattanooga, Tennessee has written a 658 page book called 'King James Onlyism: A New Sect' in which he tries to prove that the King James Holy Bible is not the complete, preserved, inspired and infallible word of God.

In his opening page he correctly defines what he calls "this new doctrine" as the belief that "the King James Bible is the providentially preserved Word of God, and is actually the only and final authority in all matters of faith and practice for the English-speaking world today." He then goes on to say that during the early 1970's when he first heard of the King James Only idea that "I could not believe that anyone would advocate such a teaching."

Let it be clearly stated from the very beginning of my response to his book that Mr. Price's belief is that there does not exist today, nor has there ever existed anywhere on this earth, a complete Book containing all the inspired, infallible, providentially preserved and 100% true words of God. Mr. Price has no such Book to recommend to anyone and he knows it.

This is not to say nor to even imply that Mr. Price is therefore not a Christian. From what I know of him, I believe he is a true believer in the Lord Jesus Christ as being his only Lord God and Saviour from sin and hell. The Bible version issue is not a salvation issue. God can and obviously does save His people by means of hearing the gospel of salvation through the Lord Jesus Christ, who died on the cross as our Substitute and rose again from the dead to give us eternal life. This central truth is found even in the poorest of bible translations. I do not deny this, but affirm it to be true.

However it is an undeniable fact that Mr. Price and multitudes like him do not believe that God has fulfilled His promises to preserve all His words of truth in any single "book of the LORD" here on this earth today. This is the central issue discussed in his book and addressed by my response to it.

Throughout his book he presents what he thinks is the conservative, traditional view that ONLY the originals were inspired. He continually refers in a nebulous and undefined manner to "THE Hebrew and THE Greek" IN THE PRESENT TENSE as the only inspired word of God, apparently hoping that no one will notice that there is no such animal on the face of this earth, and there is wide and intense disagreement as to what "the originals" may or may not have said.

On page 2 he affirms the position he was taught at seminary by favorably referring to a quote from Henry C. Thiessen, a man he calls "a well-known conservative theologian" who wrote concerning the divine inspiration of Scripture: "Inspiration is affirmed ONLY of the autographs (the originals) of the Scriptures, not of any of the versions, whether ancient or modern, nor of any Hebrew or Greek manuscripts in existence, nor of any critical text known."

The logic and consistency of Mr. Price's arguments break down at every point and leave us with no complete and infallible Bible TODAY. He himself doesn’t follow nor believe the formal Westminster Confession he quotes from regarding the Inspiration and Preseration of Scripture. Yet he inconsistenly holds this up as his view regarding the Scriptures.

He quotes with approval the London Confession which is derived from the Westminster Confession of 1649 which says: “The Old Testament IN HEBREW, and the New Testament IN GREEK, being immediately inspired by God AND BY HIS CARE AND PROVIDENCE KEPT PURE IN ALL AGES, ARE therefore authentical; so as in all controversies of Religion, the Church is finally to appeal to them.”

It should be asked at this point that if Mr. Price really believes this great statement of faith, then why does he himself not believe that the true Old Testament text has been providentially preserved in the Hebrew? As we shall see, Mr. Price often sides with versions like the NIV, NASB, RSV, ESV and Holman Standard where these editors believe the Hebrew texts have been either corrupted or lost, and he instead supports the wildly variant readings taken from either the alleged Greek Septuagint, the Syriac, the Vulgate or just plain made up by men?

All these modern versions are put out by men who believe the Hebrew Scriptures have been corrupted in numerous places, and yet they don’t agree among themselves as to where nor how. You can see proof of this by consulting my articles on this subject at my website here:

http://www.geocities.com/brandplucked/NIVapos.html and here:

http://www.geocities.com/brandplucked/NIVapos2.html

Mr. Price further reveals his obfuscation and poorly thought out position by continually saying things like he does on page five: “No translation is granted authority over THE Hebrew and Greek”. Mr. Price, WHICH Hebrew and WHICH “the” Greek are you referring to? Anyone can go to the footnotes of such modern versions as the NIV, RSV, ESV, and Holman Standard and see for themselves that they constantly refer to “Some Hebrew manuscripts read”, “two Hebrew mss. read”; “A few Hebrew mss. read”, “Dead Sea Scrolls read”, “Some Septuagint mss. read”; “a few late manuscripts of the Septuagint read”, “Many other Hebrew mss. read” etc.

As for “THE” Greek, anybody who has a rudimentary knowledge about the so called “science” of textual criticism, knows that there are at least 25 different printed Greek texts in existence, and many of these differ from the others anywhere from 3000 to over 7000 words for the New Testament alone, as documented by men like Dr. Donald Waite and Jack Moorman.

Following such Greek editions as Westcott and Hort, and the constantly changing Nestle-Aland critical texts, versions like the RSV have omitted some 40 entire verses from the N.T. text plus another 2000 words or so from other N.T. portions. Both the ever changing NASB and the NIV bracket or omit thousands of words that are found in the very NKJV that Mr. Price helped to translate and publish. The ESV omits even more entire verses from the N.T. than the NIV, but not as many as the previous RSV.

For an example of this textual confusion in the modern bibles, see my article about the new 2003 Holman Christian Standard Version. http://www.geocities.com/brandplucked/Holman.html

None of the modern versions like the NKJV, NIV, NASB, ESV or Holman always follows the same Hebrew or Greek texts, and even when they do, the resultant translations are often radically different in meaning from the other ones. So where is this “THE Hebrew and THE Greek” text to be found where Mr. Price assures us we have our Final Authority? Simple answer: No such animal exists and he knows it. He is blindly professing a faith in something he knows doesn’t exist and seems to hoping that nobody else will notice the Huge White Elephant standing in the middle of the room.

Typical of the long list of modern attempts to state their faith in the authority of an undefined “Scripture” is this one from the Southwide Baptist Fellowship found on page 7 of his book. It states: “We believe in the verbal inspiration of the 66 books of the Bible IN ITS ORIGINAL WRITINGS and that IT IS without error and IS the sole authority in all matters of faith and practice.” Well, this all sounds very pious indeed, but notice that both Mr. Price and this confession talk about something they have never seen a day in their lives, and that they all know does not exist, and yet they refer to it in the present tense as something that IS without error and IS our sole authority. This is an absurd and illogical fairy tale, and I and thousands of other Christians do not believe it for a second.

Mr. Price tries to make us think that the belief in the King James Bible as the only true Bible is some new heresy, but the truth of the matter is that the historical, formal confessions regarding the infallibility of Scripture all came out AFTER the King James Bible had gained a foothold among the English speaking people, and they support the King James only position rather than the more recent “originals only” view that leaves us with NO inspired Bible at all.

Please see the quotes and church confessions in the article titled ‘The Historic Confessions of Preservation Support the KJB View’ here:

http://www.geocities.com/brandplucked/KJBDebate.html

I recommend you also take read the article titled “The Bible IS NOT the inspired and inerrant words of God”, where you will find many quotes from modern day Biblical relativists like Mr. Price who deny the existence of an inspired Bible. Then contrast Mr. Price’s view from what the Scriptures themselves affirm.

It can be seen here: http://www.geocities.com/brandplucked/NoInerrant.html

Will Kinney