Category: Mark Ward – Authorized

Mark Ward Proves That Defending Inerrancy Means Nothing

The Young, Textless, and Reformed1 Comment

Many Christians believe that it is fundamental to defend the modern doctrine of Inerrancy. This would be true, if the doctrine of Inerrancy actually set forth anything meaningful. According to Mark Ward, Inerrancy means that “The Bible speaks truly in everything it affirms” (Ward. Bibliology for Beginners. 29.) Inerrancy is the doctrine that affirms the inspiration and authority of the Bible, but only in the original texts, which are no longer extant. This effectively makes it an utterly useless doctrine. Despite this fact, Ward gives four Scripture proofs to support this doctrine (I will use Ward’s translation from the book):

  1. “Your Word is truth” (John 17:17)
  2. “God is not a man, that He should lie” (Num. 23:19)
  3. “God, who cannot lie” (Titus 1:2)
  4. “The Scripture cannot be broken” (John 10:35)

Ward continues his thought by saying something quite interesting.

“It is sin to doubt God’s words, and like all sin it is a slippery slope…But how do we know what we have in our hands is really the Bible?”

(Ward. Bibliology for Beginners: What Does the Bible Say About the Bible? 33. Ellipses represent a break.)

So here Ward has to answer the most important question possible. If he does not answer this question adequately, the entirety of his book is useless. The answer to this question informs what is actually substantiated by the doctrine of Inerrancy. It is one thing to say that the Bible is inerrant, and another to be able to point to a Bible and say, “This is inerrant.” So how does Ward answer this question? Well, we know, according to Ward, based on “a work called ‘textual criticism'” (49). This is where I need my reader to pay attention. See how he finishes this thought.

“Here’s where I need to say very directly, don’t be alarmed. Yes, there are differences among Greek New Testament manuscripts. Yes, I sometimes wish they weren’t there, that we knew with precise certainty what every last syllable of the Greek New Testament was. It may even seem like that’s what Jesus promised us.”

(Ward. Bibliology for Beginners: What Does the Bible Say About the Bible? 50.

Ward has used a clever use of words to obfuscate what he is actually saying, so I will translate for you. Surrounding this statement are explanations of the various kinds of scribal errors which do not amount to any serious variants. In this statement, he leads his reader to believe that these are the kinds of variants that we do not know “With precise certainty,” or that we are actually after “every last syllable.” What Ward is actually saying here is that we do not know with precise certainty what the original text said. At that point, whether we are talking about syllables or words does not matter, because there is no amount of granularity that can be determined with his standard. The entire purpose of this chapter is to lower the guard of the Christian’s that read this book. He concludes with this statement:

“The fact is that every available edition of the Greek New Testament gives the same law – and the same grace. They all teach the same Christian faith.”

(Ward. Bibliology for Beginners: What Does the Bible Say About the Bible? 50.

The first thing my reader should notice is that if this is what Ward actually believes, he has no right to attack the TR. In fact, he has no reason to write this book at all because all bibles are basically the same. The TR falls into the category of “every available edition of the Greek New Testament.” So either Ward doesn’t actually believe what he wrote here, or a good portion of his ministry is folly, according to his own standard. Not only is it folly, it is actually sin, again, according to his standard.

Secondly, my reader should notice that Ward introduces his own standard for how you should view the Bible. This is common among the Critical Text crowd. They almost always avoid exegeting the entirely of 2 Timothy 3:15-16. The Scriptures are “able to make thee wise unto salvation” in addition to being profitable for “doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness.” The Bible is not just a bare bones document that is only to be used for bringing people to Christ. It also informs the Christian’s entire life as it pertains to faith and practice. According to Ward, the “textual critics have weeded them (variants) out with a high degree of confidence” (Ibid. 58). That is to say that Ward has a low degree of uncertainty.

So let’s put this all together. According to Ward, “it is sin to doubt God’s words.” According to Ward, “every available edition of the Greek New Testament gives the same law – and the same Grace. They all teach the same Christian faith.” According to Ward, we can have “a high degree of confidence” in our Bible. So not only is Ward in sin for doubting the TR, he is also in sin for not having full confidence in his own Bible. He is further in sin for teaching people to sin by doubting God’s words. Keep in mind that this is all according to Ward’s own standard that he set in his book.

Lastly, I want my reader to note that nowhere has Ward actually answered the question, “how do we know that what we have in our hands is really the Bible?” He never identifies a particular text or translation and he never says anything other than that “we have a high degree of confidence” that what we have is a Bible. Which is to say, “we have a low degree of doubt.” Which again, according to Ward, is sin. The most important thing to recognize about this “high degree of confidence,” is that it is entirely arbitrary. There is no metric or component of the critical text methodology that actually allows for such a determination, which is apparent in the fact that Ward doesn’t actually substantiate anything he says in this book regarding his levels of confidence. This is the fatal flaw of the Critical Text, and everybody knows it. Mark Ward wrote an entire book about the Bible, and couldn’t even tell his reader what the Bible was, or that they could be fully confident in said Bible. According to Ward, that makes him “in sin.”

My reader needs to recognize that while this theology is actually foolish, but it is also a blessing. It is a blessing because men like Mark Ward very confidently state that they don’t actually believe in a Bible. They believe in a reconstructed text that bears witness to the Bible with a high degree of confidence. That is not the Protestant view, which allows people like you and me to mark and avoid teachers like Ward, Wallace, and White. It is the dividing line. It is the fight of this generation. People have stopped believing in the Bible and the authority of the Bible, and the aforementioned men are leading the charge to convince conservative Christians to do the same.

Mark Ward the Conspiracy Theorist

The Young, Textless, and Reformed8 Comments

Introduction

Mark Ward recently published a pamphlet in November 2020 called, Bibliology for Beginners: What Does the Bible Say About the Bible?. I’m going to do a full analysis on my YouTube channel in the coming weeks, but I ran across something too good not to comment on here. If you’re familiar with Ward’s work, you know that above all else he values that people be “nice” when disagreeing with him and people he likes. He re-emphasizes this on pages 65 and 66 when commenting on Crossway’s “Permanent Edition.”


“This means that when Crossway put out a Permanent Text Edition of their popular and excellent translation, the English Standard Version, promising no more revisions, Christian people should have complained on social media (nicely) and written into Crossway to object (nicely).”

Mark Ward. Bibliology for Beginners: What Does the Bible Say About the Bible?. 65-66.

Now it is comical that Mark Ward simultaneously lauds the ESV as an “excellent translation” while also stating that it is not excellent enough in its current state to be settled. I have said this often, but it’s entertaining to note that modern scholars praise their modern versions while at the same time commenting on the fact that they aren’t good enough to stay the same for more than a decade or good enough to be read in isolation. If it was such an “excellent” translation, why does it go through revisions so often or need to be supplemented with other “imperfect” translations? I imagine Crossway wouldn’t sell a lot of Bibles if they released a marketing campaign around Ward’s idea of “An imperfect Bible for an imperfect church!” Getting back to my point, we see here that Ward values the first commandment of evangelical scholarship so much he included it twice.

It is ironic that Ward very loudly and repeatedly states how much he needs people to be nice while simultaneously offering the harshest and most uncharitable critiques of people who disagree with him. He slaps people with the same hand he offers fellowship, but it’s fine as long as he does it with a soft voice and plenty silly, quirky, quips and analogies. If you don’t believe me, he literally compares the transmission of the Bible to the germs left on a cookie that one of his kids licked from top to bottom and put back in the cookie jar. In this article, I am going to demonstrate that Ward seems to have an extremely conspiratorial view of what he calls “KJV Onlyists.”

Wide Eyed Conspiracy Theories

On page 67, Ward offers the most honest definition of “KJV Onlyism” employed by Critical Text advocates.

“KJV-Onlyists insist that the KJV is the only truly trustworthy translation of Scripture. It is, they say, the best translation of the best texts.”

Mark Ward. Bibliology for Beginners: What Does the Bible Say About the Bible?. 67.

I have been saying for a long time that men like Ward and James White define “KJV Onlyists” as anybody who reads a KJV, but here he says it clearly. What my reader needs to recognize is that when people use the term “KJV Onlyist,” they are not talking about the views of people who graduated from Ward’s Alma Mater. They are talking about anybody who reads a KJV.

After defining “KJV Onlyism,” Ward continues to produce one of the most unhinged takes I have ever seen on page 68.

“It must be pointed out that most KJV-Only Christians believe that the vast majority of Christians who can read Greek and Hebrew are stupid, crazy, or evil (rather than simply wrong) – dupes, dummies, or devils involved in a plot to undermine the Bible’s teaching about Christ’s deity. KJV-Onlyism is, in other words, a conspiracy theory.”

Mark Ward. Bibliology for Beginners: What Does the Bible Say About the Bible?. 68.

In a remarkably matter-of-fact statement made by Ward, he actually alleges that “most KJV-Only Christians” believe in a vast conspiracy propagated by “stupid, crazy, or evil” Christians. He shockingly insinuates that people who read the KJV believe that “vast majority of Christians who can read Greek and Hebrew” are “dupes, dummies, or devils involved in a plot to undermine the Bible’s teaching about Christ’s deity.” This is by far the most absurd thing I have read in a very long time. There is a difference between somebody saying, “This textual variant teaches something different about the divinity of Christ” and “There is a vast conspiracy to take Christ’s divinity out of Scripture.” Ironically, there are many people in Ward’s camp who allege that a conspiracy took place in the early church to add Christ’s divinity into the text, and that is pretty mainstream!

I will do my best to pick through Ward’s wild ideas. In the first place, the number of Christians who can read Greek and Hebrew is astonishingly small. Secondly, this statement demonstrates that the foremost recognized “KJV Scholar” hasn’t the slightest clue who actually reads the KJV. I suspect this could be due to the fact that he believes nobody can actually read the KJV. It seems that in order to make sense of why people read the KJV, Ward has concocted a world in which there is a massive group of conspiracy theorists in the church. This must be the only reason somebody would read a KJV! Instead of charitably stating that people who read the KJV simply disagree with the conclusions of modern textual scholarship, he sends his reader off the deep end into a ridiculous conspiracy theory that KJV readers are unhinged conspiracy theorists. Even though Ward states that “They say” that it is because the KJV is the best translation of the best texts, Ward posits that the true reason is a rampant conspiracy theory plaguing the church.

Conclusion

It’s funny how Critical Text advocates cannot write a book about their theology without talking poorly about the KJV and those who read it. In Ward’s case, it seems he got done watching CNN and realized that the “QAnon” strategy could also work in the realm of the Bible translation debate. Here’s the strategy:

  1. Find a conspiracy theory
  2. Misrepresent the conspiracy theory
  3. Paint all people from the group you don’t like as the same as those conspiracy theorists

There are certainly people that believe as Ward has described above, just like there were/are people who believe things on anonymous message boards. The same way that CNN paints “most conservatives” as “QAnon,” Ward paints “most KJV Onlyists” as conspiracy theorists. This is honestly embarrassing and I’m not sure who signed off on actually publishing these statements. It is such a bad take, in fact, that it is a conspiracy theory in itself. If Ward truly values being nice and charitable so much, it makes zero sense to call most of the 55% of people who read a Bible conspiracy theorists.

Overall, I found Ward’s take highly entertaining. He would rather believe that most KJV readers are conspiracy theorists than actually look at the arguments and interact with them. If anything, this should be encouraging to my readers who are TR advocates because the Critical Text guys have resorted to CNN arguments in their attempts to justify their text. When it comes down to it, Critical Text advocates have openly admitted that they have no ultimate standard by which they judge texts (James White), and that they don’t have a text today (Dan Wallace). I’ll leave my reader with four quotes, which are mostly for Mark Ward, because I know that he reads my blog.

“It is found again in the words of Jesus, who said, ‘The Scripture cannot be broken’ (John 10:35).”

Mark Ward. Bibliology for Beginners: What Does the Bible Say About the Bible?. 30.

“Even if the text of the Gospels could be fixed – and, when viewed at the level of object and material artifact, this goal has never been achieved”

Knust & Wasserman. To Cast the First Stone. 15.

“Think about this: if we need the testimony of a professional historian to testify that the testimony of Luke the Apostle is reliable, then who’s going to testify that the professional historian is reliable?”

Mark Ward. Bibliology for Beginners: What Does the Bible Say About the Bible?. 42.

“At some point, we’re just going to have to trust someone – why not let it be God?”

Mark Ward. Bibliology for Beginners: What Does the Bible Say About the Bible?. 42.

3 Terrible Reasons You Should Trust Modern Evangelical English Bible Translations

The Young, Textless, and Reformed2 Comments

Introduction

I recently watched this video by Mark Ward entitled, “3 Reasons Why You Should Trust Modern Evangelical English Bible Translations” and thought it would be helpful to write an article demonstrating just how ridiculous these points are. Without any further introduction, I will evaluate each of his reasons which are as follows:

  1. You have to
  2. Trustworthy people made them
  3. Trustworthy people use them

You Have to Trust Modern Evangelical Bible Translations

The simple and obvious answer to Ward’s first point is that no, you actually don’t have to trust or use any modern Bible versions. Now, Ward may have meant that “you have to trust a Bible translator” as he talks about that briefly, but the video says “3 Reasons Why You Should Trust Modern Evangelical Bible Translations.” So if point one is, “because you have to,” it’s clearly wrong. I have read the NIV, ESV, HCSB (CSB), and NASB and I can happily say I will never be returning to them other than for research. Most of my scripture memorization is in the ESV, and in my opinion, it’s not worth the paper it’s printed on compared to the KJV.

The basic point Ward makes here is that everybody, for the most part, has to trust a translator of some sort, so why not trust a modern translator? If you don’t know Greek and Hebrew, then you can’t actually make a determination one way or the other as to the quality of a translation. On that point, he is only correct in that most people don’t know Hebrew and Greek. He is wrong when he acts as a Gatekeeper to the conversation, telling Christians that if they do not know the original languages, then they cannot know if a translation is trustworthy. Using a slightly different and better argument, Christians can know if a translation is trustworthy by looking at the scholarship (not the scholar) of other Christians. Christians do not have to understand Hebrew and Greek if they are able to read an accurate analysis of the Hebrew and Greek in their original tongue.

Further, Ward tries to normalize the idea that Bible translations cannot be “perfect”, or rather, do not contain translational errors. This is a common strategy used by men of the Critical Text. They make the equivocation between “perfect” and “accurate”. A Bible can be 100% accurately translated, and why would Christians want to be comfortable with a Bible that isn’t? If it is discovered that a translation has made an error, it should be fixed in the next edition, right? Shouldn’t we hold these trustworthy men to that standard? They have a text before them in one language, and their task is to translate it into a target language. The expectation isn’t that a translation come out of the translators committee perfect on the first go, but shouldn’t it get there eventually? Greek and Hebrew are languages that can be known and translated, and if Mark Ward thinks something has been translated incorrectly in the Bible he reads, why doesn’t he tell all of his translator friends that they made an error so they can fix it? Apparently having a poorly translated Bible is something Christians should just accept. Why would a Bible version that isn’t accurately translated, by Mark Ward’s own admission, be considered trustworthy? This seems to actually be an argument against his point.

Trustworthy People Made Modern Evangelical Translations

In this segment of the video, Ward appeals to the character of the people on various translation teams to demonstrate why we should trust modern versions. According to Ward, somebody being able to hike the Grand Canyon and having a good sense of humor are among some of the reasons to trust a Bible translation. Plainly stated, it is remarkably absurd to say that we should trust a Bible because the person who translated it virtuous Christian. There are plenty of trustworthy people in the church that have error in one area or another. It is astounding that an argument like this could even make a list of 3 items. According to Ward, if a Bible translation is made by somebody trustworthy, the translation therefore must be trustworthy.

If this is the case, let’s take Dan Wallace, who Mark Ward lists as a trustworthy source for whether a Bible translation is trustworthy or not, at his own words.

“We do not have now – in any of our critical Greek texts or in any translations – exactly what the authors of the New Testament wrote. Even if we did, we would not know it. There are many, many places in which the text of the New Testament is uncertain.”

Dan Wallace

According to Mark Ward, the trustworthiness of our Bibles should be at least in part based on the trustworthiness of the scholars who created them and use them. If this is the case, it seems that there actually aren’t any Bibles that can be trusted. In opposition to Ward’s conclusion, if we are to trust these men, it doesn’t appear the Modern Evangelical Bible translations are trustworthy at all if we as Christians are concerned with exactly what Paul wrote.

Trustworthy People Use Modern English Bible Translations

This is the same form of argument as the second point on Mark Ward’s list, only it is applied to those that use these Bibles as opposed to those who created those Bibles. Ward appeals to the Holy Spirit for this argument to say that God would not let so many Christians read a bad text. I don’t have to engage further because Ward actually refutes his own argument in the video itself when discussing a pamphlet called “Trusted Voices on Translation”.

“It doesn’t prove that any given Modern English Bible translation is trustworthy, it shows only that countless Evangelical luminaries of the past, thought it was possible to trust the KJV and newer translations of their day”

The same thing can be said about Ward’s argument in this video. According to Ward, if a trustworthy Christian uses a Bible translation, then that translation must be trustworthy. All Ward has demonstrated is that people he trusts made and read modern translations.

His argument can be further refuted by using his own logic when he says that a translation cannot be perfect because the people translating are sinners. By this logic we can easily say that a Christian can’t be the determining factor in whether a Bible is trustworthy because they are a sinner! If a sinner can be wrong in translation, they can be wrong in discernment too, and Ward’s argument again falls to the ground. It’s not God’s fault that a sinner is imperfect, and we don’t hastily blame God for the sins of men. I’m not saying that reading an ESV makes somebody a sinner, just that if we are to assume Ward’s premise of sinful men making errors in translation, we can apply it readily to sinful men making errors in which Bible translation they read.

Conclusion

In short, a response to Ward’s three points can be answered in much less words than I’ve written here. I’ll end by answering Ward’s argument simply.

Do Christians have to trust modern bible translations, because, well they have to?

No.

Do Christians have to trust modern bible translations because the scholars who produced them are trustworthy?

No.

Do Christians have to trust modern bible translations because people that use them are trustworthy?

No.

As far as I can tell, this video said nothing of significance other than, “Trust the scholars and the people who trust the scholars.” I for one am not convinced by this presentation, and I would argue that nobody should be. The scholars and people that use Modern Evangelical Bible translations may very well be trustworthy, but that has nothing to do with whether or not a translation is trustworthy. And if we do adopt Ward’s arguments as true, we have to also adopt Ward’s arguments as false simultaneously! Ultimately it comes down to what threshold we set for a translation being considered trustworthy, and Ward has set the bar extraordinarily low.

I’ll end by leaving my reader with an analogy. I am a software analyst. If I were to commit code to our production servers at work, the company I work for expects that code to work. They would expect that I have tested every line of my code. They would expect that I wouldn’t release code with errors in it. They expect it to be trustworthy. If I submitted code and it breaks the application, I’d have to answer for it. If my response to my boss was, “There are many, many places in which my code is uncertain,” I’d be fired or at the very least reprimanded for knowingly releasing bad code. It doesn’t matter how virtuous, nice, or agreeable I am. It doesn’t matter how trustworthy I am.

When it comes to our Bibles, we have to be willing to hold our translators to at least the same standard that a secular company holds its employees to, even if they do happen to be the nicest and funniest and well-meaning people in the whole of the world. Christians should have higher standards than the world, not lower, and if I can’t get away with this kind of work in my day job, why should we give translators a pass for something far more important such as the translated Word of God that Christians use daily? Is this really our standard? Because somebody is trustworthy we ignore their work product? It is undiscerning and unwise to admit that the translational work product isn’t perfect and then give a pass simply because the men who made the translations are well intentioned, trustworthy people. If you want people to trust modern bible translations, it would make sense to stop advertising them as “imperfect” and then appealing to the Christian character of the people that made them.

Three Practical Ways to Teach Your Children to Read the KJV

The Young, Textless, and Reformed3 Comments

Introduction

I recently wrote an article called, “A Low View of Parents and Pastors” and a reader of my blog commented and asked for some practical ways to help children learn the Bible. I am by no means an expert, but I was raised by educators and I might be able to offer some insights based on my personal experience. I’m sure some teachers can add more in the comments.

The basic argument that I have set forth is that if a child is raised reading a translation, they will know the vocabulary of that translation by the time they reach adulthood and even earlier. Since Ward has not produced any real data related to the actual literacy of KJV readers, I am stuck responding to an anecdotal argument with my own anecdotes. Carm.org, a site that has some valuable apologetic resources but is dogmatically modern critical text only, lists 171 archaic words in the KJV and their modern equivalents. Often times words considered “archaic” like “untoward” or “visage” are not actually archaic, just outside of the commonly used English vernacular. Pro-KJV sites like AV1611.com list many more, and most KJV’s have King’s English glossaries in the back which might include up to 700 words (many of which you probably know).

It is difficult to say exactly how many words in the KJV might be considered above the average reading level or archaic, but the number varies depending on whether or not geographical locations are listed or difficult words are included as archaic and how exactly one might define “difficult” or “archaic”. It is important to remember that many of these words are still in use today, especially in fiction and even video games. Part of the reason the KJV was easy for me to pick up, interestingly enough, was due to my video game hobby growing up.

The real issue is not necessarily “archaic” words, it is words that might be considered false cognates, or “false friends” as Mark Ward likes to call them. Normally, this concept is used in the realm of learning foreign languages so it’s application to the KJV is quite suspect. Despite what Ward says, the KJV is written in English. The only real challenge to reading the KJV for most people are words that have shifted in meaning, but these can be learned, and are still English. Unfortunately men like Mark Ward make the case that the smattering of “false friends” make the KJV altogether unintelligible, which is downright false and bordering on dishonest. The vast majority of words in the KJV are not “false friends.” In this article, I will examine several ways to help children and people of all ages learn how to recognize and understand these difficult words.

Practical Pedagogy

As I have stated before on this blog, the problem with not understanding the KJV is not one of textual criticism, it is one of language learning and vocabulary. In order to fluently read a language, most polyglots/language scholars say that you must recognize about 94% of the words on a page. This is important, because for some unknown reason, men like Mark Ward make it seem like 100% literacy is required for something to be intelligible.

While I think that Ward’s perspective demonstrates how little he actually understands about language learning and the English language overall, it is important to note that 100% literacy is never required in any language. Most seminary Greek professors can hardly get through one page of their Greek New Testament without stopping to check a dictionary and they still claim to know Greek. In Kostenberger’s advanced Greek textbook, he recommends an astonishingly low goal of 10 verses a day to maintain “proficiency”. Most native English speakers are at about a B2 fluency in English, which is levels beyond the average seminary Greek professor in Greek. The point is that many of these scholars have a strange understanding of language proficiency and learning and we should really take what they have to say with a huge grain of salt. Regardless, I want to present three practical ways to teach children the “historical” English of the KJV. Keep in mind this is catered to the average child, which means I am not taking into consideration the special needs of those with learning disabilities or other conditions that might hinder the educational process.

1. Teach Children How to Fish

As parents and Christians, we should know our Bibles well. That does not mean we know every single word. Nobody knows every definition of every word in their Bible, no matter what translation is used. A common tactic used by anti-KJV types is to take a vocab word out of its context and to quiz people on it. They gather lists of difficult words and ask people to define them, knowing that the average KJV reader will score 20% on their test. They then use this to say that KJV readers cannot understand the KJV.

If I asked the average person what dappled, portent, retinue, or satraps meant, I could make a solid case using Ward’s logic that the NIV is unintelligible to the modern English speaker. The simple solution to Ward’s perplexing non-issue is to teach children how to look up words they don’t know. This is a skill we all should have, but it is not a skill we know out of the box. Rather than teaching our kids that reading is impossibly difficult, we should give them the tools to learn new words. This follows the logic of the old proverb of teaching men to fish, rather than just giving them a fish.

2. Read to Your Kids, A Lot

The number one indicator for literacy is not how well children scored on their vocab tests. The average person is capable of memorizing ten words a week and writing the definitions down on paper. A better indicator of adult literacy is how often they were read to as a child. Even if you think your child cannot understand what you are reading to them, read to them anyway. Now apply this to Bible reading. Read the Bible to your kids daily. Take the time to define words that we do not use in our daily vernacular like “thee” and “ye.” My parents read to me until I was 9 years old, even when I already knew how to read. They only stopped when I complained that I “was too old” for them to read to me (and I probably was, but it is times like those I look back on fondly). If you are an adult and struggle reading your Bible, read your Bible more. This is also great advice for those that are learning other languages, like Greek. You will never attain proficiency in a language by rote memorization. You have to speak it, hear it, and read it.

3. Teach Your Children to Annotate Their Books

One of the best strategies for retaining information we read in books is annotating the margins or note cards and marking words or concepts we don’t understand. I personally also use sticky notes or color coded tabs to indicate places in books that I want to return to for review. One of the greatest mistakes we can make as teachers is simplifying literacy to vocab memorization. We need to be invested in learning how to learn, and teaching our children how to learn. One exercise that I used to do was mark words with a pencil that I did not understand, put a sticky note on the page, and then review the words with my mom after I had spent some time in the dictionary. This is a helpful exercise that can be applied to Bible reading and provide a great opportunity to be involved with your child’s education if you do not home school. A simple axiom to apply to this point is to be more involved in your child’s education. Behind every great adult reader is a parent that spent time with them as a child.

Conclusion

The solution to Mark Ward’s problem with the KJV is one that can be resolved by simply teaching children how to learn and being involved with their Bible education. On a somewhat related note, it is also imperative that we do not teach our children to be critics, but students. It is not our job to critique the Scriptures, but to learn from them. The critical schools have poisoned our brains to believe that we are to approach all texts as scholars and academics, including the Bible. We are taught to question the validity of a passage before reading it and to craft our own translation of a passage using a lexicon, even if we do not know the original languages. We are taught that “we know better” and that there is nothing valuable in the realm of language to be learned from the men of old. If you survey the modern landscape of scholarly theological works, they are filled with new translations and Greek word games. Whether you want to admit it or not, this is a fruit from the postmodern tree. This is a devastating perspective, and we are seeing the fruit of it now in our seminaries and churches.

We have to see past the rhetoric of men like Mark Ward and remember that God made us to be language learners. It is something that is truly remarkable about our brains. We often glance past the reality that children go from not understanding any language to being practically fluent by the grade school. The human brain is designed to learn language out of the box, and we need to apply that to learning the language of our Bible. To my reader, do not be discouraged by anti-KJV rhetoric, treat each new word as a way to expand your vocabulary and learn something new about what God is speaking to you in the Scriptures.

A Low View of Pastors & Parents

The Young, Textless, and Reformed6 Comments

Introduction

One of the common arguments against the King James Version is that it is too difficult to read. The archaic words are said to be, at least to one degree or another, impossible to learn. I am going to use Mark Ward as an example here, because he is the architect of many versions of this argument. He often makes the case that even if you think you understand what a passage is saying, you likely don’t. He then will give a handful of anecdotes explaining how he didn’t understand the KJV growing up, or how he still can’t understand the KJV. I personally don’t believe that a man who sounds like a thesaurus has trouble understanding what the word “meat” means in the KJV, but that’s another conversation. This is one of the foundations for advocating for something like the Message or the New Living Translation. According to modern Bibliology, the Bible ought to be readable at every place, no matter your reading comprehension level. If you can’t understand every passage in one version, you are to adopt or consult another version rather than learning the word you don’t understand.

Now let’s set aside the fact that this is an absurd practice. The Bible is going to have words you need to learn, no matter the translation. We should be encouraging Christians to simply learn new words, rather than abandoning a translation every time they encounter a word that is too difficult. That being said, since the argument is often framed around the difficulty children have at learning difficult words in their Bible translation, we have to talk about what the real issue is here: parents and pastors. What is almost always left out of the discussion is the role that parents and pastors have in teaching both children and adults the Bible.

Like a Children’s Cartoon, the Parents Are Nowhere to Be Found

If you’ve ever watched a lot of children’s cartoons with your young kids, you may notice that many of them rarely give screen time to parents. In Disney movies and shows meant for young kids, a lot of the time it’s the kids figuring things out on their own without a parent to be seen. Instead of seeking help from their parents to solve a basic problem, these characters go on grand adventures and put themselves in great peril to figure things out on their own. Almost every argument I have seen leveled against the intelligibility of the KJV is the same way. These arguments seem to exclude the most important component of the discussion, which is how people learn to understand their Bible.

In this case, there should be two category distinctions that are almost never made: people raised in the church and people not raised in the church. In the case of Mark Ward, he was raised in the church, yet his arguments never seem to include stories about how he learned to understand his Bible. In fact, the only stories he does include are how pastors were too inept to understand relatively easy words in the KJV (For more, see my series on Authorized). He paints this picture that out of all of the people he knew growing up, none of them really understood what the KJV was saying. It is quite a condemnation on the community Ward grew up in. I often find myself feeling bad for the faithful men and women who Ward grew up with, because he often only highlights how inept they were. Clearly these people deserve more credit than Ward gives them, because he grew up to be somewhat of a leading scholar in understanding the KJV.

Perhaps it is true that the people in Ward’s community had remarkably low reading comprehension or that the parents in his community really didn’t invest in teaching their kids to read the KJV, but it seems very unlikely. If that is truly the case, his book must have been a harsh and necessary rebuke to all of the people he grew up with. In a recent video called, “A Pastor Asks: What if I Prefer the KJV Because it Gives My Kids a Broad Vocabulary?”, Ward really demonstrates his lack of understanding of the average parent. It also demonstrates how committed Ward is to steering people away from the KJV at all costs.

Ward makes the case against learning “historical” English because “the Bible values intelligibility more.” I have commented on this rhetoric before as being extremely condescending and disconnected. Despite Ward constantly asserting that the KJV is unintelligible, there are many, many Christians who can understand it. It also speaks to Ward’s lack of understanding of how English is taught and learned. I was brought up in the public school system, where as a foundation I was taught basic Latin root words as well as Shakespeare prior to getting to 9th grade. I imagine Ward had a similar experience, since he was educated in America. As Christians, we should never set the bar lower than secular institutions when it comes to our education. If you want to get a reality check on just how low the Christian standard for education is in 2020, spend ten bucks on this book that William Sprague wrote to his teenage daughter.

That point aside, Ward’s argument speaks especially to the fact that he sees pastors and parents as essentially irrelevant to the discussion of learning how to read the Bible. The only real way Ward has set forth to understanding difficult words is by having access to his preferred dictionary. In the real world, parents and pastors are the dictionary. I am currently watching my 2 1/2 year old learn English right now, and I am quite literally her dictionary. She asks, “What does that [word] mean?” and “What is this thing?” and “What does that do?” and “What is this color?” and so on.

As parents, we should be involved in the formation of our children’s vocabulary. When they do not understand a word, we teach them. If we do not know the definition of a word, we find out, and then teach our children. Our pastors do the same thing when it comes to our Biblical vocabulary. Yes, there is such a thing as “Biblical vocabulary.” I can’t count the times I’ve heard pastors take a moment to explain what the word “propitiation” means, because it is a word that we don’t normally encounter in our vernacular English.

In KJV churches, pastors do this all the time when they encounter an archaic word. If you’ve ever listened to KJV preaching, pastors pause briefly throughout the sermon to provide a definition for a word that is not a part of our normal vernacular English. If you are a KJV pastor that doesn’t do this, I highly recommend doing it. In the context of the Christian church, parents and pastors are the primary means that people learn new words that are outside of their daily vernacular.

Conclusion

The basic argument that the KJV is unintelligible speaks to a low view of parents, pastors, and the English language altogether. If you told my sister, a high school English teacher, that we should only be teaching kids contemporary vocabulary, she would laugh at you. If you told my mom, who runs a schoolhouse, that teaching middle schoolers Latin and Greek roots was unnecessary because it’s not “intelligible” to an English speaker, she’d write you off immediately.

If you listen to a conversation of what “contemporary vernacular English” sounds like, you would especially be exposed as disconnected. The irony of it all, is that Ward constantly uses flowery language that the average person has to google to understand. He sounds like a thesaurus that has the flu. Understanding “historical” English is a part of our toolkit for learning new words and understanding literature that is technically higher than our current reading level. Latin, German, and Greek are all a part of “historical” English, and we learn root words in these languages all the time to help us understand “contemporary” English. Even the secular system recognizes the importance of this.

The standard educational route of American children is adequate to read at least 95% of the KJV. Most passages in the KJV are written at a fourth grade reading level, with some pushing up to a 12th grade reading level. The same can basically be said for the ESV. The problem with continuing to paint the KJV as “unintelligible” is that it is actually not. Further, with the help of parents and pastors, most people can easily bridge the small gap of archaic words to fully understand the KJV without a dictionary or footnotes or commentary or internet search.

If you throw these tools into the mix, it is quite absurd to even make the argument that the KJV cannot be understood. You basically have to admit that you’ve never tried to read the KJV all the way through. The strategy of highlighting 20 difficult passages can be applied to literally any Bible translation. Most people are not so willing to insult their own intelligence, or the intelligence of the people in their church. Think about how ridiculous this argument is in a context where nearly everybody has access to a smart phone. In order to actually accept or make this argument, you not only have to believe that the average Christian is quite stupid, but you also have to believe that you are quite stupid.

Now it is true that many Christians pretend to understand things they don’t actually understand. It is true that there are KJV readers out there who think they understand every word but don’t. That is why we are a part of churches. That is why we have pastors and friends to help us. If your pastor preaches verse by verse through Scripture, you will learn difficult words organically through sermons and sermon discussions. If you read your Bible daily, this is especially true. If you grow up in a faithful house that does family worship as the confession prescribes, you will be equipped to read any translation you want, even the KJV.

The point is that the discussion of Bible intelligibility is primarily a discussion about education. When somebody makes the case that the KJV cannot be understood, it is really a condemnation of pastors and parents who did not bring up their children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. We have to stop setting the bar so low for Christians and be reminded that Christians have always valued learning, not scoffed at it. Christians should be offended by Ward’s argument, because at its core, all it really is saying is, “You are too stupid to learn new words.”

Authorized Review – Decidedly Different: An Admission That Doctrine is Affected

The Young, Textless, and Reformed3 Comments

Introduction

In this review of Authorized: The Use & Misuse of the King James Bible, I want to demonstrate a critical error in Ward’s thinking as it pertains to the use of multiple translations. Ward claims that there are no major doctrines affected between the KJV and modern translations. 

“No major doctrines are affected. But I want to get the little stuff and the big stuff when I read God’s word, and I think you do too.”

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Despite saying this, he goes on to say that there are translational differences between modern versions that are “decidedly different.” 

“I agree with a commenter on one of my blog posts: “I highly recommend changing versions once in a while. Nothing catches your attention more than seeing a verse you have known for a long time, and it’s translated decidedly different in your new version. There is some material for a study project.… God’s Word is awesome!””

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In this article, I want to look at what exactly it means to be giddy about translations being “decidedly different” as well as how “bible” is being defined here. 

Decidedly Different

What does it mean for a word or passage to be “decidedly different?” It’s difficult to say if different simply means a different word, or if different means that the word is divergent in definition from the other word. It seems Ward is employing this quotation from his friend to mean the latter due to the fact that a “study project” would not be warranted for the former definition. If Ward was simply talking synonyms, his reader may need a dictionary, and that’s about it.

Let’s take Luke 14:2 for example. In the KJV and ESV, the word ὑδρωπικός is translated “dropsy,” commonly called edema today. The NIV translates the same word as “abnormal swelling of his body.” In the same passage, the KJV and ESV translate the word νομικοὺς as “lawyers” where the NIV translates it as “experts in the law.” While the NIV is unfortunately less precise here, it is easy to understand why the translation team chose those words. The five minutes it took me to reference the underlying Greek and three translations was far from what I would consider a “study project.”

So let’s take Ward’s words at face value here and find a word that actually requires a “study project.” In John 1:18, both the TR and the NA28 have the word μονογενής. The KJV translates the word “only begotten” and the ESV has “only.” The NIV translates it “one and only” and the NASB 1995 has “only begotten.” The NASB 2020 will translate it “only” and “only begotten” simultaneously. The word μονογενής is a word that contains two words, μόνος (only) and γένος (descendant). In the ESV and NIV, the translators decide to only translate the word μόνος. In Koine greek, γένος is employed to pertain to generation. Here are some examples:

Ἀγεννής – Low born 

Εὐγενής – High born 

Ὁμογενής – of the same race or family 

Παλιγενής – Born again 

Προγενής – born before 

Προωτογενής – first born 

In no case that I could find does γένος go untranslated or serve as an equivalent to μόνος. In this case, I would say that this qualifies as “decidedly different.” If it is true that Christ is the “only son of God,” what do we do with John 1:12? 



“But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name” 

Christ is not the “only” son, or “unique” son, he is the only begotten son. The whole doctrine of adoption becomes completely void if the γένος goes untranslated as we see in the NIV. Further, the textual variant in this passage which is selected in modern translations adds more doctrinal confusion to the matter at hand. In the ESV it reads, “No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father’s side.” It translates μονογενής Θεός (only begotten God) as “the only God.” So, who is this God, that is at the Father’s side? Is the Father not God? 

If we do as Ward says, and conduct a “study project,” we find the reading μονογενής Θεός in the 2nd century gnostic work Excerpts from Theodorus. Dean Burgon notes that the first time that this reading of John 1:18 is quoted in extant literature is in reference to the gnostic arch-heretic, Valentinus. Regardless of the progeny of this textual variant, the translation “only” and “only begotten” are “decidedly different,” and the outcome is two entirely different meanings. The passage becomes infinitely more complicated when “son” is exchanged for “god.”    

What is “the Bible”? 

If it is the case that both of these translations are “the Bible,” then what exactly is “the Bible?” Since the claim has been made by Ward and his peers that “no doctrine is affected,” between the two most different manuscripts, this is an important question to answer. See this statement from The King James Only Controversy.

“The reality is that the amount of variation between the two most extremely different New Testament manuscripts would not fundamentally alter the message of the Scriptures!”

67 

Yet we have seen with one textual variant, and one translational difference, that there are indeed important differences that matter. If the claim is made that these differences do not matter, and that doctrine is not affected, then the definition of “the Bible” being employed by Ward and his peers is not based on the idea that one Bible has been transmitted down from the prophets and apostles. It assumes as its premise that multiple bibles have come down the line, and collectively, all of those different articulations are “the Bible.” James White confirms this in his book.

“In fact, they demonstrated a consistent transmission of a single body of material over time.”

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Take this line of thinking to its logical end, and we must conclude that even destroyed manuscripts are a part of this “bible,” because all of our extant manuscripts came from other manuscripts, most of which are destroyed or lost to time. So “the Bible” is not a tangible thing if we assume the conclusions of the scholarly guild. It is a collection of things, which we have evidence of, that bear witness to the tangible thing that no longer exists.  The differences in this “consistent transmission” of the whole “manuscript tradition” are simply the result of the scribal process, and the differences “do not affect doctrine.”

The “manuscript tradition” is really just a testimony to the Word of God (autographs), and when viewed at a level of extant evidence, must be viewed as “the Bible” in order to maintain some semblance to the protestant doctrine of Scripture. In other words, “the Bible” is the “manuscript tradition.,” and we don’t have the whole manuscript tradition. That is why the scholarly guild has taken up the position that “we have enough” of the Bible (Dirk Jongkind & Co.), even though we do not have “exactly what the prophets and apostles wrote” (Dan Wallace). It does not matter what the prophets and apostles wrote, because “the Bible” gives us “good access” to what was originally written. In other words, “the Bible” simply bears witness to the Word of God as it existed originally. 

When we examine the above doctrine against the Chicago Statement, we find that this idea of the “manuscript tradition” being “the Bible” perfectly comports with inerrancy. 

“We affirm that inspiration, strictly speaking, applies only to the autographic text of Scripture, which in the providence of God can be ascertained from available manuscripts with great accuracy…We deny that any essential element of the Christian faith is affected by the absence of the autographs. We further deny that this absence renders the assertion of Biblical Inerrancy invalid or irrelevant.”  

Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy, Article X

In order for this to not render inerrancy “invalid or irrelevant,” the above definition of “the Bible” must be adopted. “The Bible” is not exactly what the prophets and apostles wrote, it bears witness to what the prophets and apostles wrote, and according to the scholarly guild, we “have a good amount of access” to that object, but not perfect access. Therefore, “the Bible” as defined by Ward and his peers is not what the prophets and apostles wrote, just an echo of what they wrote. Those echoes, the manuscripts, form “the Bible,” which Christians have “good access” to through translation. The Chicago Statement did not defend against higher criticism, it made a way for it to enter into the church. 

Conclusion

If the scholarly guild is correct, then what is being set forth is extremely problematic. It means that Jesus Christ is both the “only God,” distinct from the Father,  and also that he is the “only begotten son” of the Father. If we compare these two theological statements, then Jesus Christ is uniquely God, and was begotten of the Father, who is not uniquely God. Both of these are in “the Bible.”

Ward is excited about this. In fact, according to him, “This is awesome!” It is awesome, apparently, that in order to maintain Trintiarian orthodoxy and the doctrine of adoption, we now have to explain the following:

1. Jesus Christ is the only God (ESV, NASB)

2. The only God is at the Father’s side (ESV)

3. The only God is in the Father’s bosom (NASB)

4. Jesus Christ is the only begotten Son (KJV)

5. Jesus Christ is the one and only Son (NIV)

6. Those who believe on Christ become the sons of God (KJV)

In summary, “the Bible” teaches that Jesus Christ is uniquely God, yet he was revealed by the Father, who is not uniquely God. It teaches that Jesus Christ is the only son of God, and yet all that believe are also the sons of God. Yes, this is truly “awesome!” It should not surprise anybody that this kind of thinking allows post-Barthian and higher critical scholars to heavily influence the field of textual scholarship. 

The prominent textual scholars recognize that this doctrine does not comport with one Christian faith, it comports with different Christian faith communities. The only people who do not seem to recognize this problem are the evangelical textual scholars who will go down on the “no doctrine is affected” ship. Yet, if “no doctrine is affected,” then the liberal scholars are correct. As Jennifer Knust and DC Parker believe, there is no “Bible”, just bibles. There is no “Christianity,” there are Christianities. You can believe that Jesus Christ is both the only begotten Son and also “the unique God” and still be a modern protestant Christian.

Since it seems to be the case that “decidedly different” doesn’t just mean “synonym,” the conclusion of Ward’s argument is actually that yes, doctrine is affected. If translations use words that are distinct enough to mean something different, then it seems the only conclusion to Ward’s argument is that doctrine can, and is impacted by translational differences. I believe that I have shown that this is the case in my article.

Authorized Review – Mark Ward’s Compelling Response to Pastor Joel Beeke

The Young, Textless, and Reformed5 Comments

Introduction

In this third article examining Authorized: The Use & Misuse of the King James Bible, I want to take a look at Ward’s handling of Pastor Joel Beeke. It is common for opponents to address Pastor Beeke in their attacks on the King James Bible, because he is one of its most stalwart defenders. Fortunately for us, Ward’s arguments will provide us with some good, clean entertainment.

Let’s take a look at some of these high caliber counter arguments. You’ll have to let me know in the comments what you think. 

Five Arguments

Ward begins his response by describing Pastor Beeke’s statement in this way:.


“King James defender Joel Beeke, a scholar who has done valuable work for the church retrieving the works of the English Puritan writers, argues that the KJV’s elevated language was present originally”

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Let’s examine exactly what Pastor Beeke said:

“More than any other version, the KJV sounds like the Word of God, even to unbelievers. The KJV translators aimed at this very thing. Even in 1611 the KJV sounded old-fashioned, ancient, a voice from the past. This was to command a reverent hearing, and to suggest the timeless and eternal character of God’s Word. The modern unbeliever, if he has any spiritual concern at all, is well aware that the contemporary scene really offers him no hope. He expects the church to speak in a way that is timeless and otherworldly.”

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I’m not sure I would describe what Beeke said in the same way as Mark Ward, but I’ll let my reader decide. Ward continues by offering three “counter arguments.”

Super Convincing Counter Argument #1

Ward’s first counter argument is that

“Those who desire other-worldly timelessness in church can do little better than to grab a Vulgate and a Roman missal. This will accomplish the same goal…It’s straight Bible. But freeing straight Bible from a dead language is one huge reason we had a Reformation five hundred years ago, and why the Puritans fought to keep ‘Romish’ practices out of the English church.”

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In other words, “You want to read the KJV because it’s reverent? Might as well just learn Latin and go back to Rome!” I’m not sure if that is a serious suggestion, but that’s all Ward has to offer in his first point. On a side note, it’s definitely a good thing Ward is here to school Pastor Beeke on the Puritans. 

Super-Mega Convincing Counter Argument #2

Ward’s second argument is that the Book of Mormon and Qur’an “both nonetheless adopted the archaic syntactical and grammatical forms used in the KJV. Why? Because the very language sounds dignified, divine, Bible-y.” (96). In other words, “Other books copy the KJV, so we need to stop propping it up!” He says, “I’d like to stop using the Bible to prop up this style of language” (96). We wouldn’t want our Bible to sound, you know, too “Bible-y”! Thankfully, Ward says that we can retain such “Bible-y” language in our poetry, hymns, and “solemn civil ceremony” (96).  After all this is said and done, I’m really grateful that while we won’t be able to preach from the KJV, we can certainly perform a wedding ceremony or a funeral in the King’s English.

Super-Mega-Ultra Convincing Counter Argument #3


Ward brings up a good point in his third argument, that we can’t be so emotional about our Bible.

.
“Some people are pushed away from God by the KJV, some are drawn by it. We can’t make our decision about the KJV based on a statistical survey of how people respond emotionally to Elizabethan verbiage.”

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Apparently that 55% statistic Ward cites at the beginning of his book is actually a survey of “how people respond emotionally” to the KJV. Clearly, this is the only reason those people read the KJV. 

More Super-Mega-Ultra-Uber Covincing Counter Arguments

(4) Ward continues by intimating that Pastor Beeke is misinformed as to why the KJV translators left some of the older vernacular in the text. Pastor Beeke states that the KJV 1611 “sounded old fashioned” when it was written. Ward goes on to say, “The KJV translators specifically contradict the idea that choosing old-fashioned language was their goal.” Ward’s response is that the reason the KJV maintained the “archaic” language because “it may not have felt worth the effort to update every last syllable of it.” (98). According to Ward, the KJV translators were as bad at following their own rules as the team that put the Revised Version together.

Ward provides his own theory as to why the 1611 KJV was not written in the exact vernacular of the day – that the KJV translators just didn’t want to deal with all of the work it would have taken. Yes, apparently 54 premier scholars working over 7 years simply didn’t want to do the work.

(5) Finally, Ward responds to Beeke’s statement that KJV English is translated in such a way that represents the original languages more closely. Ward responds, “But there are multiple ways in which this form of English diverges too far from contemporary speech and writing that I have to question whether this occasional – but undeniable gain is worthwhile” (101). He then goes on to say that the punctuation of the KJV makes it difficult to read as an example.

“And the absence of quotation marks is only one of many unnecessary reading difficulties caused by four hundred years of language change. We must think about all of the factors that contribute to readability.” (101)

I wonder if Ward has trouble with audio Bibles too.  

Conclusion

Ward’s response to Pastor Beeke doesn’t seem to be a joke, but I found it amusing. I especially enjoyed the part where Ward gave Pastor Beeke a lesson on the Puritans. Perhaps it’s possible that the premier Puritan scholar may know what he’s talking about when it comes to the Puritans and their Bible. This may come to a shock to Ward’s audience, but there are sound reasons to read the KJV other than being bound to tradition and emotions. Believe it or not, those that read the King James Bible typically have no affinity for Rome or their Vulgate. The reader should seriously consider the possibility that Ward could be wrong here. That may come as a shock to Ward, but all of those people from his anecdotes who say they can read the KJV may be onto something here.

In summary, Ward provides several arguments against Pastor Beeke:

1. If you want a reverent Bible, just read the Vulgate!

2. The reverent language was copied by Joseph Smith (quite literally actually) and the translator of the Qur’an, therefore we need to stop propping it up!

3. We can’t let emotions get in the way of deciding which Bible to read!

4. The “archaisms” are only in the KJV because it would have taken too much time to remove them!

5. The punctuation of the KJV makes it impossible to read!  

Authorized Review – Does Authorized Need to Be Updated?

The Young, Textless, and Reformed2 Comments

Introduction

In order to respond to the anecdotes of Mark Ward, I’d like to introduce the reader to a story of my own. Growing up I was what you might call a “bookworm.” I spent much of my free time reading and writing. Similar to Ward’s account of his childhood, I aced every spelling test. I always got the prize for reading the most books over the summer. I started learning how to speed read in AP English Literature in high school, mostly so that I could spend more time with my friends instead of doing homework. Despite my brazen laziness, I loved words, and I loved books – just not the British ones I was forced to read in High School. Despite my lack of motivation, as a self-proclaimed word-lover I forced myself to understand why works like A Tale of Two Cities, Jane Eyre, and Frankenstein were such important contributions to the available corpus of English literature.  

The reason I am telling my reader this story is to show that Mark Ward does not have a monopoly on the label “language nerd.” There are tons of us out here, and as a fellow “language nerd,” I find Ward’s writing style and perspective rather offensive to our dwindling guild. In this article, I want to comment on the writing style of Authorized and show my reader why Ward’s book is so offensive to “language nerds” everywhere.

Giving a Bad Name to “Language Nerds” Everywhere

Most “language nerds” are conservatives when it comes to language. We cherish the moments when we can knock the dust off of bygone words and introduce them afresh to a modern audience. We fear the idea that “Twitter Vernacular” could become the lingua franca some day. “Language nerds” are not scared away by learning new words, we love them. In fact, I signed up for an email list that sends me new words every day, like “avuncular.” Being a language nerd is much more than simply loving vocab words, however. It is about appreciating and learning the evolution and etymology of words. It includes studying the differences in syntax and writing style and genre in literature. Being a “language nerd” is not just being able to use a thesaurus, it is about loving the English language – all of it. 

What is frustrating is that Ward’s writing style seems to contradict the claim that he is a “language nerd.” A “language nerd” would never employ the impetus of The Emperor’s New Clothes in a textbook display of a weak analogy to call the English of the KJV “at some point between natty and nude” (24) A “language nerd” would not insult English by using “erganomock” and “snelbanjaloo” as a point of comparison for the comprehensibility of the KJV (65). Every single “language nerd” I know, even the atheists, have a profound respect and appreciation for the KJV as a literary work. It speaks volumes that Chistopher Hitchins has a higher evaluation of the KJV than Ward (14). 

What is most interesting, is that Ward seems to violate his own principles within the pages of Authorized. Strangely enough, he uses words such as “fastidious” while claiming that the word “commendeth” is too difficult to understand. He is fine employing “reverential” (101) while saying that “and it came to pass” is not vernacular English. He uses the phrase “blessed fluorescence” (67) while saying that “apt” is incomprehensible in the phrase “apt to teach”(44). He casually drops the word “blithely” (26) in a section discussing how he didn’t understand words in the KJV. I could make a list of Ward’s use of uncharacteristically difficult words that he apparently understands better than the much simpler vocabulary of the KJV. How often do you use the words “prodigiously” (14), “erudition” (9), “apropos” (69), or “hapless” (9) in your daily speech? If I were to take Ward’s vernacular argument and apply it to his book, there would be many places that I would recommend an update. 

The paradox within the pages of Authorized is that Ward violates many of his own rules. He unnecessarily (and ironically) employs Latin with the knowledge that his reader likely doesn’t know it. He does this while unabashedly comparing the KJV to the Latin Vulgate. Apparently Ward thinks that his reader can understand actual Latin, but not the KJV, which he compares to the comprehensibility of the Latin Vulgate.  In addition to utilizing Latin, he randomly drops flowery words that his reader will have to look up. If Ward’s argument is that we should understand the words we read, why does he repeatedly beat his reader over the head with Latin phrases and advanced vocabulary? This seems to violate the very principle Ward is setting forth in Authorized. 

Conclusion

After reading Ward’s book twice, I cannot help but point out the inconsistency of his thesis, and the hypocrisy of his writing style. He has demonstrated himself to be an unreliable source for the critiques he issues towards the KJV and KJV readers. He imposes an extreme version of the problem that he claims the KJV imposes to his reader. He slaps KJV readers for making equivocations while constantly equivocating the English of the KJV with Shakespeare, the comprehensibility of the KJV with the Latin Vulgate, and KJV English with Old or Middle English. This is one of those cases where it isn’t wise to throw rocks in glass houses. What Ward seems to miss is that being able to understand words is far more important than those words being in “vernacular English.” As a fellow “language nerd,” I expect more from somebody claiming to be in the dwindling population of people who love the English language. 

Perhaps the reason that Ward’s book resonates with so many is because people simply don’t read anymore. He can get away with this kind of rhetoric because people don’t know how insulting he is being when he implies that his reader simply cannot read all that well. In a world where the average person does their daily reading on Twitter, it does not surprise me that people have forgotten that you occasionally have to look up words when you read. The reality is, learning new words is a part of the joy of reading. Expanding your vocabulary is part of the adventure. Discovering a new, or old use of a word is a part of the rush of being a “language nerd.”

Now I’m not Mark Ward, but if I spent so many years learning to read the KJV, I’d be proud of it. I wouldn’t openly brag about my willful ignorance of phrases in the KJV, I’d learn to understand them and teach others how to understand it. In every place Ward gives as an example of a passage he “still cannot understand” in the KJV, many people, including children, can. As a “language nerd,” Ward really missed a big opportunity to get people excited about the English language. Instead, he spent 137 pages talking about how people can’t understand English, and why people shouldn’t read the literary masterpiece that is the KJV. Seems like a pretty big “language nerd” party foul, if you ask me.

Authorized Review – Textual Criticism and the Scholarly Guild

The Young, Textless, and Reformed1 Comment

Introduction

This article is the first in a series of articles inspecting several important topics not covered in my Authorized: The Use & Misuse of the King James Bible review. The first subject I want to cover, that I tried to avoid addressing in my 9 article series is the issue of textual criticism. In Chapter 6 of Ward’s book, he includes a section responding to the claim that modern Bibles are “Based on Inferior Greek and Hebrew Texts.” 

In this article, I will review Ward’s perspective on textual criticism. 

The Confused & Scared Christian

Ward begins this section by painting Christians who encounter variants as confused and scared, and then appealing to a Greek professor known for his sentence diagramming that is not an active scholar working in the field of textual criticism. 

“Nonetheless, these variants confuse and even frighten many Christians, and I understand that fear. So let me offer a few thoughts from someone I trust, thoughts that were edifying to me.”

Ibid., 114

Ward demonstrates either a) that he does not know much about textual criticism or b) that he isn’t willing to give his reader an accurate picture of textual criticism. In the first place, he paints the picture that manuscripts and manuscript families are the driving source for translations. This is simply not true. All modern versions are revisions of previous translations which were made based on printed Greek texts, not manuscripts. The critical printed editions are based on manuscript evidence, but nobody is doing translation work from a literal papyri or uncial. Ward makes the argument that manuscripts must not be all that different from each other, or we would see denominations preferring one over the other.

“If there were massive, theologically significant differences between Greek manuscripts, different parties would claim the texts that advanced their theological viewpoints. But that simply hasn’t happened.”

Ibid., 115

This point is actually irrelevant, and incorrect. Many denominations do prefer specific text platforms. The Catholic Church and Jehovah’s Witnesses for example use translations made from the text platform mostly based on Codex Vaticanus (NA/UBS) or the Latin Vulgate. The New Apostolic Reformation (NAR) made its own “translation” loosely based on the NA27. Calvary Chapel uses the NKJV which is based on the Traditional Text with Majority Text footnotes. Independent Fundamentalist Baptists use the KJV, which is based on the Masoretic/TR platform. Many denominations and individual churches care deeply about the translation they read, and the underlying text platform. One of the many reasons people take a stand on translation is specifically due to doctrinal differences between the texts. 

Further, Ward and the professor he references employ what I like to call “The Scholarly Dance” to minimize the importance of textual criticism in this discussion.  

“Leedy observes, “My own weaknesses as a reader expose me to far more significant misunderstanding than the manuscript differences do, so by far the greatest problems that God must overcome in order to talk to me are within me, not within the transmission process.””

Ibid., 115

The Scholarly Dance goes like this: 

  1. Highlight or imply a supposed weakness in yourself 
  2. Implicate God and His desires as a part of your theological understanding 
  3. Make an important theological point based on a display of “humility” and “God’s desires”

According to Leedy and Ward, their “weakness as a reader” is the real problem. This is the problem that “God must overcome.” Therefore, the real problem isn’t with textual criticism, manuscripts, or the transmission process, it is with the Christian. The Scholarly Dance is a great rhetorical tool to say, “If you have a problem with textual criticism, it is a humility problem and a problem with what ‘God has done’, not a problem with the conclusions of textual criticism.” In other words, if you challenge the scholarly narrative, you are in sin, and need to humble yourself. 

Notice another example of the Scholarly Dance:



“I do not believe God is under any obligation to preserve every detail of Scripture for us, even though he granted us good access to the text of the New Testament…I believe God, in his grace, preserved his Word for us but also that there is no apparent external reason to believe that the textus Receptus is in some way special or set apart from the rest of the manuscript tradition…God does not perform a special miracle to protect our collective reading and understanding of his Word from error, and likewise, he has not done so for the transmission of Scripture. There are limits to our knowledge.”

Dirk Jongkind, Introduction to the Greek New Testament, 90…103 (Quotation spliced together from two pages)

And another: 

“We do indeed have ‘access’ to these words, if not with miraculous perfection, then with an extremely high level of accuracy and certainty. And God has done this. What is good enough for the Holy Spirit is good enough for me.”

Brash, A Christian’s Pocket Guide to How God Preserved the Bible, 64

All of this scholarly posturing is to defend the narrative that the Bible has not actually been kept pure, it’s been kept “Quasi-Pure.” The purpose of it is to tell the reader that if they have a problem with an impure Bible, they really have a problem with God, and a pride issue. The scholarly narrative goes like this:


“The Nestle-Aland text, on the other hand, relies on older manuscripts that were discovered after the King James Version was released.”

Ibid., 116

If you have followed this blog, you know that the above statement is misleading, and even incorrect. Codex Vaticanus was discovered prior to the creation of the KJV and parts of it were even referenced in the making of Erasmus’ Greek text. He considered this manuscript to be a failed attempt to join the Greek with the Latin. Vaticanus was published to a modern audience in the 19th century, but it was not first discovered in the 19th century. People knew of the Vatican Codex for a long time.

Further, the NA text is based on the earliest extant manuscripts. There is absolutely no warrant for calling these manuscripts “earliest” overall, just the earliest that have survived 2000 years after the fact. The first Greek New Testament was not made in the 4th century, and there is no way to determine if the manuscripts surviving from the 4th century in any way represent the original text. 

Ward continues by saying that if you are not an expert in Greek or textual criticism, you should not have an opinion of your own. Christians should simply trust the scholars!

“Textual criticism is complicated. I think scholars should continue to debate their viewpoints, but I don’t think it’s wise for non-specialists to have strong opinions about the topic (Prov 18:13). At the very least, Christians who cannot read Greek should humbly acknowledge that their opinions about textual criticism are formed second- or even fifth-hand—that they are based ultimately on authority. It’s impossible to reach resolution in a debate when the participants think it’s about the relative merits of ancient Greek manuscripts but it’s actually about which authorities to trust.”

Ibid., 116

This is called gatekeeping, and Ward and the evangelical textual scholars engage in it all the time. If you are not in the “guild,” you cannot have your own opinion. You are not allowed to survey and study all of the subject matter on your own and form an opinion, because you are not a specialist. This is the same form of argument that is made when people  say, “You’re not a woman, you can’t have an opinion on abortion,” or “You’re not a pharmacist, you cannot have an opinion on medication.” You are not allowed to question the scholarly narrative because you are not a scholar.

Ward presents the case that the reason to abandon the KJV is due to it not being in our “vernacular” English while completely diminishing the very real concerns people have regarding the conclusions of textual scholars. If you disagree, you are in violation of Proverbs 18:13. Again, Ward makes disagreeing with him and his peers a sin issue, while at the same time presenting the information in a misleading and deceptive way. 

Conclusion

The problems of textual criticism as they pertain to Bible translation are much more important than Ward would have his reader believe. His main argument is, “There are no denominational differences between text platforms, therefore there are no doctrinal differences!” Not only is this argument irrelevant, it is simply not true. The IFB is a perfect example of a denomination that has a text platform and translation as a doctrinal distinctive. In fact, Ward and many of his colleagues have in their doctrinal distinctives that a translation (KJV) and the underlying text (MT/TR) should not be used for preaching and memorization. While Ward focuses his attention on this argument, he seems to be utterly oblivious to why people actually have concerns over text platforms and textual criticism, writing them off as “confusion” and “fear.” 

Rather than simply trusting the opinions of haughty scholars, I encourage my reader to take Scripture as the final authority. 

“All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: That the man of God may be perfect, throughly furnished unto all good works.”

2 Timothy 3:16-17

Every Christian has the tools to evaluate spiritual matters, and the Bible is a spiritual matter. When somebody says that the Bible has not been preserved, or that changes in the words of the Bible “do not affect doctrine,” you absolutely have the right to challenge this position. God has given His people His Word, and if Ward actually believed that, he wouldn’t be telling Christians to sit down and be quiet. You do not need a degree from Cambridge to know that this theological statement is not Biblical:

“We do not have now – in our critical Greek texts or any translations – exactly what the authors of the New Testament wrote. Even if we did, we would not know it. There are many, many places in which the text of the New Testament is uncertain”

Gurry & Hixson, Myths & Mistakes in New Testament Textual Criticism, xii (Dan Wallace)

You do not need to know all of the nuances about the CBGM to know that this statement regarding its effect on the text is not Biblical:

“Clearly, these changes will affect not only modern Bible translations and commentaries but possibly even theology and preaching”

Peter Gurry, A New Approach to Textual Criticism, 6

You do not need to have a thorough understanding of manuscripts or Greek to know that this statement regarding the Bible by a textual scholar is not Biblical:

“Books and the texts they preserve are human products, bound in innumerable ways to the circumstances and communities that produce them. This is also true of the New Testament…Even if the text of the Gospels could be fixed – and, when viewed at the level of object and material artifact, this goal has never been achieved.”

Knust & Wasserman, To Cast the First Stone, 15

Christian, you absolutely have the right to question what these scholars are saying, and in fact, you should. 

Edit: I have changed “Scholarly Handshake” to “Scholarly Dance“. The Scholarly Handshake is the introduction ritual that includes praising your opponent prior to doing the Scholarly Dance.

Authorized Review – Chapter 7: Don’t Be a Berean!

The Young, Textless, and Reformed5 Comments

Introduction

In Chapter 7 of Authorized: The Use & Misuse of the King James Bible, Ward ends his book far more clearly than when he started. He finally reveals his solution to the problem of KJV readability – simply read all translations. In fact, he even makes valuing all translations a qualification for being loving the Bible. 

“But I believe the tribalism—the belief that a group’s chosen translation is one of many marks of its superiority over other groups—needs to stop. All Bible-loving-and-reading Christians need to learn to see the value in all good Bible translations.”

Ibid., 124

Not only should the KJV be cast to the side as one’s primary translation, all Bibles should be cast aside for this purpose. According to Ward, Christians should not try to determine which translation is best, because none of them are. He advocates for this, despite pointing out the destruction that has been caused by such a practice back in chapter 1. Apparently the qualification for being a Bible lover is to set aside what makes a Bible good and love them all, despite any inaccuracies or poor translation choices.

“English speakers are looking for the wrong thing when we look for best.”

Ibid., 127

Now Ward is advocating for mediocrity in the Church. I vehemently disagree with Ward here. Christians should desire to give God glory, and enjoy Him forever, which involves doing everything the best we possibly can. In this review, I will examine Ward’s claim that Christian’s shouldn’t take a stand on a translation, and offer commentary. 

Stop Taking the Bible So Seriously!

“We shouldn’t let our preferred translation become a symbol, a rallying cry, or a boundary marker separating us from other groups within the body of Christ.”

Ibid., 128

Here Ward introduces his reader to the modern zeitgeist, that there are no sufficient translations. He gives his reader the impression that there is no translation that is adequate for all aspects of ministry and Christian living. In order to be a “good Christian,” one must spread their time across multiple translations and use them in different ways. Despite having propped himself up as an expert in the topic, Ward continues to demonstrate to the reader that he simply isn’t a great reader, or interpreter, of the Bible. Apparently, neither are the people he hangs out with, if these anecdotal people actually exist. See yet another example of Ward admitting he cannot understand an English passage(Psalm 16:6), despite claiming to read other languages fluently and being a “language nerd”. 

“I can read Hebrew, and I can tell you that none of these translations is “wrong” in any way I can figure. But I read this poetic statement many, many times and never understood it. What are the “lines”? I asked another long-time reader of the KJV, and he guessed that David is talking about lines of genealogy. He was a step ahead of me because at least he had a guess. To my shame, I can’t say I ever even stopped to ask, or noticed that I wasn’t getting it. I think I always assumed that it was just a very obscure way of saying that things were going well for David. (Don’t we all like it when lines are, um, falling just right?)”

Ibid., 129

I apologize for Ward’s inappropriate and irreverent attitude towards the inspired text of Holy Scripture. In a rather funny coincidence, I learned what this passage meant from my 22 year old Young Life leader in high school, who had absolutely zero Bible training. He didn’t even own a commentary.

Ward’s basic argument at the end of his book is essentially that the differences in Bible Translations “are really not that great,” and therefore read them all because “the Bible is awesome!” Yet we could argue the opposite from that very point. If the differences aren’t all that great, wouldn’t one be perfectly fine reading one of the translations? He continues to appeal only to personal experience and anecdotes to support his arguments. 

“In my own personal study of the Bible over the years, using multiple translations and commentaries along the way, I have formed a definite impression: the major evangelical English Bible translations are all essentially conservative—and the tradition they’re conserving is the KJV tradition.”

Ibid., 133

This unfortunate perspective downplays the real concerns people have regarding translation methodology and underlying original text, and parrots the misconception that the ESV stands in the line of Tyndale. The ESV, and other modern critical translations, stand in the line of the Westcott & Hort and the Revised Version, not Tyndale and the KJV. Ward’s line of thinking shuts down the voices of men and women who are actually concerned with what their Bible says. People do care about which texts are in or out of their Bible, and if the Greek word “men” should be translated as “men and women.” Instead of addressing these very real concerns, Ward instead chooses to call those who care about the accuracy of their translation as “tribalistic.” His use of this pejorative and continued implication that those that do see one translation as being “best” a sin demonstrates the massive disconnect between Ward and the average Christian. 

Most people care far more deeply than Ward does about the words that are on the page of their Bible. And if you actually take Ward’s advice and read a slew of translations, you will quickly find out that not only are their translational differences that affect doctrine, there are a healthy number of verses that are completely different between translations at the underlying text level. Not only are there thousands of textual differences between the underlying texts of traditional Bibles and modern Bibles, there are translational choices that completely change the sense of a passage. To say that “no doctrine affected” is a shocking claim.

That being said, there is some value in what Ward has to offer in this chapter, though his crusade against the KJV completely overshadowed it. Referencing other translations and/or the original languages can certainly be a helpful tool, but not in the way Ward has suggested. Instead of his solution, which is to throw out the idea of reading one translation, it is extremely helpful to only read one translation and use others as tools. Reviewing the translation choices of one Bible against another can give valuable insight at the quality of a translation. There is value in a church having a common theological language. There is value in the pastor preaching from the same translation that the people in the pews have. There is value to the unbeliever when Christians are unified in the Scripture they quote. There is value in Christians rallying upon one text. 

Ward openly admits that his perspective is different than the majority of Christians today. 

“I want to change the paradigm we’ve all been assuming. Stop looking for the “best” English Bible. It doesn’t exist. God never said it would. Take up the embarrassment of riches we now have.”

Ibid., 137

In other words, “lower your standards and accept that this is the way it is now.” 

Conclusion

In this concluding chapter of Authorized, Ward offers the most limp-wristed “paradigm shift” to the serious topic of Bible translation – stop being so picky and read them all! Having one preferred translation is actually bad! They are essentially the same! Like the evangelical textual scholars, Ward speaks for God when he says, “Stop looking for the “best” English Bible. It doesn’t exist. God never said it would.” Should this be our mindset towards the Word of God? Should we take such a casual approach to the Holy Scriptures that we do not demand the very best from our Bible translators? Does Ward have the right to tell the average Christian that they cannot have a problem with a translation or decide that one is better than the other? No, no, and no. 

If you’re reading this, be assured that you have every right to care which translation is best. You have every right to have a problem with liberal translation methodology and underlying original texts. You, in fact, have an obligation to care about these things because the Holy Scriptures are the means that God is speaking today (1 Tim. 3:16; Heb. 1:1-2). To say that translation isn’t really that important is to say that what God has to say isn’t all that important. Ward himself says that the Bible is the “words of God.” If this is truly the case, as Christians believe, Ward’s approach to treating Bible translations like a multi-tool pocket knife is completely inappropriate.

On the final lines of his book, Ward finally tells his reader why he wrote Authorized:

“But it is a misuse of the KJV to ask it to do today what it did in 1611, namely, to serve as a vernacular English translation. For public preaching ministry, for evangelism, for discipleship materials, indeed for most situations outside individual study, using the KJV violates Paul’s instructions in 1 Corinthians 14. The value of vernacular translation is so great that we must fight to protect it—even if that means letting that trend line from 100 percent to 55 percent continue. Even if it means helping that trend line along. We need God’s word in our language, not in someone else’s.”

Ibid., 137-138

There you have it, folks.