Examining KJV-Only Movement Dangers

Hello friends, I'm Tim Wildsmith, the author of Bible Translations for Everyone, and in this video we're going to take a closer look at a very dangerous side of the KJV-only movement. One of the things that cannot be avoided when you write a book about Bible translations is the King James-only position. Now my book does not do a deep dive into that topic, but it does come up in several different places. And even here on YouTube, when I review Bibles and talk about Bible translations, this dialogue, this conversation comes up a lot. And I want you to hear me say, I'm not anti-King James only. The King James only position is basically, at its simplest form, it's people who believe that the King James version of the Bible is the only legitimate translation of the Bible in English. I do not hold that opinion, but I know a lot of people who do, and I actually respect them. I want you to hear me say this clearly. This video is not an attack on everyone who has that belief. It's going to focus very specifically on an extreme and I think dangerous side of it. But I've had a lot of really great conversations with King James only folks who are thoughtful and kind and they have a serious position and they have really legitimate reasons for feeling the way they do. And so before we dive into the extreme side, let's look at some of those legitimate reasons, the mainstream reasons that people have for being King James only. The most common thing you're going to hear in the King James only debate is something about the textual basis of the Greek New Testament. For the KJV, it's a text called the Textus Receptus. I have a coffee mug right here. It says, my favorite dinosaur is the Textus Receptus, and it's got a picture of a T-Rex reading the King James Bible. My wife, when she first read my book and she saw the phrase Textus Receptus, it was the first time she had ever heard it, and she said, that sounds like a dinosaur. So she designed this little mug for me. We sell it in my online shop. So you have the TR, the Textus Receptus, as the textual basis for the Greek New Testament in the KJV. But many modern translations of the Bible use a different textual basis that is commonly referred to as the critical text. The differences between the textus receptus and the critical text is one of the main talking points that you hear in the King James only debate. And you know what? It's a really good, thoughtful conversation to have. Which one is better? Which one is worse? Let's have that and let's disagree about it and let's really dig into it. That's something that you're going to hear in the mainstream KJV only position. The second thing, and I see this a lot in the comments of my videos, is people look at modern translations and they say, aren't those translations missing verses? That actually flows out of the different textual basis because the Textus Receptus had different verses than some of the manuscripts used in the critical text. And so because of those differences, that is a common talking point. The third one that I hear a lot is about the language of the KJV. People who are KJV only say it's not difficult to understand if you actually spend some time with it. It actually makes sense because a lot of modern readers will say this ancient Elizabethan English is hard for us to understand. And so the defenders of it say, no, it's actually not that hard to understand. If you give it a try, you'll be OK with it. My friend Mark Ward wrote this really great book called Authorized, the Use and Misuse of the King James Version, where he talks about things called false friends. They're words that you think you know the meaning of, but they actually meant something different when the King James was translated than they do now. Words we think we know that we don't know, Mark often talks about. His YouTube channel is filled with incredible videos about the King James Version and talking about the KJV-only position. So in the link, the video description, I'll put links to his book. I think you should read this if you haven't, and I'll also put links to his channel. This, by the way, is the second Translation Tuesday video that I've done, and I've mentioned Mark Ward in both of them. He and I met. At the Museum of the Bible last year, we've worked on some projects since then. He's become a good friend, very helpful to my channel, and I love the work that he's done on the King James position. So, for the King James only position. So that's kind of the mainstream thing. The difference between the textual basis, missing verses, the language of the KJV. That's where we start. And I think all of those, again, good conversation to have. People who are very thoughtful and very kind have that position, and I respect them. But then we go to a more extreme version of what it means to be King James only. There's been a video going around on the internet of a preacher named Mark McGehee talking about the King James Bible and the ancient languages, both the Greek and the Hebrew manuscripts of the Bible. I share this in a couple of different forms on my YouTube channel and Instagram in like short videos or reels. One of them got hundreds of thousands of views. And I've seen... several other channels where this particular video has gotten a lot of hits and a lot of conversation. So I thought for this video, I'm going to show you a clip of this and I'm going to let that be my way to explain to you this extremist position in the KJV only debate. Are you ready? Oh, yes. Amen. Thank God it's built on this. You can't separate Jesus Christ from the Bible. You're bibliographers. Yes. Amen. We believe the King James Bible is the word of God, every word of it. Amen. I agree with him so far, right? The King James Bible is the word of God. I totally agree with that. He says you can't disconnect Jesus from the Bible. I agree with that too. So far, so good. I agree with what he's saying. And I can take this book and correct the Greek. Amen. So he says, I can take this book and correct the Greek. I love how someone, you can hear someone in the crowd go, oh. And then they start laughing. And then he starts laughing. And what is he saying there? Think about that. He's saying, I can take this book, the King James version of the Bible, and I can use it. to correct the Greek manuscripts of the Bible that the KJV is based on. That doesn't even make any sense, right? If you really think about it, you're going, wait, how can you take the thing that's being translated from and correct it with the translation? Now, many people, when I shared this video previously, have said, oh, he's just being sarcastic. Okay, well, I'm going to show you the rest of the video, and I think you'll see that he's not being sarcastic. Other people have said, well, maybe what he's talking about is... that textual basis conversation that we had a moment ago. He's saying he can take the KJV, which is based on the Textus Receptus, and he can correct the critical text. That would be a good argument, but as you'll see, as he keeps talking, you realize that's not what he's saying. Say, why? Because I'm a loser. Amen, and I've had Greek. Amen, and Hebrew. Last class of Hebrew, we finished the last class of D, he says, what are you doing? I said, I'm going out there in the backyard and I'm burning this Hebrew grammar book. What? I torched it. I said, ah. Oh, wow. Had to learn Hebrew and Greek and all that mess. Amen. So. I actually, I kind of, I can kind of sympathize with him here as someone who, I went to seminary, I did take Hebrew class, I took Greek class, and it's pretty overwhelming to think about all of these ancient languages and try to study them. It's a lot of work. It sounds like he's not just not a fan of the Greek, he's also not a fan of the Hebrew either. So I get that, but then you see where this starts to go wrong here in just a minute. Amen. You said, what'd you learn out of that? The King James Bible is the Word of God. Thank God for the English. Amen. Who cares what the Greek says? They make pretty good sandwiches, that's about it. Amen. So, he says, the King James Bible is the Word of God. Who cares what the Greek says? Who cares? They make pretty good sandwiches. So he's not saying he can correct the critical text. He's saying you don't even need to care about the original ancient languages of the Bible, Hebrew, a little bit of Aramaic, and Greek, because we have the King James Version. This is that dangerous, extremist side of the KJV-only debate that I wanted to talk about in this video. So there are people out there who believe that the King James Version has received some sort of special... inspiration, advance revelation from God. You'll hear the word preserved a lot. It is the perfectly preserved word of God, that it is more accurate. The translation that was based, that came out of the Hebrew and Greek manuscripts is actually more accurate than those manuscripts. There's a preacher named Peter S. Ruckman. This is often referred to as Ruckmanism because he talked about it. so much, this advanced special revelation from God that basically makes the KJV the perfectly preserved word of God. The problem with this is that it's absolutely insane to say that. The problem with this is that the text doesn't say that itself. The problem with this is that the translators of the King James Version themselves did not believe this about the translation. that they were working on. The problem with this is which translation, which edition, excuse me, of the King James are we talking about? The most commonly used version of the King James Version today is an edition not from 1611 but from 1769, an Oxford edition that was edited by Benjamin Blaney. What I found online when I started to ask all these questions and go to these blogs and these videos from people who hold the KJV-only position, They often point to something called the pure Cambridge text. I believe that's an addition from about 1900. And you'll see these wild videos in which they do all this crazy numerology where they add up every letter and every piece of punctuation and they twist it and make it say the exact perfect number that it represents something. Y'all, it's just crazy is what it is. It's all of this jumping through hoops and loops. Basically what they're trying to do is they're trying to come up with some some Trump card for being able to say that the KJV is perfect and we shouldn't read these other translations I think it starts as this normal mainstream is what we've called it mainstream version of King James only ism We're talking about the textual basis. We're talking about the missing verses We're talking about the language and when people have really good Critiques of that or counter arguments to that then this position rose. Well, it's got special revelation. It's got advance, like all of this stuff to basically say, well, you can't refute this because it's special and God has preserved it. And the reality is, is there's just no evidence to prove that. Again, I went to all of these blog posts and watched all of these videos specifically looking for how can they prove that this is the preserved perfect word of God. And every time they get ready to answer that, they seem to change the subject and revert back to another conversation. It's like a smoke and mirrors because I can't find a really good answer from someone who knows. holds this position that can actually make it make any sense. Last but not least, if this version is the perfect preserved word of God, then what about the billions of people around the world who don't speak English, who are reading the Bible in another language? I've yet to hear a good justification for how those people are supposed to read God's word and be saved and all of these things. It just does not add up. And here's the really scary thing for me and why I say very clearly that it's dangerous. It's because what I see happening with this version of KJV-onlyism, the extreme side of it, what comes out of this is hatred and discord and division. You can probably go ahead and hop into the comments of this video and you will see comments from people who are spewing hate towards me and towards other Bible translations because I'm speaking out against. this extreme position. I see it all the time. I'll just do a random review of an NIV Bible or an ESV Bible and someone will come in the comments and say these are satanic versions of the Bible. And I'm sorry, that is so divisive. It is harmful to the gospel. This is why this is dangerous because this extreme KJV only position does division to the church. It does nothing good. I watch these sermons. I read these blogs. And you know what I don't see anything about? I don't see anything about the love of Jesus. I don't see anything about the fruit of the Spirit. What I see is anger and discord and hate. And you know what? That, if you've ever read the Bible, King James Version or any other version, you know that that is not the kind of thing that the words of Scripture are filled with. And so friends, what I want to say in this video, is that the KJV-only position can be thoughtful. It can be nuanced. It can be kind. And if you're out there and that's you, I appreciate you for being one of those people. But this extreme version of KJV-onlyism that pretends that the scriptures of the KJV are something that they are not, and then lashes out at other translations and those who read them, that is dangerous and it's uncalled for. Thank you for sticking with me through this video. If you've watched my channel for very long, you know that I don't like to be too critical and divisive, but I did think that this was an important topic to explore in the world of Bible translations, and I would love to hear from you, even if you disagree with me. If you can do that thoughtfully and respectfully and kindly, I encourage you to leave me a comment. I will check out the comments, and hopefully we can have a little bit of a discussion about this there. If you want to do a deeper dive into the world of Bible translations, I would encourage you to do two things. One, subscribe to my channel, check out my other videos here about Bible translations, and two, order a copy of my book, Bible Translations for Everyone. Again, I don't do a deep dive into KJV Only in my book, but it does come up several times, and several of the things that I've discussed in this video will be mentioned in the book. One more reminder to check out my friend Mark Ward's channel. I've got a link in the video description, as well as his book, Authorized. It's a really great resource when it comes to the KJV Only movement and some of these topics. that we've been discussing. Thank you so much for watching everybody. I'll see you next time.

The King James only position is basically, at its simplest form, it's people who believe that the King James version of the Bible is the only legitimate translation of the Bible in English. I do not hold that opinion, but I know a lot of people who do, and I actually respect them. I want you to hear me say this clearly. This video is not an attack on everyone who has that belief. It's going to focus very specifically on an extreme and I think dangerous side of it.

But I've had a lot of really great conversations with King James only folks who are thoughtful and kind and they have a serious position and they have really legitimate reasons for feeling the way they do. And so before we dive into the extreme side, let's look at some of those legitimate reasons, the mainstream reasons that people have for being King James only. The most common thing you're going to hear in the King James only debate is something about the textual basis of the Greek New Testament.

For the KJV, it's a text called the Textus Receptus. I have a coffee mug right here. It says, my favorite dinosaur is the Textus Receptus, and it's got a picture of a T-Rex reading the King James Bible. My wife, when she first read my book and she saw the phrase Textus Receptus, it was the first time she had ever heard it, and she said, that sounds like a dinosaur.

So she designed this little mug for me. We sell it in my online shop. So you have the TR, the Textus Receptus, as the textual basis for the Greek New Testament in the KJV. But many modern translations of the Bible use a different textual basis that is commonly referred to as the critical text. The differences between the textus receptus and the critical text is one of the main talking points that you hear in the King James only debate.

And you know what? It's a really good, thoughtful conversation to have. Which one is better? Which one is worse? Let's have that and let's disagree about it and let's really dig into it.

That's something that you're going to hear in the mainstream KJV only position. The second thing, and I see this a lot in the comments of my videos, is people look at modern translations and they say, aren't those translations missing verses? That actually flows out of the different textual basis because the Textus Receptus had different verses than some of the manuscripts used in the critical text. And so because of those differences, that is a common talking point.

The third one that I hear a lot is about the language of the KJV. People who are KJV only say it's not difficult to understand if you actually spend some time with it. It actually makes sense because a lot of modern readers will say this ancient Elizabethan English is hard for us to understand.

And so the defenders of it say, no, it's actually not that hard to understand. If you give it a try, you'll be OK with it. My friend Mark Ward wrote this really great book called Authorized, the Use and Misuse of the King James Version, where he talks about things called false friends. They're words that you think you know the meaning of, but they actually meant something different when the King James was translated than they do now. Words we think we know that we don't know, Mark often talks about.

His YouTube channel is filled with incredible videos about the King James Version and talking about the KJV-only position. So in the link, the video description, I'll put links to his book. I think you should read this if you haven't, and I'll also put links to his channel. This, by the way, is the second Translation Tuesday video that I've done, and I've mentioned Mark Ward in both of them.

He and I met. At the Museum of the Bible last year, we've worked on some projects since then. He's become a good friend, very helpful to my channel, and I love the work that he's done on the King James position.

So, for the King James only position. So that's kind of the mainstream thing. The difference between the textual basis, missing verses, the language of the KJV.

That's where we start. And I think all of those, again, good conversation to have. People who are very thoughtful and very kind have that position, and I respect them. But then we go to a more extreme version of what it means to be King James only. There's been a video going around on the internet of a preacher named Mark McGehee talking about the King James Bible and the ancient languages, both the Greek and the Hebrew manuscripts of the Bible.

I share this in a couple of different forms on my YouTube channel and Instagram in like short videos or reels. One of them got hundreds of thousands of views. And I've seen... several other channels where this particular video has gotten a lot of hits and a lot of conversation.

So I thought for this video, I'm going to show you a clip of this and I'm going to let that be my way to explain to you this extremist position in the KJV only debate. Are you ready? Oh, yes.

Amen. Thank God it's built on this. You can't separate Jesus Christ from the Bible.

You're bibliographers. Yes. Amen. We believe the King James Bible is the word of God, every word of it. Amen.

I agree with him so far, right? The King James Bible is the word of God. I totally agree with that. He says you can't disconnect Jesus from the Bible. I agree with that too.

So far, so good. I agree with what he's saying. And I can take this book and correct the Greek.

Amen. So he says, I can take this book and correct the Greek. I love how someone, you can hear someone in the crowd go, oh.

And then they start laughing. And then he starts laughing. And what is he saying there? Think about that. He's saying, I can take this book, the King James version of the Bible, and I can use it.

to correct the Greek manuscripts of the Bible that the KJV is based on. That doesn't even make any sense, right? If you really think about it, you're going, wait, how can you take the thing that's being translated from and correct it with the translation? Now, many people, when I shared this video previously, have said, oh, he's just being sarcastic. Okay, well, I'm going to show you the rest of the video, and I think you'll see that he's not being sarcastic.

Other people have said, well, maybe what he's talking about is... that textual basis conversation that we had a moment ago. He's saying he can take the KJV, which is based on the Textus Receptus, and he can correct the critical text. That would be a good argument, but as you'll see, as he keeps talking, you realize that's not what he's saying. Say, why?

Because I'm a loser. Amen, and I've had Greek. Amen, and Hebrew. Last class of Hebrew, we finished the last class of D, he says, what are you doing? I said, I'm going out there in the backyard and I'm burning this Hebrew grammar book.

What? I torched it. I said, ah.

Oh, wow. Had to learn Hebrew and Greek and all that mess. Amen.

So. I actually, I kind of, I can kind of sympathize with him here as someone who, I went to seminary, I did take Hebrew class, I took Greek class, and it's pretty overwhelming to think about all of these ancient languages and try to study them. It's a lot of work. It sounds like he's not just not a fan of the Greek, he's also not a fan of the Hebrew either.

So I get that, but then you see where this starts to go wrong here in just a minute. Amen. You said, what'd you learn out of that?

The King James Bible is the Word of God. Thank God for the English. Amen.

Who cares what the Greek says? They make pretty good sandwiches, that's about it. Amen.

So, he says, the King James Bible is the Word of God. Who cares what the Greek says? Who cares?

They make pretty good sandwiches. So he's not saying he can correct the critical text. He's saying you don't even need to care about the original ancient languages of the Bible, Hebrew, a little bit of Aramaic, and Greek, because we have the King James Version. This is that dangerous, extremist side of the KJV-only debate that I wanted to talk about in this video. So there are people out there who believe that the King James Version has received some sort of special...

inspiration, advance revelation from God. You'll hear the word preserved a lot. It is the perfectly preserved word of God, that it is more accurate.

The translation that was based, that came out of the Hebrew and Greek manuscripts is actually more accurate than those manuscripts. There's a preacher named Peter S. Ruckman. This is often referred to as Ruckmanism because he talked about it. so much, this advanced special revelation from God that basically makes the KJV the perfectly preserved word of God. The problem with this is that it's absolutely insane to say that.

The problem with this is that the text doesn't say that itself. The problem with this is that the translators of the King James Version themselves did not believe this about the translation. that they were working on.

The problem with this is which translation, which edition, excuse me, of the King James are we talking about? The most commonly used version of the King James Version today is an edition not from 1611 but from 1769, an Oxford edition that was edited by Benjamin Blaney. What I found online when I started to ask all these questions and go to these blogs and these videos from people who hold the KJV-only position, They often point to something called the pure Cambridge text.

I believe that's an addition from about 1900. And you'll see these wild videos in which they do all this crazy numerology where they add up every letter and every piece of punctuation and they twist it and make it say the exact perfect number that it represents something. Y'all, it's just crazy is what it is. It's all of this jumping through hoops and loops. Basically what they're trying to do is they're trying to come up with some some Trump card for being able to say that the KJV is perfect and we shouldn't read these other translations I think it starts as this normal mainstream is what we've called it mainstream version of King James only ism We're talking about the textual basis.

We're talking about the missing verses We're talking about the language and when people have really good Critiques of that or counter arguments to that then this position rose. Well, it's got special revelation. It's got advance, like all of this stuff to basically say, well, you can't refute this because it's special and God has preserved it.

And the reality is, is there's just no evidence to prove that. Again, I went to all of these blog posts and watched all of these videos specifically looking for how can they prove that this is the preserved perfect word of God. And every time they get ready to answer that, they seem to change the subject and revert back to another conversation.

It's like a smoke and mirrors because I can't find a really good answer from someone who knows. holds this position that can actually make it make any sense. Last but not least, if this version is the perfect preserved word of God, then what about the billions of people around the world who don't speak English, who are reading the Bible in another language?

I've yet to hear a good justification for how those people are supposed to read God's word and be saved and all of these things. It just does not add up. And here's the really scary thing for me and why I say very clearly that it's dangerous.

It's because what I see happening with this version of KJV-onlyism, the extreme side of it, what comes out of this is hatred and discord and division. You can probably go ahead and hop into the comments of this video and you will see comments from people who are spewing hate towards me and towards other Bible translations because I'm speaking out against. this extreme position.

I see it all the time. I'll just do a random review of an NIV Bible or an ESV Bible and someone will come in the comments and say these are satanic versions of the Bible. And I'm sorry, that is so divisive. It is harmful to the gospel.

This is why this is dangerous because this extreme KJV only position does division to the church. It does nothing good. I watch these sermons. I read these blogs.

And you know what I don't see anything about? I don't see anything about the love of Jesus. I don't see anything about the fruit of the Spirit. What I see is anger and discord and hate. And you know what?

That, if you've ever read the Bible, King James Version or any other version, you know that that is not the kind of thing that the words of Scripture are filled with. And so friends, what I want to say in this video, is that the KJV-only position can be thoughtful. It can be nuanced.

It can be kind. And if you're out there and that's you, I appreciate you for being one of those people. But this extreme version of KJV-onlyism that pretends that the scriptures of the KJV are something that they are not, and then lashes out at other translations and those who read them, that is dangerous and it's uncalled for.

Thank you for sticking with me through this video. If you've watched my channel for very long, you know that I don't like to be too critical and divisive, but I did think that this was an important topic to explore in the world of Bible translations, and I would love to hear from you, even if you disagree with me. If you can do that thoughtfully and respectfully and kindly, I encourage you to leave me a comment.

I will check out the comments, and hopefully we can have a little bit of a discussion about this there. If you want to do a deeper dive into the world of Bible translations, I would encourage you to do two things. One, subscribe to my channel, check out my other videos here about Bible translations, and two, order a copy of my book, Bible Translations for Everyone. Again, I don't do a deep dive into KJV Only in my book, but it does come up several times, and several of the things that I've discussed in this video will be mentioned in the book.

One more reminder to check out my friend Mark Ward's channel. I've got a link in the video description, as well as his book, Authorized. It's a really great resource when it comes to the KJV Only movement and some of these topics. that we've been discussing. Thank you so much for watching everybody.

I'll see you next time.

Transcript for:Examining KJV-Only Movement Dangers

Transcript for:
Examining KJV-Only Movement Dangers