Mark Ward: His Anti-KJV Arguments Refuted
More Resources on Bibliology, the Doctrine of Scripture
Note: The PDF file may be the easiest to read.
Mark Ward And His Criticisms of the King James Bible:
Video Presentations by Thomas Ross
View the playlist refuting Mark Ward’s anti-KJV arguments on YouTube
A Critique of Mark Ward’s Criticisms of the King James Bible:
A Review of Ward’s Authorized: The Use & Misuse of the King James Bible, Ward’s KJV Survey with the “Textual Confidence Collective,” and Ward’s Three Videos Critiquing Thomas Ross’ Claims About KJV Intelligibility Based on the Linguistic Level of the Greek and Hebrew Bible, by Thomas Ross
Introduction
By objective standards of evaluation in Scripture, there is no doubt that the King James Version is indeed sufficiently intelligible to contemporary English readers.[1] This study will consider the arguments of Dr. Mark Ward to the contrary in his book, Authorized: The Use & Misuse of the King James Bible.[2] Furthermore, this writer made a video entitled Is the King James Version (KJV) Too Hard to Understand? James White / Thomas Ross Debate Review 11, published on the KJB1611 YouTube channel and the KJBIBLE1611 Rumble channels in 2023.[3] In this video I was responding to arguments made by Dr. James White in my debate with him over the topic “The Legacy Standard Bible, as a representative of modern English translations based upon the UBS/NA text, is superior to the KJV, as a representative of TR-based Bible translations.” While I had gone through Dr. Ward’s book as part of my preparation to debate Dr. White, I was not specifically responding to Mark Ward at that time. I argued that the KJV was not “too hard” because the level of difficulty of its English was within the framework of the level of linguistic difficulty of the Hebrew and Greek texts of Scripture.
In relation to my video defending the KJV based on the objective standard of the linguistic difficulty of the original language texts God inspired, Dr. Mark Ward produced a three-part video series entitled Brand New KJV-Only Arguments (Part 1 of 3), More New KJV-Only Arguments (Part 2 of 3), and Surprising New KJV-Only Arguments! (Part 3 of 3).[4] In these videos, Mark Ward intended to critique and respond to what I had set forth defending the level of English in the Authorized, King James Version. Regrettably, he did not provide any links to my actual video so that people could easily compare what he claimed I had argued with what I had actually argued, as, again regrettably, his understanding of what I had said was less than accurate. I cannot say for certain whether Mark Ward made three videos responding to me while giving no links whatsoever to what I actually had said in any of his three videos through an oversight or intentionally, so that people would not know what I had actually argued. Whatever the case, I do not want to do the same thing. So please note that I will be responding to the following works of Dr. Ward in this study. First, I respond to his book Authorized: The Use & Misuse of the King James Bible. Second, I respond to his three videos Brand New KJV-Only Arguments (Part 1 of 3), More New KJV-Only Arguments (Part 2 of 3), and Surprising New KJV-Only Arguments! (Part 3 of 3), as well as a survey conducted by people affiliated with Dr. Ward, including an organization called the “Textual Confidence Collective.”[5] This organization’s survey claims to prove that people who use the KJV do not understand it. Finally, I respond to material in the Mark Ward / Daniel Haifley debate The King James Version is sufficiently intelligible to contemporary English readers[6]; Mark Ward defended the negative in that debate. Other productions of Mark Ward that relate to the main compositions already listed were also examined. Dr. Kent Brandenburg has also made some responses to these arguments by Ward.[7]
For many reasons, including the vastly increased facility of citing sources for one’s affirmations, scholarship is better conducted in writing, rather than through YouTube or Rumble videos. YouTube videos very rarely cite sources; and when they do, it is much easier to misrepresent sources than when one is engaged in writing. I view YouTube and Rumble as places to popularize information, but not the field where actual scholarship takes place. I regret that Dr. Ward, instead of responding to me in writing, produced three videos where my actual argument was not examined especially accurately, and in which he never even cited the actual source to which he offered critique.
In addition, I have offered on multiple occasions to debate Mark Ward, but he has refused. I believe a debate would be a better way for people to get an accurate presentation of the arguments for both sides of a position than his making videos attacking the KJV position and attacking me (which most KJV people are not going to bother watching) and then my having to respond by video to him (video most anti-KJV people are not going to bother watching). I point this all out because, while I believe it is appropriate and God-glorifying for me to produce both written and video responses to Dr. Ward, my definite preference would be either written discussion or in-person dialogue in a public debate, rather than his monologuing on his YouTube channel[8] while I monologue on mine.[9]
Finally, let me mention that while I believe Dr. Ward is completely wrong on this issue, and he is leading people away from by far the best English version of the Bible, and his compromise on this leads to compromise in other areas—as we will see—it is also true that, based on his profession of faith, I believe that Mark Ward is my brother in Christ. I believe I will see him in heaven, where together we will worship our risen Lord and praise for ever and ever the worthiness of the Lamb, whose blood has washed our sins away. My strong disagreement with his position does not mean that I either deny that he is truly converted,[10] nor that I have any personal animosity against him, nor that I wish to either personally deny, nor would I encourage others to deny to him, the special love that 1 John says God’s children have for all fellow children of their one heavenly Father. But Leviticus 19:17-18 indicates that true love involves rebuke and not allowing others to sin. Thus, love for God and His glory, love for the children of God in general who may be led astray by Dr. Ward’s errors, and even love for Dr. Ward in particular, require that I show how his position is wrong. May God help me to present the truth both with the holy love for God and His saints and also the holy hatred for error that goes hand-in-hand with that holy love.
Mark Ward’s Book, Authorized: The Use and Misuse of the King James Bible
Specifically, what are Mark Ward’s arguments? In a single study like this one, it is impossible to respond to every single claim in Brother Ward’s book Authorized: The Use & Misuse of the King James Bible; selectivity is unavoidable. I have not written about or otherwise reviewed Dr. Ward’s book before this point because, honestly, I have not viewed it as serious scholarship and do not view it as worth reading[11] unless one happen to be doing a public debate with either Dr. Ward himself or another anti-King James Only person. Naturally, I suspect that Dr. Ward would strongly disagree with my assessment of his book. In fact, Dr. Ward claims: “I am the greatest expert on KJV false friends … I’ve written hundreds of scripts and two books and shot videos and put in thousands of hours studying KJV false friends.”[12] Ward said: “[There is] literally no one out there who is doing more work than I am to help people understand the King James Version … nobody else is even trying to teach people how to understand and define King James words.”[13] Similarly, in his book Authorized, Mark Ward claims: “[Y]ou could have almost no way of knowing about … the phenomenon of ‘false friends’ … if you hadn’t picked up this book.”[14] Clearly, Ward claims both that he is himself a great expert on the topic about which he writes in Authorized and that his book is of great importance. Why do I think his book is not a serious attack on the KJV?
First, and most importantly, Brother Ward’s book never establishes a Biblical, exegetical basis for his argument that the KJV is too difficult to read. Every Christian should believe in the perfect preservation of Scripture, and—based on good and necessary consequences of that sound Bibliology combined with a Biblical ecclesiology—should employ the Received Old and New Testament Texts of holy Scripture in the original languages. Furthermore, if English speakers, they should use the Authorized, King James Version, which has the literal translational philosophy of the perfectly preserved original language texts that fit with the Biblical truth of the verbal, plenary inspiration of holy Scripture. In other words, as I pointed out in my debate with James White:
1.) God revealed the Scriptures so that men could know His will both in the Old and New Testaments and in the future (Deuteronomy 31:9-13, 24-29; 1 John 1:1-4, 2:1-17; 2 Timothy 3:14-17; 2 Peter 1:12-15). The Bible is clear that no Scripture was intended for only the original recipient (Romans 15:4, 16:25-26; 1 Corinthians 10:11). God intended for His Word to be recognized and received by the churches as a whole (Colossians 4:16; Revelation 1:3-4). The inspired text of Scripture is to be guarded (1 Timothy 6:20-21) as a “form (pattern) of sound words” for the church (2 Timothy 1:13-14) and used to instruct all future churches (2 Timothy 2:2).
2.) The Bible promises that God will preserve every one of His words forever down to the very jot and tittle,[15] the smallest letter (Psalm 12:6-7, 33:11, 119:152, 160; Isaiah 30:8, 40:8; 1 Peter 1:23-25; Matthew 5:18, 24:35).
3.) The Bible assures us that God’s words are perfect and pure (Psalm 12:6-7; Proverbs 30:5-6).
4.) The Bible promises that God would make His words generally available to every generation of believers (Deuteronomy 29:29; 30:11-14; Isaiah 34:16, 59:21; Matthew 4:4; 5:18-19; 2 Peter 3:2; Jude 17).
5.) The Bible promises there will be certainty as to the words of God (Deuteronomy 4:2; 12:32; Revelation 22:18-19; 2 Peter 1:19; Luke 1:4; Proverbs 1:23, 22:20-21; Daniel 12:9-10; 1 John 2:20).
6.) The Bible promises that God would lead His saints into all truth, and that the Word, all of His words, are truth (John 16:13, 17:8, 17). Believers are not to set themselves above the Word but receive it (John 17:8; with the faith of a little child, rejecting secular and worldly “wisdom” (Matthew 11:25-26; 1 Corinthians 3:18-20).
7.) God states that the Bible will be settled to the extent that someone could not add or take away from His words and effectually corrupt them (Revelation 22:18-19; Deuteronomy 12:32).
8.) The Bible shows that the true churches of Christ would receive and guard these words (Matthew 28:19-20; John 17:8; Acts 8:14, 11:1, 17:11; 1 Thessalonians 2:13; 1 Corinthians 15:3; 1 Timothy 3:15).
9.) The Bible presents as a pattern that for believers would receive these words from other believers (Deuteronomy 17:18; 29:29; 1 Kings 2:3; Proverbs 25:1; Acts 7:38; Hebrews 7:11; 1 Thessalonians 1:6; Philippians 4:9; Colossians 4:16).
10.) The Bible shows that God’s promises may appear to contradict science and reason. In Genesis 2 we see that a newly created world may look ancient. However, the Scriptures remind us that “it is better to trust in the LORD than to put confidence in man” (Psalm 118:8). We believe in order that we may understand.
11.) Christ taught the preservation of His very words, since they will be the standard in the future judgment (John 12:48) and men will be accountable to obey them all. He also warned of the vanity of ignoring His actual words (Matthew 7:26). Christ emphatically declared, “the scripture cannot be broken” (John 10:35). In Matthew 22:29 Jesus rebuked men, saying, “Ye do err, not knowing the scriptures.” If the Scriptures were only accessible in long-lost original autographs then why would the Lord chide people for being ignorant of words that were not available? Believers are commanded to contend for the faith (Jude 3) and this faith is based upon the words of God (Romans 10:17).
12.) In summary, “The just shall live by faith” (Romans 1:17; Habakkuk 2:4) and “we walk by faith, not by sight” (2 Corinthians 5:7). Scripture, and faith in the promises of God, must be the “glasses” through which we evaluate historical data about the preservation of the Bible. Scripture teaches the verbal, plenary preservation of the verbally, plenarily inspired autographa (Psalm 12:6-7; Matthew 5:18; Matthew 24:35); that the preserved words would be perpetually available to God’s people (Isaiah 59:21); and that Israel was the guardian of Scripture in the Mosaic dispensation (Romans 3:1-2), and the church the guardian in the dispensation of grace (1 Timothy 3:15). The Holy Spirit would lead the saints to accept the words the Father gave to the Son to give to His people (John 16:13; 17:8). Believers can know with certainty where the canonical words of God are, because they are to live by every one of them (Matthew 4:4; Revelation 22:18-19) and are going to be judged by them at the last day (John 12:48).[16]
If one believes what Scripture teaches about its own preservation, and if one is an English speaker, he will inevitably be brought by the logical necessities of Biblical exegesis to a Received Text and a King James Only position. I am not going to pursue that fact further at this point, but I will simply point out that the good and necessary consequences of what infallible Scripture teaches about its own preservation, together with a deep respect for the work of the Holy Spirit in the confessional life and worship life of true churches, is at the heart of a sound, perfect preservationist, King James Only Bibliology. The exposition and application of God’s own promises to preserve His holy Word is the heart and soul of King James Onlyism.
By contrast, Mark Ward’s book Authorized: The Use & Misuse of the King James Bible contains almost no exposition of Scripture at all. Dr. Ward takes the extreme position that Scripture contains no promises at all about its own preservation, much less about the means through which that preservation would take place. According to Ward, “God gave us zero direction on how to do textual criticism aside from the light of nature.” For that reason, he does not “want to have a fight about that.”[17] Whether one reads or translates from the errant Nestle-Aland Textus Rejectus or the inerrant Textus Receptus is not an issue to fight over. According to Dr. Ward, if half of the Old Testament, all four Gospels, and half of Paul’s inspired epistles were to disappear, no promises of Scripture would have been violated. Since, according to Mark Ward, Scripture supplies “zero” direction on such matters, it is certainly unimportant whether or not Mark’s Gospel contains the resurrection appearances of Christ and the Great Commission (Mark 16:9-20, Received Text) or the Good News ends without any resurrection appearances and the ungrammatical and discouraging “and they said nothing to anyone, continually afraid for”[18] (Mark 16:8, Nestle-Aland Textus Rejectus) is not important. Certainly, then, there is no need to warn about secular textual critics who approach Scripture with not a thought about God’s promises to preserve His Words, since, according to Ward, there are no such promises. Furthermore, Ward’s book Authorized never examines the linguistic level of the Hebrew and Greek texts God has given His people in order to evaluate what is an appropriate level of difficulty for vernacular Bible translation. Indeed, as Mark Ward admits in his three videos responding to my video making that very argument, this idea never even entered his mind. He views it as a “new” King James Only argument. Sadly, Dr. Ward wrote an entire book arguing that the King James Version is too hard to read, but never even thought of comparing the linguistic difficulty of the Hebrew and Greek Scriptures with the KJV’s English.[19] The only serious attempt (if it can be called serious) at a Biblical basis for his claims against the Authorized Version was astonishing proof-texting of 1 Corinthians 14 that I cannot help but view as a painful abuse and silly misuse of that chapter. Ward claims, “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. … Here’s my real, ultimate COA [call to action]: buy a new Bible. Get a translation you’ve never read before.”[20] Explaining his position in his debate with Daniel Haifley, Dr. Ward explained his belief:
[The KJV is not] sufficiently intelligible to contemporary English readers … for preaching, for daily reading, for intense study, for memorization, for evangelism … for children’s ministry … there comes a point at which … actually it is a sin for a given Bible translation to be handed to children … [it] is time to turn away from the King James in institutional contexts …what can I do … other than apply the teaching of 1 Corinthians 14[?] … [Should you hand a KJV to your child?] Don’t do it.[21]
On pages 62-65 of Authorized, Ward claims that Paul’s requirement that people speak in tongues only if there is an interpreter present to translate the tongue into Greek proves that contemporary Christians must set aside the KJV, because it is in a foreign language. Ward even admits: “It is true that Paul is contrasting the understandable with the completely foreign here—like English vs. Russian or Tamil or Jambi Malay.”[22] Nevertheless, although he admits that Paul is not addressing what Ward is going to misuse this passage to prove, Dr. Ward claims that Paul’s prohibition on miraculous speaking in a foreign language in church without interpretation proves that contemporary Christians need to set aside the King James Version! Preaching from the KJV, evangelizing with the KJV, discipling with the KJV, and giving one’s children a KJV are violations of 1 Corinthians 14—that is, they are sins, according to Dr. Ward.
Does Mark Ward attempt to prove that the language of the KJV is as different as English is from Russian? No. In fact, in this very section, on page 65, he admits that the KJV is “basically the same language” as contemporary English.[23] Does he somehow prove that the words in the miraculously spoken foreign languages that the Holy Spirit gave the Corinthians were all simple words with no complexity? No. Does he give any evidence from 1 Corinthians 14 where Paul says something like, “Now when you interpret tongues and translate them into Greek, make sure that you only use very simple words in your interpretation of the tongue.” No; Paul makes no statement of that kind in 1 Corinthians 14. Does Ward prove that when the Corinthians spoke inspired prophecies that they only spoke them in low-level language? No. Why should we abandon the KJV, according to Mark Ward? “I would that ye all spake with tongues, but rather that ye prophesied: for greater is he that prophesieth than he that speaketh with tongues, except he interpret, that the church may receive edifying” (1 Corinthians 14:5). That is the proof? When the KJV becomes as different from modern English as Russian is from modern English, Dr. Ward will have a good proof-text. Until then, his argument is ridiculous.
Brother Ward continues:
The KJV translators put it this way when translating verse 9 in this passage: “Except ye utter by the tongue words easy to be understood, how shall it be known what is spoken?”
No translation can make the entire Bible “easy to be understood,” because some of it is “hard to be understood” (2 Pet 3:16). But a good translation will do its best to use language the unbeliever can be convicted by. It will use the vernacular.[24]
Note that Ward’s second paragraph takes away what his first paragraph gives; in the second paragraph he claims: “No translation can make the entire Bible ‘easy to be understood.’” Why, then, will Ward argue that Christians must set aside the KJV because of a few archaic words? Also, unless he thinks the Holy Spirit contradicts Himself in 2 Peter 3 and 1 Corinthians 14, his 2 Peter 3 argument should make him rethink his 1 Corinthians 14 argument. Would Scripture in one place say “only use words every single person, no matter how uneducated and ignorant, can understand” and in another place say, “there are words that are hard to understand in Scripture”? Far more importantly, Ward never proves, or even attempts to prove, that in 1 Corinthians 14:9 the “easy to be understood” even refers to the interpretation of the tongue, rather than to the words actually uttered in the tongue. If Paul is actually mandating proper articulation by the tongues-speaker, prohibiting things such as a person not speaking so quickly that nobody can understand what he is saying, the verse is useless for Ward’s conclusion. What is more, it is highly questionable if the Greek phrase eusemon logon dote (εὔσημον λόγον δῶτε), the KJV’s “utter words easy to be understood,” meaning “give a recognizable discourse,” is even talking about words at a low vernacular level. As the great Baptist Greek scholar A. T. Robertson explains in his Word Pictures, the word eusemon is an “old word, here only in N. T., [meaning] well-marked, distinct, clear. Good enunciation, a hint for speakers.”[25] The Theological Dictionary of the New Testament explains that it refers to “clarity and plainness in proclamation”[26] in 1 Corinthians 14:9. The Brill Dictionary of Ancient Greek defines the word as “well-marked … quite distinct, clear.”[27] The marginal notes in the 1611 KJV on 1 Corinthians 14:9’s “easy” explain that the Greek word means “significant.” First Corinthians 14:9’s command is about proper enunciation when speaking in a tongue, not about using only words that a five-year-old will always know. Furthermore, the word logon in the verse is singular, not plural. It is not a command to use many one-syllable words, but about a single logos, a single discourse, that is clearly enunciated so that hearers can know what words someone is speaking. Ironically, Paul here uses an old and rare word, eusemon, a NT hapax legomenon, in the phrase that Mark Ward is misusing as evidence for his claim that one should not use old and rare words.
While the old and rare word eusemos (εὔσημος), appears in the New Testament only in 1 Corinthians 14:9, it also appears once in the LXX, in Psalm 80:3 (English, 81:4):
σαλπίσατε ἐν νεομηνίᾳ σάλπιγγι, ἐν εὐσήμῳ ἡμέρᾳ ἑορτῆς ἡμῶν·
Trumpet with a trumpet at a new moon, at a high day of our feast. (NETS)
Blow the trumpet at the new moon, in the glorious day of your feast. (Brenton)
Paul, with his allusion to the trumpet in 1 Corinthians 14:8, very likely alludes to this passage, the sole reference to eusemos in the Greek Old Testament. The word in Psalm 80:3, LXX, translated “glorious” or “high,” has nothing whatsoever to do with using only simple speech in low words.
The opposite of eusemos appears in the New Testament in Acts 21:39, where the KJV translates asemos as “mean” and gives no support for Ward’s argument. A final example of a form of eusemos comes from Epictetus:
Every man will read a book with more pleasure or even with more case, if it is written in more recognizable characters. Therefore every man will also listen more readily to what is spoken, if it is signified by appropriate and becoming words.
Βιβλίον πᾶς ἂν ἥδιον ἀναγνῴη καὶ ῥᾷον τὸ εὐσημοτέροις γράμμασι γεγραμμένον οὐκοῦν καὶ λόγους πᾶς ἄν τις ῥᾷον ἀκούσειε τοὺς εὐσχήμοσιν ἅμα καὶ εὐπρεπέσιν ὀνόμασι σεσημασμένους. (2 Disc 23:1)
First Corinthians 14:9 has nothing to do with what Mark Ward is misusing it to prove. Paul’s mandating clear enunciation for tongues-speakers has nothing whatsoever to do with replacing the King James Version with the Living Bible or Good News for Modern Man.
While astonishing eisegesis is the most important factor problematizing Ward’s claim, allegedly based on 1 Corinthians 14, that pastors who preach from the KJV, Christians who evangelize with the KJV, Sunday School teachers who use the KJV, and parents who lead in family worship with the KJV are displeasing God and sinning, other questions also arise. If a pastor preaches an expositional message through one of the many, many passages in the KJV that do not have a single “false friend” or archaic word, why is he sinning, violating 1 Corinthians 14? If a Christian has the same KJV in his pocket when knocking on doors preaching the gospel that his spiritual fathers and grandfathers did, and such godly evangelists do not use a single verse with a “false friend,” are careful to explain the meaning of the verses they share in evangelism, and are careful to explain words like “propitiation” or “atonement” or “justification” if they use verses with these words, why are they sinning when they open their KJV Bibles and tell the lost the perfectly comprehensible “For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23)? Why are parents sinning if they have their young ones memorize “Children, obey your parents in the Lord: for this is right” (Ephesians 6:1) with a KJV open in their hands, but are not sinning if they have their children memorize exactly the same words in an NIV, ESV, NRSV, or NASB (which have exactly the same words as the KJV) in their hands? Do Mark Ward’s allegations bear any connection with the teaching of 1 Corinthians 14?
Unfortunately, just like Mark Ward can misuse Scripture, so he can misuse his other sources. For example, on page 66, shortly after his painful misuse of 1 Corinthians 14, Ward writes:
As Adolf Deissmann, who showed the world the significance of these “papyri” (so named because they were written on sheets of papyrus), said regarding this find, “The papyri are almost invariably non-literary in character.”8 He called his book Light from the Ancient East because these ancient documents illuminated much about the language of the New Testament. And when that light shined, this is what people saw: the New Testament was written in the very same language as these everyday documents.[28]
Leaving aside the very unlikely assumption that every single papyrus document was written at the same literary level, Mark Ward’s claim that the New Testament is written at the level of most papyri is simply false. In the words of Daniel Wallace’s Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics:
Conversational Koine is typically the spoken language of educated people … one would not expect to find many parallels to this—either in the papyri (usually the language of uneducated people) or among literary authors (for their language is a written language). Evidence/analogies for this level of language can be found plentifully, however, in western civilization. This analogy can be seen further in sermons. A sermon is typically above the level of vulgar, below the level of literary … the initial excitement over the papyri parallels to the NT was perhaps overstated. … Most of the papyri are beneath most of the NT syntactically, while the NT is not on the same literary level as such authors as Josephus or Polybius. It largely holds a middle ground … known as conversational.[29]
So when Mark Ward claims that the New Testament is “written in the very same language” as the mass of the papyri, he is simply wrong,[30] and wrong about something that is not very difficult to determine from either widely used secondary sources like Dan Wallace’s Grammar or from an examination of primary sources, such as simply reading the Greek New Testament and comparing it with the literary level of the mass of Greek papyri.
On page 63 of Authorized, Mark Ward writes: “The Septuagint is man-on-the-street Greek rather than literary or classical Greek.”[31] He quotes the T & T Clark Companion to the Septuagint, page 2: “[The Septuagint] is a work of sub-literary Greek, providing a lexical resource for lesser-known Koine words.” Readers of Ward’s book are supposed to conclude that the LXX was written at a very low level, that of the “man on the street”; it is “sub-literary,” according to Mark Ward’s conclusion from this quotation. However, if one actually looks at the book quoted in context, the very sentence before the one Ward quotes states that the Septuagint “is the largest extant piece of Ptolemaic Greek, and one of the first works of Hellenistic Judaism.”[32] The book’s point is that the LXX was not written in the language of earlier literary Greek authors like Homer or early classical Greek poets, because it was not written at that time in history. It was written in Ptolemaic, Hellenistic Greek, the Greek spoken at its time in history. It is a statement about the Greek in use at the time it was written—Hellenistic Greek. By “sub-literary,” the book refers to the time period at which the LXX was translated, a period after the time of the classical “literary” Greek language, namely, the Hellenistic period. In fact, this scholarly book recognizes that there was not only one level of linguistic difficulty in the LXX, or even only one Greek translation of the Old Testament, but a multiplicity of Greek translations with a multiplicity of styles: “There was not one Septuagint, therefore, but a number of versions that have left their mark on our text and manuscripts. This had been observed in notable differences in translation style even within the same books.”[33] Once again Mark Ward is misusing a source and making a very different point from that of the book he is quoting.
One suspects that Mark Ward has done little to no reading of the Greek LXX itself. The different styles apparent in different portions of the LXX are hard not to miss[34] if one actually reads it from cover to cover, or even reads a sizeable chunk of it. At the very least, I have never heard him say that he has read much of the Septuagint in Greek.
On page 98, Ward responds to the argument allegedly made[35] by KJV-Only advocates that “The KJV Translators made the KJV purposefully archaic.” Dr. Ward never explains the clear difference made in the KJV preface itself between a translation that is in the language of the “very vulgar,” the common man, and a translation that is understood by the common man, but is at a higher level of language.[36] It is unfortunate that Ward leaves the misleading impression that the KJV translators wished for their translation to be in the language of the common man, rather than intending that their translation be understood by the common man but be at a higher literary level, as Scripture itself in the original languages was understood by the common Hebrew or Greek but was not in the language that they spoke.
So, regrettably, just as Mark Ward misuses 1 Corinthians 14, he regularly and repeatedly misuses and distorts his uninspired sources. One who is familiar with the actual documents to which he refers gets the strong sense that Ward is too often talking about matters with which he has only a cursory and superficial familiarity. The reason Mark Ward’s Authorized has not received much attention from advocates of the perfect preservation of Scripture who engage in serious scholarship is because it does not deserve such attention. For that matter, even that “plowboy” to whom Ward likes to refer would be more likely to laugh at Ward’s silly misuse of 1 Corinthians 14 than to be convinced by it stop reading his KJV. Perhaps one must graduate from Bob Jones University, like Dr. Ward did, and receive a good deal of anti-perfect preservation indoctrination, before this argument from 1 Corinthians 14—that sounds silly to the plough boy—becomes a great, solid argument.
Only one further aspect of Dr. Ward’s argument merits response—his distinction between simple archaic words and “false friends.” Ward writes:
[T]he biggest problem with KJV vocabulary is not actually the dead, obsolete words. … The biggest problem in understanding the KJV comes from “false friends,” words that are still in common use but have changed meaning in ways that modern readers are highly unlikely to recognize. Many words and phrases in the KJV are still in use but meant different things in seventeenth-century England—and yet what they now mean makes sufficient sense in context that most readers don’t notice the change. They don’t realize they need to look these words up. … [A]lmost no one has the kind of dictionary that could truly help them with archaic KJV words. … The OED [Oxford English Dictionary] is an essential tool for reading the KJV, because it alone tells you how English words have been used throughout history. If you are a committed reader of the KJV, I commend this dictionary to you. … without the OED, you’d never know. … You can’t use current English dictionaries to reliably study the KJV. You can’t even use Webster’s 1828 dictionary, which has been reprinted in recent years. …You need the OED, the Oxford English Dictionary—the preeminently massive, exhaustive, authoritative (and expensive) resource on the English language … [but] even if you do buy the OED, you won’t always know when to use it. … I’ll be the first to admit that a few dozen examples of false friends in the KJV is not very many given how large the Bible is. For all you know, these are the only examples in existence. Of course, for all you know, there are countless more. And that’s my big point in this book: modern readers quite literally can’t—not merely don’t—know what they’re missing when they read the KJV. You can teach people to look up unfamiliar words, but the issue here is not words you know you don’t know; it’s words … you don’t know you don’t know.[37]
Before addressing Ward’s main point, I note, first of all, that Dr. Mark Ward is defining “false friend” differently from his source. Mark Ward adopted the concept of “false friends” from John McWhorter’s book Words on the Move: Why English Won’t—And Can’t—Sit Still,[38] as Ward makes clear in Authorized.[39] However, Dr. McWhorter illustrates the concept of “false friends” from Shakespeare, who used a much larger number of English words than are found in the KJV. Furthermore, in the passages McWhorter supplies of “false friends,” one can tell that words have changed their meaning. McWhorter never makes anything like Ward’s argument that, because of allegedly completely undetectable and unrecognizable “false friends,” one needs to look up every single word in Shakespeare or in other older English literary texts. Mark Ward is using the concept in a different way and on much simpler English than Dr. McWhorter used it for the complex English of Shakespeare, and Ward is drawing the radical conclusion that one can only know the meaning of the KJV if one looks up every single word in it using the OED[40]—a conclusion that nobody is drawing for Matthew Henry’s Commentary, the 1650 Scottish Psalter, 17th century Baptist Confessions, the Westminster Confession of Faith, 17th century hymn writers, or for any secular 17th century literature, including the much more complex English of Shakespeare. Ward does not seem to even believe his own conclusion, as he makes arguments against modern use of the KJV from the prefatory material to the KJV, but he never claims to have looked up every single word in the KJV’s prefatory material. How does Dr. Ward know that he is understanding the KJV’s preface, when he has not looked up every single word within it in the OED? The KJV, it seems, stands in a category by itself—it alone, among all 17th century writings, is so incomprehensible that unless one looks up “in,” “the,” “beginning,” “God,” and so on, he cannot really know what “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth” (Genesis 1:1) means. Dr. Ward, contrary to all published scholars of the English language, has had the discernment to uncover the KJV’s (allegedly) unique incomprehensibility.
Furthermore, Dr. Ward’s claim that every reader of the KJV must buy an unabridged Oxford English Dictionaryor he cannot understand the KJV, because “it alone” enables the reader to understand the Authorized Version, is an astonishingly inaccurate affirmation. There are many books that specifically define archaic KJV words and what Dr. Ward calls “false friends,”[41] including works that are available for free on the Internet. Ward’s claim that Noah Webster’s classic 1828 Dictionary,[42] widely employed by Christians, utilizing Scripture in the KJV itself for many of its word definitions, and available for free online, is insufficient to define KJV words is also entirely indefensible.[43] What is more, practically all KJV study Bibles define every one of these archaic words and “false friends” in the margin or at the bottom of the page. The Dean Burgon Society’s Defined King James Bible, the Trinitarian Bible Society’s Westminster Reference Bible, and many other helpful printings of the KJV define the archaic KJV words in their marginal notes. Dr. Ward’s claim that nobody can understand the KJV unless he purchases the unabridged Oxford English Dictionary and pours through every word of the KJV, looking up “free,” “love,” “glory,” “if,” “do,” and “the,” just in case they happen to be “false friends,” because he must use “the OED for every word in the KJV,”[44] is an entirely unjustifiable and gross overstatement of the difficulty of KJV archaisms. Furthermore, Ward himself states that he “never use[s] the paper editions of the Oxford English Dictionary,”[45] preferring what he can access for free online. It is unclear why Mark Ward himself can use a online version of the OED—something freely available over the Internet through public library systems to a very high percentage of the American population—but other Christians must buy an expensive print copy or they have no hope of understanding the KJV. Nor is it true that the ordinary reader just cannot know if a word is archaic or a “false friend.” In addition to the intuitive sense one has when reading an archaism that something is out of place (as appears in McWhorter’s discussion of “false friends,”) its presence in a list of archaic KJV words in an inexpensive book, a free webpage, or in the margin of one’s study Bible is all the indication required.
William Tyndale, in his 1526 “Epistle to the Reader,” explained what he believed should be done with words that are not commonly used or which are “otherwise understood of the common people” in his translation:
In time to come (if God have appointed us thereunto) we will give it his full shape, and put out, if ought be added superfluously, and add to, if ought be overseen through negligence; and will enforce to bring to compendiousness that which is now translated at the length, and to give light where it is required, and to seek in certain places more proper English, and with a table to expound the words which are not commonly used, and shew how the scripture useth many words which are otherwise understood of the common people, and to help with a declaration where one tongue taketh not another; and will endeavour ourselves, as it were, to seethe it better, and to make it more apt for the weak stomachs; desiring them that are learned, and able, to remember their duty, and to help them thereunto, and to bestow unto the edifying of Christ’s body, which is the congregation of them that believe, those gifts which they have received of God for the same purpose.[46]
Tyndale’s solution for words that are not commonly used in his version is not throwing out his translation for one with simpler words that is based on the Textus Rejectus. What is it? “[A] table” telling people what those words mean—a word list! Tyndale’s own preface to his translation says that his translation has words that were not in common use and words that are (so called) “false friends”—words used differently from the ordinary way that the “common people” understood them. Tyndale’s solution to this is a “table”—a list of these words and an explanation for what they mean. In other words, Tyndale’s solution to uncommon words and what Dr. Ward calls “false friends” is exactly what King James Only Christians and advocates of Confessional Bibliology say is the solution for these words in the KJV—a list of the archaic words that explains what they mean. Tyndale’s solution was a good one in his day, and it remains a good one today.
Furthermore, Tyndale himself invented a small number of words and introduced them into his Bible version. Both technical words like “atonement,” “scapegoat,” and “Passover,” and words like “beautiful,” “brokenhearted,” “busybody,” “castaway,” “fisherman,” “infidel,” “seashore,” “sorcerer,” “undergird,” “ungodly,” “uproar,” and “viper”[47] appear for the first time in English in Tyndale’s Bible. Tyndale invented these English words—ones not only not in common use, but not in use by anyone at all—and put them into his translation of Scripture.[48] In so doing, he was following the practice of Scripture itself. The extant evidence supports the idea that Paul, under the control of the Holy Spirit, invented the word sabbatismos in Hebrews 4:9.[49] Those who cease from their works and trust in Christ alone enter into God’s anti-typical sabbath rest, His sabbatismos, in Jesus Christ. Similarly, the Lord Jesus Himself invented the word “daily,” epiousios (ἐπιούσιος), in His model for prayer (Matthew 6:11; Luke 11:3).[50] The earliest patristic commentary on this word explains:
We must now examine the meaning of [this] word[.] … First we must note that the term epiousios … is not used by the Greeks: neither does it occur with the scholars, nor does it have a place in the language of the people. It seems to have been invented by the Evangelists. At least, Matthew and Luke, when they introduce it, are in complete agreement in their use of it. The translators of the Hebrew texts have done this same kind of thing with regard to other words also. Thus, what Greek has ever used the terms enotizou or akoutistheti to signify “receive in your ear” and “make yourself to hear”? [Origen speaks of two words that appear to have been invented by the LXX translators; see Gen. 4:23, Ps. 5:2, Job 33:1; Ps. 50:10, Eccles. 45:5. LSJ lists no occurences of either word in secular literature.] A term very similar to epiousios is found in the Books of Moses, and is there put in the mouth of God: You shall be to me a periousios people. I believe that both words derive from the word ousia (substance).[51]
The translator of this treatise on prayer notes on this same page: “Origen’s observation on the rarity of the celebrated word ἐπιούσιος [epiousios] has been completely sustained through the centuries.” If the KJV contains a small number of words that are not in common use, it not only follows the venerable English Bible tradition back to Tyndale, but also the practice of the Son of God Himself, and of the human penmen of Scripture.
Mark Ward: False Friend to KJV “False Friends”:
Ward’s “False Friends” Case in Authorized: The Use and Misuse of the King James Bible & His Survey of Pro-KJV Pastors with the “Textual Confidence Collective.”
I. Archaisms: Not A Serious Problem
Dr. Mark Ward does not view archaic words in the KJV as nearly as significant a problem as what he terms “false friends.” Within limits (that he never defines), he opines: “[I]f [a certain number] were the whole list of difficult words, it would seem reasonable to me—given all the things we’re losing as people stop reading the KJV—to ask people to look them up.”[52] He continues:
But the biggest problem with KJV vocabulary is not actually the dead, obsolete words. When you run across emerod, you know you don’t know what it means, so you know when to pull out your dictionary. The biggest problem in understanding the KJV comes from “false friends,”9 words that are still in common use but have changed meaning in ways that modern readers are highly unlikely to recognize.[53]
While he never gives the objective reasons for this fact, Dr. Ward is wise to de-emphasize archaic, dead words in his criticism of the KJV, although he never admits that archaisms are not a sufficient reason to set aside the Authorized Version. On the contrary, he claims that “almost no one has the kind of dictionary that could truly help them with archaic KJV words.”[54] He never justifies his claim that “almost no one” has the tools needed to understand the small number of KJV archaisms. Why are the incalculable number of printings of the KJV with the archaic words defined in marginal notes insufficient? Why are the free lists of KJV archaisms available online, or in print from organizations like Way of Life Literature[55] or the Trinitarian Bible Society,[56] insufficient? Why cannot one ask a friend at church or one’s pastor? Furthermore, how can “almost no one” have an appropriate dictionary, when anyone with an Internet connection can download Webster’s 1828 English Dictionary for free, and print copies are easily available? When a high percentage of public library systems in the United States make the unabridged Oxford English Dictionary available for free online to anyone with a library card, how can “almost no one” have not just tools, but a superabundance of tools, to easily determine the meaning of any KJV archaism? Mark Ward never answers these questions, but he is wise to deemphasize—and would be wiser to withdraw—the argument that archaisms require Christians to set aside the King James Version, as they are, indeed, not a serious problem.[57]
The prefatory material to the KJV indicates that the translators specifically and consciously retained a particular category of “old … words” as part of their “desire that the Scripture may speak like itself”; their translation was not inthe language of the common man, but they wished that it might be understood even by the common person.[58] In terms of both vocabulary and syntax, the English of the King James Version is simpler and less complex English than the Greek of the New Testament was to the New Testament people of God or the Hebrew of the Old Testament was to the ancient Hebrews.
Syntactically, the Greek New Testament does not contain only simple sentences such as “Jesus wept” (John 11:35),[59] but also complex ones, such as Ephesians 1:3-14. After the salutation (Ephesians 1:1-2), the entire body of the chapter of Ephesians 1:3-23 contains only two very long Greek sentences (1:3-14 & 1:15-23):
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ: According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love: Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will, To the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved[;] In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace; Wherein he hath abounded toward us in all wisdom and prudence; Having made known unto us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure which he hath purposed in himself: That in the dispensation of the fulness of times he might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth; even in him: In whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will: That we should be to the praise of his glory, who first trusted in Christ[;] In whom ye also trusted, after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation: in whom also after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that holy Spirit of promise, Which is the earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, unto the praise of his glory. Wherefore I also, after I heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus, and love unto all the saints, Cease not to give thanks for you, making mention of you in my prayers; That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him: The eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that ye may know what is the hope of his calling, and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints, And what is the exceeding greatness of his power to us-ward who believe, according to the working of his mighty power, Which he wrought in Christ, when he raised him from the dead, and set him at his own right hand in the heavenly places, Far above all principality, and power, and might, and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in that which is to come: And hath put all thingsunder his feet, and gave him to be the head over all things to the church, Which is his body, the fulness of him that filleth all in all.
Εὐλογητὸς ὁ Θεὸς καὶ πατὴρ τοῦ Κυρίου ἡμῶν Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ, ὁ εὐλογήσας ἡμᾶς ἐν πάσῃ εὐλογίᾳ πνευματικῇ ἐν τοῖς ἐπουρανίοις ἐν Χριστῷ· καθὼς ἐξελέξατο ἡμᾶς ἐν αὐτῷ πρὸ καταβολῆς κόσμου, εἶναι ἡμᾶς ἁγίους καὶ ἀμώμους κατενώπιον αὐτοῦ ἐν ἀγάπῃ, προορίσας ἡμᾶς εἰς υἱοθεσίαν διὰ Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ εἰς αὐτόν, κατὰ τὴν εὐδοκίαν τοῦ θελήματος αὐτοῦ, εἰς ἔπαινον δόξης τῆς χάριτος αὐτοῦ, ἐν ᾗ ἐχαρίτωσεν ἡμᾶς ἐν τῷ ἠγαπημένῳ· ἐν ᾧ ἔχομεν τὴν ἀπολύτρωσιν διὰ τοῦ αἵματος αὐτοῦ, τὴν ἄφεσιν τῶν παραπτωμάτων, κατὰ τὸν πλοῦτον τῆς χάριτος αὐτοῦ, ἧς ἐπερίσσευσεν εἰς ἡμᾶς ἐν πάσῃ σοφίᾳ καὶ φρονήσει, γνωρίσας ἡμῖν τὸ μυστήριον τοῦ θελήματος αὐτοῦ, κατὰ τὴν εὐδοκίαν αὐτοῦ, ἣν προέθετο ἐν αὐτῷ εἰς οἰκονομίαν τοῦ πληρώματος τῶν καιρῶν, ἀνακεφαλαιώσασθαι τὰ πάντα ἐν τῷ Χριστῷ, τά τε ἐν τοῖς οὐρανοῖς καὶ τὰ ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς· ἐν αὐτῷ, ἐν ᾧ καὶ ἐκληρώθημεν, προορισθέντες κατὰ πρόθεσιν τοῦ τὰ πάντα ἐνεργοῦντος κατὰ τὴν βουλὴν τοῦ θελήματος αὐτοῦ, εἰς τὸ εἶναι ἡμᾶς εἰς ἔπαινον τῆς δόξης αὐτοῦ, τοὺς προηλπικότας ἐν τῷ Χριστῷ· ἐν ᾧ καὶ ὑμεῖς, ἀκούσαντες τὸν λόγον τῆς ἀληθείας, τὸ εὐαγγέλιον τῆς σωτηρίας ὑμῶν, ἐν ᾧ καὶ πιστεύσαντες ἐσφραγίσθητε τῷ Πνεύματι τῆς ἐπαγγελίας τῷ Ἁγίῳ, ὅς ἐστιν ἀρραβὼν τῆς κληρονομίας ἡμῶν, εἰς ἀπολύτρωσιν τῆς περιποιήσεως, εἰς ἔπαινον τῆς δόξης αὐτοῦ. Διὰ τοῦτο κἀγώ, ἀκούσας τὴν καθ’ ὑμᾶς πίστιν ἐν τῷ Κυρίῳ Ἰησοῦ καὶ τὴν ἀγάπην τὴν εἰς πάντας τοὺς ἁγίους, οὐ παύομαι εὐχαριστῶν ὑπὲρ ὑμῶν, μνείαν ὑμῶν ποιούμενος ἐπὶ τῶν προσευχῶν μου· ἵνα ὁ Θεὸς τοῦ Κυρίου ἡμῶν Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ, ὁ πατὴρ τῆς δόξης, δῴη ὑμῖν πνεῦμα σοφίας καὶ ἀποκαλύψεως, ἐν ἐπιγνώσει αὐτοῦ· πεφωτισμένους τοὺς ὀφθαλμοὺς τῆς διανοίας ὑμῶν, εἰς τὸ εἰδέναι ὑμᾶς τίς ἐστιν ἡ ἐλπὶς τῆς κλήσεως αὐτοῦ, καὶ τίς ὁ πλοῦτος τῆς δόξης τῆς κληρονομίας αὐτοῦ ἐν τοῖς ἁγίοις, καὶ τί τὸ ὑπερβάλλον μέγεθος τῆς δυνάμεως αὐτοῦ εἰς ἡμᾶς τοὺς πιστεύοντας, κατὰ τὴν ἐνέργειαν τοῦ κράτους τῆς ἰσχύος αὐτοῦ ἣν ἐνήργησεν ἐν τῷ Χριστῷ, ἐγείρας αὐτὸν ἐκ νεκρῶν, καὶ ἐκάθισεν ἐν δεξιᾷ αὐτοῦ ἐν τοῖς ἐπουρανίοις, ὑπεράνω πάσης ἀρχῆς καὶ ἐξουσίας καὶ δυνάμεως καὶ κυριότητος, καὶ παντὸς ὀνόματος ὀνομαζομένου οὐ μόνον ἐν τῷ αἰῶνι τούτῳ, ἀλλὰ καὶ ἐν τῷ μέλλοντι· καὶ πάντα ὑπέταξεν ὑπὸ τοὺς πόδας αὐτοῦ, καὶ αὐτὸν ἔδωκε κεφαλὴν ὑπὲρ πάντα τῇ ἐκκλησίᾳ, ἥτις ἐστὶ τὸ σῶμα αὐτοῦ, τὸ πλήρωμα τοῦ πάντα ἐν πᾶσι πληρουμένου.
The Holy Ghost did not believe such sentences were too hard to understand, and both God and the Apostle Paul were happy for inspired epistles with such complex syntax to be sent to churches like the one at Ephesus—congregations that were filled, not with highbrow urban elites, but with slaves, with poorly educated day laborers, with farmers, and with simple peasants who had believed on the Lord Jesus Christ.
Indeed, the vast majority of people in the first century were simple, rural people, not highly educated urbanites. Literacy was sketchy in many places. Yet Paul still wrote Hebrews, with its complex Greek, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. God still revealed Luke and Acts and led His churches to receive the complex level of Greek in these books as canonical. Both in the eyes of the Triune Jehovah and in the eyes of the simple people who made up the large majority of the membership of the first century churches, the rather complex Greek of those portions of Scripture was not a problem that required rewriting. Some complex syntax and some rare words were received by God’s people with reverence—not removed to bring the Bible down to the level of the barely literate. The common man did not speak in sentences like Ephesians 1:3-14, but such sentences could be understood by the common man who reverenced God’s Word.
The Old Testament also contains difficult syntax and not a few very long sentences. For example, Proverbs 2:1-22 is only one sentence in Hebrew:
My son, if thou wilt receive my words, and hide my commandments with thee; So that thou incline thine ear unto wisdom, and apply thine heart to understanding; Yea, if thou criest after knowledge, and liftest up thy voice for understanding; If thou seekest her as silver, and searchest for her as for hid treasures; Then shalt thou understand the fear of the LORD, and find the knowledge of God[;] For the LORD giveth wisdom: out of his mouth cometh knowledge and understanding[;] He layeth up sound wisdom for the righteous: he is a buckler to them that walk uprightly[;] He keepeth the paths of judgment, and preserveth the way of his saints[;] Then shalt thou understand righteousness, and judgment, and equity; yea, every good path[;] When wisdom entereth into thine heart, and knowledge is pleasant unto thy soul; Discretion shall preserve thee, understanding shall keep thee: To deliver thee from the way of the evil man, from the man that speaketh froward things; Who leave the paths of uprightness, to walk in the ways of darkness; Who rejoice to do evil, and delight in the frowardness of the wicked; Whose ways are crooked, and they froward in their paths: To deliver thee from the strange woman, even from the stranger which flattereth with her words; Which forsaketh the guide of her youth, and forgetteth the covenant of her God[;] For her house inclineth unto death, and her paths unto the dead[;] None that go unto her return again, neither take they hold of the paths of life[;] That thou mayest walk in the way of good men, and keep the paths of the righteous[;] For the upright shall dwell in the land, and the perfect shall remain in it[;] But the wicked shall be cut o[ff from the earth, and the transgressors shall be rooted out of it.
בְּנִי אִם־תִּקַּ֣ח אֲמָרָ֑י וּ֝מִצְוֹתַ֗י תִּצְפֹּ֥ן אִתָּֽךְ׃ לְהַקְשִׁ֣יב לַֽחָכְמָ֣ה אָזְנֶ֑ךָ תַּטֶּ֥ה לִ֝בְּךָ֗ לַתְּבוּנָֽה׃ כִּ֤י אִ֣ם לַבִּינָ֣ה תִקְרָ֑א לַ֝תְּבוּנָ֗ה תִּתֵּ֥ן קוֹלֶֽךָ׃ אִם־תְּבַקְשֶׁ֥נָּה כַכָּ֑סֶף וְֽכַמַּטְמוֹנִ֥ים תַּחְפְּשֶֽׂנָּה׃ אָ֗ז תָּ֭בִין יִרְאַ֣ת יְהוָ֑ה וְדַ֖עַת אֱלֹהִ֣ים תִּמְצָֽא׃ כִּֽי־יְהוָֹה יִתֵּ֣ן חָכְמָ֑ה מִ֝פִּ֗יו דַּ֣עַת וּתְבוּנָֽה׃ וְצָפַן [יִצְפֹּ֣ן] לַ֭יְשָׁרִים תּוּשִׁיָּ֑ה מָ֝גֵ֗ן לְהֹ֣לְכֵי תֹֽם׃ לִ֭נְצֹר אָרְח֣וֹת מִשְׁפָּ֑ט וְדֶ֖רֶךְ חֲסִידָו [חֲסִידָ֣יו] יִשְׁמֹֽר׃ אָ֗ז תָּ֭בִין צֶ֣דֶק וּמִשְׁפָּ֑ט וּ֝מֵישָׁרִ֗ים כָּל־מַעְגַּל־טֽוֹב׃ כִּֽי־תָב֣וֹא חָכְמָ֣ה בְלִבֶּ֑ךָ וְ֝דַ֗עַת לְֽנַפְשְׁךָ֥ יִנְעָֽם׃ מְ֭זִמָּה תִּשְׁמֹ֥ר עָלֶ֗יךָ תְּבוּנָ֥ה תִנְצְרֶֽכָּה׃ לְ֭הַצִּ֣ילְךָ מִדֶּ֣רֶךְ רָ֑ע מֵ֝אִ֗ישׁ מְדַבֵּ֥ר תַּהְפֻּכֽוֹת׃ הַ֭עֹ֣זְבִים אָרְח֣וֹת יֹ֑שֶׁר לָ֝לֶ֗כֶת בְּדַרְכֵי־חֹֽשֶׁךְ׃ הַ֭שְּׂמֵחִים לַעֲשׂ֥וֹת רָ֑ע יָ֝גִ֗ילוּ בְּֽתַהְפֻּכ֥וֹת רָֽע׃ אֲשֶׁ֣ר אָרְחֹתֵיהֶ֣ם עִקְּשִׁ֑ים וּ֝נְלוֹזִ֗ים בְּמַעְגְּלוֹתָֽם׃ לְ֭הַצִּ֣ילְךָ מֵאִשָּׁ֣ה זָרָ֑ה מִ֝נָּכְרִיָּ֗ה אֲמָרֶ֥יהָ הֶחֱלִֽיקָה׃ הַ֭עֹזֶבֶת אַלּ֣וּף נְעוּרֶ֑יהָ וְאֶת־בְּרִ֖ית אֱלֹהֶ֣יהָ שָׁכֵֽחָה׃ כִּ֤י שָׁ֣חָה אֶל־מָ֣וֶת בֵּיתָ֑הּ וְאֶל־רְ֝פָאִ֗ים מַעְגְּלֹתֶֽיהָ׃ כָּל־בָּ֭אֶיהָ לֹ֣א יְשׁוּב֑וּן וְלֹֽא־יַ֝שִּׂ֗יגוּ אָרְח֥וֹת חַיִּֽים׃ לְמַ֗עַן תֵּ֭לֵךְ בְּדֶ֣רֶךְ טוֹבִ֑ים וְאָרְח֖וֹת צַדִּיקִ֣ים תִּשְׁמֹֽר׃ כִּֽי־יְשָׁרִ֥ים יִשְׁכְּנוּ אָ֑רֶץ וּ֝תְמִימִ֗ים יִוָּ֥תְרוּ בָֽהּ׃ וּ֭רְשָׁעִים מֵאֶ֣רֶץ יִכָּרֵ֑תוּ וּ֝בוֹגְדִ֗ים יִסְּח֥וּ מִמֶּֽנָּה׃
God inspired an entire chapter of Scripture that is just one sentence—all 22 verses, which match the 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet. This chapter-long sentence is divided by logical particles into parts. The sentence contains beautiful reiteration, whereby each new stanza in the first half of the sentence, 2:1-11, begins with the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet, aleph, and each stanza of the second half with its twelfth consonant, lamed.[60] Thus, both the Hebrew and Greek Bible contain sentences and syntactical structures that are considerably more complex than anything found in the King James Bible. The criticism Mark Ward levels at the KJV for being too hard to understand would redound, so much the more, on the Hebrew and Greek texts dictated by the Holy Spirit. If Christians need to get rid of the KJV because it is too hard to understand, would they not much more need to get rid of the infallible Hebrew and Greek text? Would it not be necessary to replace God’s magnificently beautiful Greek and Hebrew Word with something that is always as simple as the English The Message paraphrase? If Christians should not get rid of the Hebrew and Greek God spoke from heaven, then should not the saints learn from the syntax of the original text what is lawful in the syntax of a translation?
Consider further that there is more literacy in the English-speaking world now than there was in the first century world of the New Testament, or in the world where God gave the Hebrew Old Testament. When was learning to read–or improving one’s reading level–easier? Surely—indubitably—it is easier, indeed, much easier—now. Very, very few people in the extremely wealthy English-speaking world (historically speaking) need to work on a farm twelve hours a day, six days a week, week after week, just to barely avoid starvation doing subsistence farming, while carrying water from a well by hand, washing clothes by hand, and doing everything else by hand that our modern mechanized “servants” do for us today. Someone at the American “poverty” line is extremely, extremely wealthy compared to the average person living in Bible times, with a much, much easier life, and much, much more free time that he can spend on reading and on improving his reading ability. So if contemporary Christians live in a time where it is much easier to develop language proficiency than it was in Bible times—and yet the KJV is on a simpler linguistic level than at least large portions of the original Biblical text—what need is there to replace the KJV?
The King James seeks to replicate the syntax of the original language texts as much as possible. Translators cannot significantly simplify the syntax of the King James Bible without moving it further away from the original language text. If syntax must be left alone, does the King James Version have more archaic words than the Greek of the New Testament or the Hebrew of the Old Testament? Numbers vary somewhat based on how one counts words, but “[n]early two thousand words of the … vocabulary in the Hebrew Bible are hapax legomena.”[61] The New Testament has nearly 2,000 hapax legomena as well;[62] for the two testaments together the number is approximately 3,600. The KJV’s prefatory material speaks about these words: “There be many words in the Scriptures which be never found there but once, [ἅπαξ λεγόμενα] (having neither brother nor neighbour, as the Hebrews speak) so that we cannot be holpen by conference of places.”[63] While not all of those Old and New Testament hapax legomena—words that occur only once—would have been rare or archaic words to first century readers, many of them would have been. For the non-Jewish majority of Christians in the early churches who wanted to read the Old Testament in Hebrew, the situation with hapax legomena in the Old Testament would have been relatively close to the situation faced by modern readers. By way of contrast, there are nowhere near as many archaic words in the King James Version as there are hapax legomena in the original languages. The KJV contains approximately 12,000 different words and approximately 300 archaic words.[64] The Hebrew Old Testament has approximately 8,500 Hebrew words, and the Greek New Testament has approximately 5,500 words, for a total of 14,000 different words. To read the Bible in the original languages, one must learn approximately 2,000 more words than there are in the KJV (not even including the approximately 648 different Aramaic words in Scripture). Thus, comparing the KJV to the original language text evidences:
Fewer total KJV words than the original language texts (c. 12,000 vs. 14,000 words)
Fewer “hard” KJV words (archaic vs. hapax, 300 vs. 3,600)
Thus, the KJV contains fewer total vocabulary words than the original languages of Scripture, and the number of archaic KJV words is approximately 10% of the total number of “hard” words in the original language text. What is more, the average four-year-old knows approximately 5,000 vocabulary words:[65] learning the approximately 300 archaic words in the KJV is adding to one’s vocabulary around 6% of what a four-year-old child knows. In fact, if one does not even want to learn 300 words so that he can master what scholars recognize as “demonstrably the greatest English Bible ever,” he still has many other good options. Using his phone, good Bible dictionaries such as the Way of Life Encyclopedia of the Bible and Christianity, or a study Bible that defines the archaic words in the margin, oner can easily discover what an unknown Biblical word means. It is easier and less time-intensive than at any time in history to learn the meaning of the small number of “hard” KJV words.
Someone studying the Hebrew Pentateuch is reading something written by Moses around 1,000 years before the latest portions of the inspired Hebrew Scriptures. The book of Job, “written in pure archaic Hebrew … as it was spoken and written more than 4000 years ago,”[66] could easily date to well over 1,500 years before the composition of the final books of the Old Testament and “contains more rare and archaic Hebrew words than any other book of the Old Testament.”[67] Job contains “rare or archaic vocabulary and word forms … a high incidence of rare forms and hapax legomena,”[68] with its archaism making the book very difficult to decipher at points,[69] as it uses “language laced with archaic and foreign-sounding idioms … from long ago and far away.”[70] Yet (unless one is a theological modernist who believes in JEDP or other intellectually bankrupt and false theories about textual revision[71]) there was no inspired “updating” or “editing” of the early books of the Hebrew Bible to make them “more understandable.” In other words, Ezra, or Malachi, or some other one of God’s later prophets and Scripture writers, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, did not “update” the “archaic” books of Moses or the book of Job to change them from an “old” KJV sort of Hebrew to a “new” NKJV sort of Hebrew. The precedent of not updating, but leaving the text alone, demonstrated in the practice of the human authors of later Old Testament books who left unchanged “archaic” Hebrew from over 1,000 years earlier, provides a principle that an accurate translation such as the KJV should not be updated lightly, carelessly, or needlessly.
Thus, evaluated by the standard of Scripture itself—by the standard of the Greek and Hebrew text God gave His people—the English of the Authorized, King James Version is indubitably not “too hard”; nor does it require an update at this time; nor is it at all likely to need one in this author’s lifetime. People who claim that the KJV is too difficult to read should be enthusiastically promoting something like the fine KJV study Bibles that define archaic words in their margins. The helpful editions published by the Trinitarian Bible Society or Bible For Today leave the actual King James Version text unchanged but define the few archaic words in the margins. Someone genuinely concerned about hard words in the KJV can enthusiastically promote works such as David Cloud’s Way of Life Encylopedia of the Bible and Christianity, where all the rare KJV words are defined, instead of encouraging readers to reject the KJB’s fantastic translation of the perfectly preserved Hebrew and Greek Textus Receptus for corrupt modern Bible versions. Is the King James Bible too hard to understand? According to God’s objective, infallible standard—the Christian’s only rule for faith and practice, Scripture itself—the answer is clearly “no.”
The small number of archaic words in the KJV are objectively not a serious problem, nor is the syntax of the KJV a problem—both the vocabulary and syntax of the KJV fall well within the parameters of the linguistic difficulty of the Hebrew and Greek Scriptures. At least for the syntax and vocabulary of the KJV, Mark Ward’s claims that preaching and evangelizing with the KJV are sinful are not even close to justifiable. But what about what he calls “false friends”?
II.“False Friends”: The Alleged Problem
The heart of Mark Ward’s case against the King James Version consists of his claim that words that have changed their meaning since 1611 but are still in use (words he labels “false friends”) require that the KJV be set aside for preaching, evangelizing, and many other purposes. Ward never attempts to argue that even one discourse, pericope, or other macrostructural unit in the entire KJV is unintelligible. Nor does he strongly press the issue of known archaisms. For Ward, what he calls “false friends” are the crucial reason to set aside the Authorized Version. Dr. Mark Ward summarizes his entire book’s main argument:
I’ll be the first to admit that a few dozen examples of false friends in the KJV is not very many given how large the Bible is. For all you know, these are the only examples in existence. Of course, for all you know, there are countless more. And that’s my big point in this book: modern readers quite literally can’t—not merely don’t—know what they’re missing when they read the KJV. You can teach people to look up unfamiliar words, but the issue here is not words you know you don’t know; it’s words … you don’t know you don’t know.[72]
According to Mark Ward, if there are only “a few dozen examples of false friends in the KJV,” that may be acceptable, “given how large the Bible is.” A few dozen words that are somewhat harder to identify than others among the approximately 300 archaic KJV words are not many in a book that contains 790,868 total words.[73] If a few dozen “false friends” are really not a big deal, why is Mark Ward spending so much of his time on this question? He claims there may be “countless” more, “tons” of such words; indeed, “[M]odern readers literally can’t … know what they’re missing when they read the KJV.”[74] Furthermore, in association with an organization called the “Textual Confidence Collective,” Mark Ward claimed to survey 100 Christian leaders who use exclusively the King James Version. He claims his survey proves that even King James Only pastors do not understand the KJV; his survey, self-designated as the “King James Bible Research Project,” is, he states, “the last word on the matter.”[75]
The most important problems with Ward’s argument are that he provides no objective basis in Scripture for his claim about when “false friends” become a problem and that many of his examples of “false friends” are actually false. However, his claim that the modern reader “quite literally can’t” know if words are “false friends,” so that there is no way to tell if there are only a few dozen or “countless” more, is self-defeating. How has Dr. Ward been able to identify several dozen “false friends,” if the “modern reade[r] quite literally can’t … know” where they are? Is Mark Ward a modern reader? If there really may be “countless” more—thousands, perhaps tens of thousands, a veritable and vast host of “false friends,” instead of a few old-fashioned locutions in a small huddle in the corner—why has he not employed the same methodology he employed to find a “few dozen” to point out “countless” more? With the vast amount of time and effort Mark Ward has put into magnifying anything even possibly archaic in the KJV, why has he not identified many, many more of this alleged “countless” host of “false friends”? Dr. Ward’s argument may be effective in leading Christian readers of the KJV to wonder, “Yea, hath God said?” (Genesis 3:1), but it collapses upon examination—as did the unhappy argument of the cunning speaker in Genesis 3:1.
III. Mark Ward’s “Definitive” KJV Survey: Not So Definitive
Dr. Mark Ward believes that his “King James Bible Research Project” survey[76] “is … the last word,”[77] clearly proving that the KJV is not sufficiently intelligible. However, one may justifiably question just how definitive this survey is and whether it truly is anything even close to the “last word.”
Of what does Dr. Ward’s survey consist? It is comprised of ten questions about archaic “false friend” words and ten more questions addressing exclusively second-person personal pronouns. Through a handful of questions about archaic words and another handful about pronouns—questions that take approximately five minutes to answer—Ward is convinced that the vast topic of a pastor’s understanding of the KJV Bible that he studies daily and from which he constantly preaches can be accurately assessed, and a definitive conclusion—“the last word on the matter”—can be reached.
A survey-taker will notice that the first ten questions relate to the fact that in the Authorized Version “thee,” “thou,” and “thy” are second person singular pronouns, while “ye” and “you” are second person plural pronouns, accurately bringing into English the difference between the second-person singular and second-person plural in the Greek and Hebrew languages. Only one of the pronoun questions is correctly answered “singular,” while 90%—including the last eight in a row—are correctly answered “plural.”
After I heard about Dr. Ward’s quiz, I asked some Greek students and some KJV-Only preacher friends to take it. They did much better than what Mark Ward claims was the average. Additionally, one Greek student’s answer supplied additional insight. He said that under the pressure of taking the quiz he got some of the pronoun questions wrong, even though he knew perfectly well that thee/thou/thy are singular but ye/you are plural. When nine out of ten of the pronoun questions are plural—the last eight in a row—and the plural ones are examples in the KJV where the context might suggest a singular answer, such as in Luke 22:31, Ward needs to account for the psychological pressure that will cause test-takers to second-guess themselves. Should people be able to resist psychological pressure? Yes. Does what people say in a stressful situation under pressure necessarily reflect their true beliefs and true knowledge? No.
My concern about this manipulative pressure in Ward’s quiz was confirmed independently later by one of the pastors who was called on the phone to take the survey. The pastor commented:
[T]he first 10 questions were about determining singular or plural from some Bible verses. I thought to myself, “Well, this should be easy. I’ll just use the rule that I learned in Bible college about the ‘Y’ pronouns being plural and the ‘T’ pronouns being singular. As the questions went along there was one singular, but the rest were plural. I started to second guess myself, thinking [that] there shouldn’t be this many plurals, should there? Now the way the questions were arranged was really disingenuous. … A test should have a general representation of the different principles or issues involved so you can see if a student understands all of the material. That would mean a teacher should make a test with five plural and five singular, or maybe six versus four, to see if someone understands—not one singular and nine plural. Because of this way of questioning, the survey doesn’t give real-world results.
Later I’d learn the author is Mark Ward. … I believe he purposely chose to put nine plural “you” questions in because they’re harder to determine … [also] he selected passages where the general context made it seem like it was singular when the you was actually plural. So these ten questions are not representative of average Bible usage, making the stated purpose of the survey deceptive. … [A] more scientific study would have had a control group for the same passages in a modern version where [survey participants would be asked] to define the singular and plural … [and then told] the [KJV t vs. y] rule and see how they would do with the King James. That would reveal [the] real world readability of both the King James and a modern [version].[78]
Thus, the survey includes verses such as Luke 22:31: “And the Lord said, Simon, Simon, behold, Satan hath desired to have you.” Survey-takers are supposed to identify the “you” as either singular or plural. Of course, if they know the difference between the “thees” and the “ye-s” in the KJV they will know that the “you” is plural. Someone who does not know, or who experiences psychological pressure from Ward’s test and forgets what he does know, will assume the pronoun is singular because in the first part of the verse the Lord is addressing Simon Peter, only one person. The plural “you” indicates that Peter’s sinning would hurt the rest of the disciples, and Satan wanted them all.
Mark Ward wants people to reject the KJV, because too many people who use the King James Bible do not know that it accurately differentiates between singular and plural personal pronouns, so they get his question wrong in Luke 22:31. However, how good is Ward’s solution? Mark Ward claims that too many people forget or are unaware of the simple rule that second person personal pronouns beginning with t are singular and those beginning with y are plural—therefore, because this very simple rule is too often forgotten, he wants people to have Bibles where there is no simple rule and no way at all to tell the difference without doing something much harder than learning the difference between tand y, namely, learning Greek and Hebrew. How many people who have only modern English versions will know that Luke 22:31 refers to all the disciples in its you who are sifted as wheat, when Christ is speaking to only one person, Simon Peter? Practically none of them—the only way they can know is by looking at the Greek New Testament. Is the solution for some KJV-using Christians not knowing the difference between thee and ye, and more KJV Christians not being good test takers when under pressure, replacing the KJV with a vernacular language Bible where it is impossibleto tell the difference between singular and plural pronouns? This is quite a solution. Is replacing the KJV with a Bible where pronoun differentiation is impossible really going to help God’s people understand the Holy Spirit’s point in Luke 22:31? Mark Ward draws problematic conclusions from the thee/thou/thy versus ye/you portion of his survey.
1.) “False Friends”: Hebrew OT, Greek NT, and English KJV
Objectively, the Hebrew Old Testament has some words that would fit under Mark Ward’s definition of “false friends.” The Greek New Testament has some as well. If the KJV has vastly more such words than there are in the Hebrew and Greek Bibles, then, based on the objective standard God has revealed in His Word, a basis would exist for concluding that the KJV needs revision. On the other hand, if the number of “hard” words in the KJV (words for which meaning has shifted over time) is smaller than the number of such words in the original language text of Scripture, then based on the objective standard God Himself has revealed in His Word, Dr. Ward’s entire “false friends” argument is invalid. Regrettably, Dr. Ward does not seem to have ever evaluated the original language texts of Scripture, applying to the Hebrew Old Testament and Greek New Testament the same test which he applies to the English of the KJV, in order to see if the arguments he employs to claim that the KJV is not “sufficiently intelligible” and must be set aside would also require the ancient Hebrews to set aside the Hebrew Old Testament or the first-century Christians to set aside the Greek New Testament (were they valid and consistently applied).
Are there “hard” Hebrew or Greek words in Scripture whose original meanings have changed in significant ways, so that readers of the Old or New Testament could easily confuse their meanings? Yes! Consider the Hebrew verb ḥālal (חָלַל). In the Hebrew Niphal, Piel, Pual, and Hiphil verbal stems, the verb means “pollute, defile, profane.” However, on other occasions in the Hiphil it can also mean “begin”—something very different![79] For example, exactly the same verb appears in the following passages:
So will I make my holy name known in the midst of my people Israel; and I will not let them pollute my holy name any more: and the heathen shall know that I am the LORD, the Holy One in Israel. (Ezekiel 39:7)
וְאֶת־שֵׁ֨ם קָדְשִׁ֜י אוֹדִ֗יעַ בְּתוֹךְ֙ עַמִּ֣י יִשְׂרָאֵ֔ל וְלֹֽא־אַחֵ֥ל אֶת־שֵׁם־קָדְשִׁ֖י ע֑וֹד וְיָדְע֤וּ הַגּוֹיִם֙ כִּי־אֲנִ֣י יְהוָֹ֔ה קָד֖וֹשׁ בְּיִשְׂרָאֵֽל׃
And Aaron took as Moses commanded, and ran into the midst of the congregation; and, behold, the plague was begun among the people: and he put on incense, and made an atonement for the people. (Numbers 16:47)
וַיִּקַּ֨ח אַהֲרֹ֜ן כַּאֲשֶׁ֣ר ׀ דִּבֶּ֣ר מֹשֶׁ֗ה וַיָּ֙רָץ֙ אֶל־תּ֣וֹך הַקָּהָ֔ל וְהִנֵּ֛ה הֵחֵ֥ל הַנֶּ֖גֶף בָּעָ֑ם וַיִּתֵּן֙ אֶֽת־הַקְּטֹ֔רֶת וַיְכַפֵּ֖ר עַל־הָעָֽם׃
Slay utterly old and young, both maids, and little children, and women: but come not near any man upon whom is the mark; and begin at my sanctuary. Then they began at the ancient men which were before the house. (Ezekiel 9:6)
זָקֵ֡ן בָּח֣וּר וּבְתוּלָה֩ וְטַ֨ף וְנָשִׁ֜ים תַּהַרְג֣וּ לְמַשְׁחִ֗ית וְעַל־כָּל־אִ֨ישׁ אֲשֶׁר־עָלָ֤יו הַתָּו֙ אַל־תִּגַּ֔שׁוּ וּמִמִּקְדָּשִׁ֖י תָּחֵ֑לּוּ וַיָּחֵ֙לּוּ֙ בָּאֲנָשִׁ֣ים הַזְּקֵנִ֔ים אֲשֶׁ֖ר לִפְנֵ֥י הַבָּֽיִת׃
Could not Numbers 16:47 meet Ward’s definition of a “false friend”? Could not someone conclude that the text should read “the plague defiled among the people”? People were dropping dead of plague, and dead bodies caused defilement in the law of Moses. Could not someone think that in Numbers 16:47 ḥālal means “defile,” not “begin”? What about Ezekiel 9:6—the reference to ḥālal in the Hiphil that comes immediately before Ezekiel 39:7, where the same verb in the same tense does indeed mean “defile”? Could not one see Ezekiel 9:6 as a command to “defile” the sanctuary with the dead bodies of those being slain, as God in judgment abandoned the sanctuary? Clearly, a “false friend”! Would not Dr. Ward’s argument—if he were to apply it consistently—require not only that the KJV be set aside because of its small number of “false friends,” but that the Hebrew Old Testament also be set aside?
What is more, ḥālal, in addition to being able to mean both “defile” and “begin,” has two homonyms—verbs with exactly the same root letters—that can mean “bore” or “pierce” and “play the pipe.”[80] Is this not far too much ambiguity, if we are to receive Dr. Ward’s “false friends” argument? If the KJV must be set aside because of its small number of “false friends,” must we not, much more, set aside the Hebrew Old Testament?
Consider another example, the verb ʾānâ (אָנָה). This same Hebrew trilateral root appears in the following verses:
And it came to pass, when the king of Israel had read the letter, that he rent his clothes, and said, Am I God, to kill and to make alive, that this man doth send unto me to recover a man of his leprosy? wherefore consider, I pray you, and see how he seeketh a quarrel against me. (2 Kings 5:7)
וַיְהִ֡י כִּקְרֹא֩ מֶֽלֶךְ־יִשְׂרָאֵ֨ל אֶת־הַסֵּ֜פֶר וַיִּקְרַ֣ע בְּגָדָ֗יו וַיֹּ֙אמֶר֙ הַאֱלֹהִ֥ים אָ֙נִי֙ לְהָמִ֣ית וּֽלְהַחֲי֔וֹת כִּֽי־זֶה֙ שֹׁלֵ֣חַ אֵלַ֔י לֶאֱסֹ֥ף אִ֖ישׁ מִצָּֽרַעְתּ֑וֹ כִּ֤י אַךְ־דְּעֽוּ־נָא֙ וּרְא֔וּ כִּֽי־מִתְאַנֶּ֥ה ה֖וּא לִֽי׃
And her gates shall lament and mourn; and she being desolate shall sit upon the ground. (Isaiah 3:26)
וְאָנ֥וּ וְאָבְל֖וּ פְּתָחֶ֑יהָ וְנִקָּ֖תָה לָאָ֥רֶץ תֵּשֵֽׁב׃
The fishers also shall mourn, and all they that cast angle into the brooks shall lament, and they that spread nets upon the waters shall languish. (Isaiah 19:8)
וְאָנוּ֙ הַדַּיָּגִ֔ים וְאָ֣בְל֔וּ כָּל־מַשְׁלִיכֵ֥י בַיְא֖וֹר חַכָּ֑ה וּפֹרְשֵׂ֥י מִכְמֹ֛רֶת עַל־פְּנֵי־מַ֖יִם אֻמְלָֽלוּ׃
There shall no evil befall thee, neither shall any plague come nigh thy dwelling. (Psalm 91:10)
לֹֽא־תְאֻנֶּ֣ה אֵלֶ֣יךָ רָעָ֑ה וְ֝נֶ֗גַע לֹא־יִקְרַ֥ב בְּאָהֳלֶֽךָ׃
There shall no evil happen to the just: but the wicked shall be filled with mischief. (Proverbs 12:21)
לֹא־יְאֻנֶּ֣ה לַצַּדִּ֣יק כָּל־אָ֑וֶן וּ֝רְשָׁעִ֗ים מָ֣לְאוּ רָֽע׃
Hebrew lexica (HALOT & BDB)[81] state that two different words—homonyms—employ exactly the same Hebrew root. The root in Isaiah 3:26 and 19:8 comes from a verb ʾānâ (אָנָה) that means “mourn, lament.” Second Kings 5:7, Psalm 91:10, and Proverbs 12:21 employ a different verb with exactly the same form, ʾānâ (אָנָה), meaning “befall” in the Pual which appears in Proverbs 12:21 and Psalm 91:10, but “seek an opportunity” or an “occasion” for a battle or quarrel in 2 Kings 5:7. Would not this three-letter Hebrew root qualify as a “false friend”? In Isaiah 19:8, could not the reader conclude that the fishers are seeking to quarrel or fight with each other? In Psalm 91:10, could the reader not conclude that the text is stating that no evil will cause the righteous to mourn or in Proverbs 12:21 that no evil will cause the just to mourn? Would not the argument of Dr. Ward, if sufficient to prove one must set aside the KJV, also require the setting aside of the inspired Hebrew Old Testament? Many homonyms are present in the Old Testament, as a few minutes in HALOT or BDB makes clear. The Dictionary of Classical Hebrew states that “1,796 words [in the Old Testament] have at least one homonym; as many as 120 words are registered with five homonyms, while two words (ידע and ענה) reach the total of thirteen homonyms.”[82] While there are many challenges to diachronic study of particular Hebrew words in the holy Scriptures, in some—indeed, in many cases—one or more homonyms is almost surely more archaic than a second and identical word that was in much more common use among the Old Testament people of God.
Indeed, difficulties with Hebrew homonyms caused difficulties for not only ancient plowboys but even for ancient translators—elite, highly skilled ancient readers. One of the editors of the Biblia Hebraica Quinta noted:
[H]omonyms … had a limiting effect on the ancient translators’ understanding of the Hebrew text. … [For] example[,] … חרם … [represents] two nouns identical in form, the commoner meaning “ban” and the other “net.” … [The less common] “net” … [is misunderstood by the] versions … as “ban” … even Aquila and Symmachus seem to have used the term ἀνάθεμα [the Greek equivalent of “ban,” not “net.”] … [For] the partially homonymic pair of nouns און … [t]he semantic range of אָוֶן covers such concepts as “disaster,” “wickedness,” “nothingness,” or “idolatry,” while the less common אוֹן means either “strength” or “wealth.” … [They are] indistinguishable in [the] suffixed form … in Hosea 12 [Hosea 12:3, KJV, 12:4, Heb] … G [the LXX] renders with κόπος, clearly confusing the word [אוֹן] with אָוֶן … In [Hosea 12:9, Heb, 12:8, KJV] the translators may have been uncertain whether they were dealing with one word or two[.] … [Among] verbs we may note … the homonymous verbs קרא, of which one is very common and means “call,” “proclaim,” or “recite,” and the other is much rarer and means “meet,” “encounter,” or “happen.” The second occurs … in Amos 4:12 … [and] the versions are divided in their interpretations. Here G [the LXX] and S [the Peshitta] render it “call upon” … while the later Greek translations and V [the Latin Vulgate] recognize the sense “meet[.]” … [T]he versions are divided again in their interpretation of the [more common] verb [קרא] in Hosea 11:7, where Aquila, Theodotian and S recognize the meaning “call,” but Symmachus, T [the Targum], and implicitly V translate “meet” and G misinterprets the word[.] … The homonymous verbs ענה [consist of] a very common verb meaning “answer” and a less common one meaning “be bowed down” or “be afflicted.” … In Nah 1:12, where the verb occurs twice, it is interpreted corrected by V and T, but confused with the verb meaning “answer” in G and S … a good illustration of the type of difficulties faced by ancient translators, where they sometimes assumed too readily that they were dealing with the commoner of two verbs[.] … [W]e may observe the evident difficulty the ancient translators experienced from time to time in deciding … the correct identification of a homonym or a root in a particular context.[83]
Such original language words are both inarguably at least as difficult to understand as the English words Dr. Ward labels as “false friends” in the KJV, and are more numerous in the Hebrew text than the comparable “hard” words Dr. Ward criticizes in the KJV. If Dr. Ward were able prove that the number of “hard” words he calls “false friends” in the English Authorized Version unambiguously and clearly exceeds the number of comparable words in the Hebrew Old Testament, the number of “hard” archaic words in the KJV unambiguously and clearly exceeds the number of comparable words in the Hebrew Old Testament, and the syntactical structure of the KJV clearly and unambiguously is more complex than the syntax of the Hebrew Bible, he would have an objective basis for his claim that the KJV is not “sufficiently intelligible.” Since he cannot—because the language level of the KJV falls easily within the parameters that the Hebrew Old Testament would have had to Jews, say, in the days of Ezra—then, based on the pattern provided by God Himself in the holy Scriptures, the KJV is certainly intelligible enough.
What about the New Testament? Consider Matthew 16:22:
Then Peter took him, and began to rebuke him, saying, Be it far from thee, Lord: this shall not be unto thee. (KJV)
καὶ προσλαβόμενος αὐτὸν ὁ Πέτρος ἤρξατο ἐπιτιμᾶν αὐτῷ λέγων, Ἵλεώς σοι, Κύριε· οὐ μὴ ἔσται σοι τοῦτο. (TR)
Et assumens eum Petrus, cœpit increpare illum dicens: Absit a te, Domine: non erit tibi hoc. (Vulgate)
The word hileōs (Ἵλεώς) looks like the word for “be merciful” or “be gracious.” However, weighty Greek scholars argue that “this ἵλεως is not the Greek word for ‘merciful,’ but one among the homonyms selected because of similarity of sound to render חָלִילָה [ḥālı̂lâ] with dative, ‘profane, far be it from.’”[84] So surely here we have another “false friend,” now in the Greek New Testament. Is this phrase in Matthew the Greek equivalent of the Hebrew ḥālı̂lâ, or is it the Greek word for mercy, hileōs? For Dr. Ward, would this not be too much ambiguity? The Greek New Testament contains a word that looks like one thing, but it really means something different. The Greek word archē (ἀρχή), which appears 58 times in the New Testament,[85] had senses as varied as “beginning,” “human ruler,” “corner,” and “vital organs”[86] that would have been familiar to first-century Greek speakers, and commentators to this day debate the meaning of the word in New Testament texts. In Revelation 3:14, is Christ the archē of the creation in the sense of being the “beginning” or “source” of creation, that is, the Creator, or is Christ the archē in the sense of being the “ruler” of creation?[87] If Dr. Ward’s “false friend” argument is applied to the Greek New Testament, would it not become necessary to set the Greek New Testament aside, just as Dr. Ward wishes to set aside the KJV? If Christians must not give their children a King James Bible because of a few archaic words and even fewer “false friends,” should not the Jews in Ezra’s day have refrained from copying out and giving their children a copy of the Hebrew Torah, and should not first-century Christians have refrained from copying and giving their children a copy of Matthew’s Gospel in Greek?
Are the Hebrew Old Testament and Greek New Testament overflowing with these kinds of “hard” words, words that would qualify as “false friends” for Mark Ward? No, certainly not. Is the KJV overflowing with what Dr. Ward calls “false friends”? No, not at all. They are a tiny fraction of the English text. But since the Hebrew and Greek Bibles have some of these words, and the Hebrew Old Testament alone has many more of them than does the English KJV, despite being a smaller body of text than both the Old and New Testament together in the English vernacular, Mark Ward cannot consistently insist that the KJV be set aside because of a small number of such words unless he is willing to argue that the infallible original language texts be set aside, as well. Here, again, the KJV falls within the parameters of linguistic difficulty of the original language text, and Dr. Ward cannot consistently bow low before and accept unchanged the Hebrew and Greek Bibles, with their level of difficulty, while yet arguing that the KJV be set aside, although its level of difficulty is within the parameters of the difficulty-level of the original languages. Dr. Mark Ward can claim that the KJV is not “sufficiently intelligible,” but by the objective standard revealed by God in the Hebrew Old Testament and Greek New Testament, Dr. Ward’s claims are false. The syntax of the KJV is easier than the syntax of the Hebrew or Greek. The number of “hard” words in the KJV is smaller than the number of “hard” words in the original languages. The small number of both “false friends” and archaisms in the KJV fit easily within the parameters of the holy Scriptures in the original languages.[88]
In none of the examples just cited—or other similar ones in the original languages of Scripture—is God’s Word impossible to understand. Various Hebrew and Greek words fall in the category of things “hard to be understood” (2 Peter 3:16), but Scripture never affirms the existence of a category of words “impossible to be understood,” for man must live by every word of God (Matthew 4:4), so they are all comprehensible to the saint with the aid of the Spirit. Similarly, the words Dr. Mark Ward labels “false friends” in the KJV are also not “impossible” to be understood—they are only slightly harder to be understood, hard until one looks at the margin of one’s study Bible or learns the small number of KJV archaisms.
2.) Ward’s “False Friends” Argument Fails the Intuitive Test
While the objective standard for what is “too hard” and for when a vernacular translation should be revised is connected to linguistic difficulty in the original language texts, something important about the KJV’s linguistic level is also intuitively obvious. Contrary to Dr. Ward’s claims, people intuitively know if they are understanding a text in their own language. Christians in King James Only churches love God’s Word and want to understand what God is telling them. They want their children to understand God’s Word. They want the people they evangelize to understand God’s Word. They want to be transformed as they read the KJV in their daily devotional times. They intuitively know, without any argument, that when they read their King James Bibles, they are reading understandable English; on the other hand, if they open a Latin Vulgate or a Spanish Reina-Valera, they are not reading their language. Compare the first sentence (Genesis 1:1) in the KJV, the Vulgate, Luther’s German Bible, and the Reina-Valera:
In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
In principio creavit Deus cælum et terram.
Am Anfang schuf Gott Himmel und Erde.
En el principio creó Dios los cielos y la tierra.
There is no need for someone to make a detailed, complex, disputable argument about which of the four sentences is in Modern English. It is intuitively obvious. People know if they are reading a language they understand.
One could also compare the first few sentences[89] in the KJV with the first sentence in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales and the first sentence of Langland’s The Vision of Piers Plowman:
In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.
And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.
And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness.
And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day. (KJV)
Whan that Aprill with his shoures soote
The droghte of March hath perced to the roote,
And bathed every veyne in swich licour
Of which vertu engendred is the flour;
Whan Zephirus eek with his sweete breeth
Inspired hath in every holt and heeth
The tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne
Hath in the Ram his half cours yronne,
And smale foweles maken melodye,
That slepen al the nyght with open ye
(So priketh hem Nature in hir corages),
Thanne longen folk to goon on pilgrimages,
And palmeres for to seken straunge strondes,
To ferne halwes, kowthe in sondry londes;
And specially from every shires ende
Of Engelond to Caunterbury they wende,
The hooly blisful martir for to seke,
That hem hath holpen whan that they were seeke. (Canterbury Tales, c. A. D. 1390)
In a somer seson,
Whan softe was the sonne,
I shoop me into shroudes
As I a sheep weere,
In habite as an heremite
Unholy of werkes,
Wente wide in this world
Wondres to here;
Ac on a May morwenynge
On Malverne hilles
Me bifel a ferly,
Of fairye me thoghte.
I was wery for-wandred,
And wente me to reste
Under a brood bank
By a bournes syde;
And as I lay and lenede,
And loked on the watres,
I slombred into a slepyng,
It sweyed so murye. (Piers Ploughman, c. A. D. 1380)
People who read the first sentence of Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales or William Langland’s Piers Plowmanintuitively know that they are reading an earlier, archaic form of their language. What they are reading is not a completely different language, like the Latin Vulgate or Luther’s German Bible, but it is not Modern English. When they read the KJV, they intuitively know that they are reading their own language—Modern English. Dr. Ward’s claim that the KJV is a frequently incomprehensible mess where every single word needs to be looked up in the Oxford English Dictionary not only fails the objective test of the standard of difficulty in the Hebrew and Greek, but it fails the intuitive “duh” test that anyone can give it. This fact explains why most pro-KJV churches have not paid much attention to Dr. Ward’s arguments. They know that they are understanding sermons preached out of the KJV; they know that when they read God’s Word in the KJV they can comprehend it. If there really were “false friends” all over the place so that the KJV were not comprehensible, it would be intuitively obvious.
Mark Ward claims that the KJV was actually already too archaic in the 1800s, or, in fact, even in the 1700s:
We’re way, way, past the point where something should have been done to … revise or replace the King James … the majority of the English-speaking Christian world has agreed with Ben Franklin in the 1770s and with Noah Webster in the 1830s … that the English of the King James contains enough archaisms that a revision is called for … we already reached that point of sufficient unintelligibility by [at least] the late 1800s, maybe a century and a half ago. … I tend to think we were there by the time of Noah Webster in the 1830s.[90]
Nevertheless, although the KJV has allegedly been “too archaic,” violating 1 Corinthians 14, for approximately two-hundred years already, he nevertheless admits:
Yet even a century afterwards it was an effective tool in the lives of so many of our modern scholars and preachers … it’s why I’m not freaking out completely …the King James version can still absolutely be used by God as an effective tool in the lives of many people even plowboys; it was an effective tool for me in my childhood, and with a tool as important as the Bible you don’t take it to the tool sharpener every year; you wait till it’s sufficiently nicked up.[91]
Supposedly the KJV has been too archaic, violating 1 Corinthians 14, for a long time, so that, as today, it is allegedly a sin to preach, teach, and evangelize with it. However, this situation has been ongoing for approximately two hundred years, and while preachers are supposedly sinning as they preach from the KJV—as, apparently, almost all English preachers were doing for the last several hundred years, as almost all of them preached from the KJV—nevertheless the Authorized Version can still be an “effective tool in the lives of many people, even plowboys.” Can there be a pressing need to update the KJV when it is still an effective tool which God uses to work in the lives of even simple plowboys now, and when it allegedly has had the same problem for the last two hundred years, and when, during this time when it allegedly was too archaic, it was used by God in some of the greatest revivals known to human history and been blessed by the Lord in the multiplication of countless churches and the growth of countless Christians? It is unclear how Dr. Ward can maintain both that preaching and evangelism with the KJV are sinful violations of 1 Corinthians 14, and yet maintain that the KJV can even today be an effective tool in the lives of many people, even plowboys—but if the problems Ward is stating are present with the Authorized Version have allegedly been present for hundreds of years already, any claim that revision is urgent is strongly problematized.
Mark Ward adopted—and heavily adjusted, without informing his readers—the concept of “false friends” from page 87 of John McWhorter’s book Words on the Move: Why English Won’t—And Can’t—Sit Still,[92] as Ward makes clear on page 31 of his book Authorized. Mark Ward’s use of the “false friends” concept, and his conclusions from it, differ markedly from those of the linguist and English scholar John McWhorter. Dr. McWhorter illustrates “false friends” from Shakespeare, who employed an approximately 258% larger vocabulary than did the KJV translators.[93] What is more, working on the far more complex English of Shakespeare, McWhorter never drew the extremely pessimistic conclusions about comprehensibility that Ward drew for the much simpler language of the KJV. McWhorter did indeed speak of “false friends” as words for which meaning has changed over time, but he did not draw the kind of negative conclusions from them for Shakespeare that Mark Ward drew for the KJV. McWhorter wrote: “Shakespeare’s language is ‘high,’ such that the challenge can be met by making a certain effort. Related to this is the idea that Shakespeare’s language is poetic, requiring more effort … All [these] claims are true.”[94] That is, with “a certain effort,” McWhorter writes, one can understand Shakespeare and comprehend the words that have changed meaning. Other English scholars like David Crystal, author of The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language,[95] The Oxford Illustrated Shakespeare Dictionary,[96] and many other scholarly works, concur with Dr. McWhorter’s assessment. Dr. Crystal notes that in Shakespearean English (that is much more difficult than the English of the KJV) for “false friends … a succinct account is all that we need, with the chief points of semantic contrast noted and the usage well illustrated … the obvious solution.”[97] McWhorter illustrates his point with quotations from Measure for Measure, King Lear, and Macbeth that would be difficult for many to comprehend when “spoken in real time”[98]; that is, recited quickly on a stage by live actors. McWhorter quoted an earlier Shakespearean scholar who had written that “these false friends in Shakespeare were … an impediment to understanding his language delivered live.”[99] In agreement, McWhorter argues that because of language change, too many of Shakespeare’s lines are “inaccessible to us” when heard in a live play “without careful study on the page.”[100] However, with such “careful study,” the “challenge can be met by making a certain effort.”[101] McWhorter proceeds to argue that updating Shakespeare, replacing “words that today only a scholar can hear live and understand,”[102] would assist uneducated people in understanding his plays when heard in live performance. McWhorter explains: “Neither I nor anyone else wants to see the original plays withdrawn from circulation,” and oral performance of Shakespeare in “today’s English wouldn’t be exactly Shakespeare, no,” but it would help those without an “elite taste” to engage with the bard’s works.[103]
Mark Ward borrows John McWhorter’s language of “false friends” and gives McWhorter’s words new and different meanings and implications—one could say that Ward makes McWhorter’s phrase into a “false friend” itself. McWhorter is concerned about the comprehension of auditors during a live oral performance of Shakespeare; by contrast, Shakespeare’s plays, in writing, are comprehensible with “a certain effort.” Ward, in contrast, is not talking about some kind of oral performance of the book of Job in a church that rejects the Regulative Principle of worship. He claims that the much smaller vocabulary and much simpler written English of the King James Version is too close to incomprehensible: “[M]odern readers quite literally can’t … know what they’re missing when they read the KJV.”[104] According to the English scholar John McWhorter, the much more complex written English of Shakespeare, which contains many more “false friends” and archaisms, is intelligible; but for Mark Ward, the much simpler written English of the King James Version is not. John McWhorter never draws the conclusion that “false friends” in Shakespeare are indetectable; in all the examples from Shakespeare he supplies in his book, one can tell that semantic shift has taken place for the archaisms discussed. Were Ward to employ the language of “false friends” in the same way as his source, there would have been no need for Dr. Ward to write his book, as Ward admits that known KJV archaisms are not especially difficult: “the issue here is not words you know you don’t know.”[105] Since, according to Dr. McWhorter, “false friends” are recognizable, but according to Dr. Ward archaic words that are recognizable are “not … the issue” with the KJV, then, were he to employ the “false friends” concept the same way as Dr. McWhorter, there would be no great difficulty with the KJV. Thus, Ward must use the concept in a strikingly different way from his source.
The central claim of Mark Ward’s argument against the KJV and for Modern Version Onlyism is that “false friends” in the KJV are indetectable. The KJV must be abandoned, because “modern readers quite literally can’t … know what they’re missing.”[106] For Shakespeare, McWhorter affirms that “[neither [he] nor anyone else wants to see the original plays withdrawn from circulation” or from public performance. However, for Mark Ward, preaching from the KJV and using it for evangelism, discipleship, and most other uses is (allegedy) sin—there are millions of Christians who are sinning daily, committing sins for which Christ needed to die, by reading and encouraging others to read, evangelizing, and preaching from the KJV. For Mark Ward, there could be “countless” undetectable “false friends” in the KJV which “quite literally can’t” be discovered—this is the “big point in [his] book”[107]; these words overwhelm the KJV, so that even “tons of footnotes”[108] cannot solve the problem. This is the height of Ward’s great argument; for truth to be passed on, to justify the ways of God to men in continuing generations, we must repent of the sin of preaching from the KJV, because it has “false friends.” Such conclusions are very different from those of John McWhorter. Since Mark Ward has not clearly explained his infusing of a notably different meaning into McWhorter’s language, Dr. Ward’s use of the “false friend” concept is itself a “false friend,” one by which he infuses bad influence into the unwary breast of his readers and viewers.
If Mark Ward wishes to employ the “false friend” concept in a very different way from his source, the English scholar John McWhorter, and do so to draw very different conclusions from those which Dr. McWhorter would draw, Ward certainly can make that intellectual decision. He can reject the consensus of English scholarship and magnify “false friends” into the claim that preaching from the King James Version is a sin, is wickedness. However, Ward would do well to plainly explain to his readers that neither Dr. McWhorter nor any other scholar of English or of linguistics employs the “false friend” concept for words with meanings that “quite literally can’t” be discovered by modern readers, at least if one judges by citations in Ward’s published work.[109] Nor does any English scholar cited by Ward draw the conclusions that Ward draws for the KJV from the existence of a few “false friends” for any other corpus of early Modern English, even for bodies of work that are far more complex written English, such as Shakespeare. Ward has not cited even one scholar of the English language who would support the “big point” in his Authorized, that “modern readers quite literally can’t … know what they’re missing when they read the KJV.”[110] He is quite literally on his own.
Mark Ward is using the “false friend” concept in a different way and on much simpler English than Dr. McWhorter used it for the complex English of Shakespeare. Is Dr. Ward’s redefinition of the concept, and his conclusion from it, justifiable? No. People are not reading the KJV thinking: “Hmm, I think the word ‘frog’ refers to an amphibian that leaps around, but here it can’t mean that. Hmm, I think that the word ‘tree’ refers to the types of plants that I see when I look out my window, but in the KJV the word ‘tree’ doesn’t mean that.” Nor are they reading “For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23) and drawing theologically and practically unsound conclusions because the English words in the verse have (allegedly) changed their meanings in undetectable ways between 1611 and today. If Christ does not return for a long time and English changes to the point where Modern English is no longer a written language,[111] churches using the KJV will agree on the need for an update; but as readers of modern English, contemporary Christian English-speakers can intuitively recognize that the KJV is in a language that they understand. Those who know the original languages can compare the range of linguistic difficulty of Hebrew and Greek to the KJV and can know that the KJV is well within the range of difficulty in the original. Christians in churches using the KJV also intuitively know that the KJV is written in comprehensible English without any argument, just like they know that when they read Matthew Henry’s Commentary they are reading comprehensible English, and when they sing from the 1650 Scottish Psalter or sing the hymns of Isaac Watts they are singing comprehensible English. If they go to a Mexican restaurant and read a menu that is in Spanish, however, they know that they are reading something different, as they do if they read the Canterbury Tales or Piers Plowman. Nobody needs to argue about this point because it is intuitively obvious. Mark Ward has the challenging task of overcoming the reader’s intuitively obvious perception that the KJV is in comprehensible Modern English. He must use a small number of archaisms to attempt to convince Christians that they are actually not understanding the sermons they hear from the KJV, not understanding the verses they memorize and meditate upon in the KJV, and are not being transformed by the words the Spirit uses in Scripture to show them Christ in the KJV. It is a difficult[112] task to convince people that what is intuitively obvious is actually false.
3.) “False Friends”: Mark Ward’s Invalid Arguments in Authorized and in His Survey
Mark Ward’s “False Friend” objection against the KJV’s sufficient intelligibility not only fails based on both the objective standard of the difficulty of the Hebrew and Greek texts of Scripture and the intuitive test of comprehensibility, but also because his examples of alleged “false friends” are far too frequently false themselves.
A.) “Halt”: Can This (Alleged) “False Friend” Be Stopped, Or Does it Limp On?
The first of six examples Mark Ward elaborates on of a “false friend” in his book Authorized is the word “halt” in 1 Kings 18:21:[113] “And Elijah came unto all the people, and said, How long halt ye between two opinions? if the LORD be God, follow him: but if Baal, then follow him. And the people answered him not a word.”[114] 1 Kings 18:21’s “halt” also features as the “series intro” to Ward’s “Fifty False Friends in the KJV” video series;[115] it is his first published video attack on the Authorized Version for a “false friend.” Mark Ward also uses this word in his survey of ten “false friends” produced with the “Textual Confidence Collective.” Ward asks the following as a survey question:
What does “halt” mean in 1 Kings 18:21?
a.) To “halt” is to come to an abrupt stop.
b.) To “halt” is to waver or hesitate.
c.) To “halt” is to limp or be lame.
d.) I don’t know.[116]
The word “halt” was the most (allegedly) misunderstood of all the ten examples,[117] and thus was the strongest piece of evidence that even “King James Only pastors don’t know” the KJV.[118] Mark Ward’s survey answer claims:
The Hebrew here means “to be lame, limp” (HALOT). In 1611 “halt” in a context like this meant “to be lame, walk lame, limp” (OED)–just like the Hebrew. That sense, however, is marked as “archaic” in the OED. Today, “halt” in a context like this means “come to an abrupt stop” (NOAD). This is what many KJV-Only pastors tended to think the word meant—though they often gave the meaning of the whole phrase and not of the word.[119]
Thus, as Mark Ward argued in Authorized, based on the most anecdotal of evidence, there are allegedly words and clauses in the KJV that an examination of “close to 10,000 people … youth pastors … adults … teens … kids … college students from … many Christian colleges … seminary-trained pastor[s] … no one understood. Nobody. Not one[.]”[120] Dr. Ward also employed the example of “halt” in his debate on the KJV’s intelligibility with Daniel Haifley.[121] Indeed, Mark Ward stated that “halt … is the word that finally made this whole concept of ‘false friends’ click for me.”[122] Clearly, 1 Kings 18:21’s translation of “halt” is the primary, the most important, and strongest example of a “false friend” in the KJV, according to Dr. Ward.
In Authorized, in his survey of KJV pastors, and in his debate with Dr. Haifley, Dr. Mark Ward claimed that in 1611 “halt” did not mean “to come to an abrupt stop” or “to waver or hesitate,” but only “to limp or be lame.”[123] Commenting on 1 Kings 18:21, Ward wrote:
I always assumed that halt here meant “stopping” between two opinions … I had read the Elijah story in other versions before—likely the NASB, the NIV, and the TNIV. The NASB has the people “hesitating” between two opinions. The NIV has them “wavering.” But the ESV provided the key that uncovered my lifelong misunderstanding. To halt wasn’t just to “stop” in 1611 … halt was the verb form of a word used in the KJV Gospels in the parable of the great banquet: “Go out quickly into the streets and lanes of the city, and bring in hither the poor, and the maimed, and the halt, and the blind” (Luke 14:21). Haltin 1611 meant “lame.” Instead of “how long halt ye,” we would say something like “hobble” or “limp.” And that’s exactly what the ESV has: “How long will you go limping between two different opinions?”[124]
The first indication that all is not well with Dr. Ward’s argument is that he acknowledges that he read the Elijah narrative in three different modern versions—the NASB, the NIV, and the TNIV— and he still misunderstood 1 Kings 18:21. It appears from Brother Mark’s own self-testimony that reading a modern Bible version does not eliminate all misunderstandings of Scripture—even reading three different modern versions did not eliminate his misunderstanding. Indeed, the specific translation “halt” appears not only in the KJV and other Reformation-era translations, but also in a number of modern versions.[125] The second indication of trouble for Mark Ward is that he has picked a passage where the Hebrew word[126] translated “halt” in the Authorized Version is used in a figurative sense. Could the phrase in question reasonably be rendered as “How long are ye limping between two opinions?”[127] Yes—although for reasons discussed below this may not be the best translation. Standard Hebrew lexica define the figurative sense in this passage as to “waver between two opinions,”[128] reference the KJV’s translation of “halt” without criticism,[129] and state that it can have the sense of “severe restriction of movement … almost complete immobility.”[130] The LXX translates the KJV word “halt” with a verb[131] that signifies “to walk lamely, to halt, to be irresolute, to vacillate(metaph[orically] [employed in]) 1 Kgs 18:21,”[132] while the Latin Vulgate translates with a verb[133] meaning “to waver, wabble, halt … to halt, waver, to be wanting.”[134] Just as the Saxon healt, meaning “halt, lame,” developed into the English verb “halt,” because people who are lame must stop, unable to walk, so Webster’s 1828 English Dictionary states that “halt” means “to stop in walking … [t]o limp; that is, to stop with lameness. … [t]o hesitate; to stand in doubt whether to proceed, or what to do. … How long halt ye between two opinions? 1 Kings. 18.”[135] In Hebrew, Greek, Latin, and English a connection exists between the words for “lameness” and for “stopping” in the sense of “halt[ing].” When people read 1 Kings 18:21 in the KJV and conclude that Elijah is asking why Israel is hesitating or stopping between two opinions, they have the correct sense of the meaning of Elijah’s communication. They may need to look up the word in a Hebrew or an English dictionary, or look at a Bible commentary, in order to more easily make the colorful association with “limping” that Dr. Ward missed (not only in the KJV but also in the NASB, NIV, and TNIV). But the KJV’s translation of 1 Kings 18:21 is only an example of a problematic “false friend” if, with Dr. Ward, the literal sense of “limp” and the figurative sense—employed by Elijah in 1 Kings 18:21—of stopping, hesitation, and a lack of locomotion which characterizes the crippled is overlooked and the KJV is criticized for translating the actual meaning Elijah was conveying instead of the sense of literal lameness that was actually not the intended meaning of Jehovah’s prophet.
The third problematic aspect of Dr. Ward’s argument is that one can discover the connection between the word “halt” and physical infirmity even without a dictionary simply by looking at the other instances where the English word appears in the KJV. The only earlier instance of the English “halt” before 1 Kings 18:21 is Genesis 32:31: “And as he passed over Penuel the sun rose upon him, and he halted upon his thigh.” Here Jacob, crippled by the Angel of Jehovah, is not moving as he did before because of his thigh injury (Genesis 32:32). In the New Testament, the KJV employs forms of “halt” in:
Wherefore if thy hand or thy foot offend thee, cut them off, and cast them from thee: it is better for thee to enter into life haltor maimed, rather than having two hands or two feet to be cast into everlasting fire. (Matthew 18:8)
And if thy foot offend thee, cut it off: it is better for thee to enter halt into life, than having two feet to be cast into hell, into the fire that never shall be quenched: (Mark 9:45)
So that servant came, and shewed his lord these things. Then the master of the house being angry said to his servant, Go out quickly into the streets and lanes of the city, and bring in hither the poor, and the maimed, and the halt, and the blind. (Luke 14:21)
In these lay a great multitude of impotent folk, of blind, halt, withered, waiting for the moving of the water. (John 5:3)
While Dr. Mark Ward claims that the “false friend” word “halt” in 1 Kings 18:21 is incomprehensible and a basis for adopting a modern Bible version, Elijah’s intended meaning in 1 Kings 18:21 is “stop” or (as the NASB translates it) “hesitate.” The added color that the word is connected to the idea of lameness can be obtained by a glance at a Hebrew lexicon, an English dictionary like Noah Webster’s 1828, or the margin of a study Bible. Someone who has no study resources at all can also determine not only the actual intended meaning but even the added colorful connection to lameness from both the only earlier use of the word “halt” in the Old Testament and from the New Testament uses of the word. Is Elijah’s colorful connection between hesitation between two opinions and limping something more easily seen with study tools? Yes. Does it prove Dr. Ward’s contention that “modern readers quite literally can’t—not merely don’t—know what they’re missing when they read the KJV”?[136] Not at all.
Ward’s claim that “limp” is a better translation than “halt” in 1 Kings 18:21—indeed, that “halt” is such a poor translation that a small number of words like it justify setting aside the KJV as a whole—is problematic. In fact, not only is the translation “halt” equal to the rendering “limp,” but there are reasons to think that the translation “halt” is actually superior to “limp.” The Hebrew verb pāsaḥ,[137] the KJV’s “halt,” does not appear only in 1 Kings 18:21 (a Qal participle), but also in 1 Kings 18:26, a Piel wayyiqtol (וַיִּקְטֹל) or waw-conversive imperfect form—the only two appearances of the verb in all of 1 and 2 Kings:[138]
And Elijah came unto all the people, and said, How long halt ye between two opinions? if the LORD be God, follow him: but if Baal, then follow him. And the people answered him not a word. (1 Kings 18:21)
וַיִּגַּ֨שׁ אֵלִיָּ֜הוּ אֶל־כָּל־הָעָ֗ם וַיֹּ֙אמֶר֙ עַד־מָתַ֞י אַתֶּ֣ם פֹּסְחִים֮ עַל־שְׁתֵּ֣י הַסְּעִפִּים֒ אִם־יְהוָֹ֤ה הָֽאֱלֹהִים֙ לְכ֣וּ אַחֲרָ֔יו וְאִם־הַבַּ֖עַל לְכ֣וּ אַחֲרָ֑יו וְלֹֽא־עָנ֥וּ הָעָ֛ם אֹת֖וֹ דָּבָֽר׃
And they took the bullock which was given them, and they dressed it, and called on the name of Baal from morning even until noon, saying, O Baal, hear us. But there was no voice, nor any that answered. And they leaped upon the altar which was made. (1 Kings 18:26)
וַיִּקְחוּ אֶת־הַפָּ֨ר אֲשֶׁר־נָתַ֣ן לָהֶם֮ וַֽיַּעֲשׂוּ֒ וַיִּקְרְא֣וּ בְשֵׁם־הַ֠בַּעַל מֵהַבֹּ֨קֶר וְעַד־הַצָּהֳרַ֤יִם לֵאמֹר֙ הַבַּ֣עַל עֲנֵ֔נוּ וְאֵ֥ין ק֖וֹל וְאֵ֣ין עֹנֶ֑ה וַֽיְפַסְּח֔וּ עַל־הַמִּזְבֵּ֖חַ אֲשֶׁ֥ר עָשָֽׂה׃
Is it more likely that the same Hebrew verb means “limping” in 1 Kings 18:21, but then “leaping” only a few verses afterwards? People who hesitate or stop are much more likely to start leaping shortly afterwards than are people who are limping.
As already noted, the LXX in 1 Kings 18:21 translates pāsaḥ with a Greek verb that not only can specify lameness but also can mean “to halt, to be irresolute, to vacillate.” How does the LXX translate 1 Kings 18:26?
καὶ προσήγαγεν Ηλιου πρὸς πάντας, καὶ εἶπεν αὐτοῖς Ηλιου Ἕως πότε ὑμεῖς χωλανεῖτε ἐπ̓ ἀμφοτέραις ταῖς ἰγνύαις; εἰ ἔστιν κύριος ὁ θεός, πορεύεσθε ὀπίσω αὐτοῦ· εἰ δὲ ὁ Βααλ αὐτός, πορεύεσθε ὀπίσω αὐτοῦ. καὶ οὐκ ἀπεκρίθη ὁ λαὸς λόγον. (1 Kings 18:21, LXX)
And Eliu drew near to them all; and Eliu said to them, How long wilt ye halt on both feet? if the Lord be God, follow him; but if Baal, follow him. And the people answered not a word. (Brenton)
καὶ ἔλαβον τὸν μόσχον καὶ ἐποίησαν καὶ ἐπεκαλοῦντο ἐν ὀνόματι τοῦ Βααλ ἐκ πρωίθεν ἕως μεσημβρίας καὶ εἶπον Ἐπάκουσον ἡμῶν, ὁ Βααλ, ἐπάκουσον ἡμῶν· καὶ οὐκ ἦν φωνὴ καὶ οὐκ ἦν ἀκρόασις· καὶ διέτρεχον ἐπὶ τοῦ θυσιαστηρίου, οὗ ἐποίησαν. (1 Kings 18:26, LXX)
And they took the calf and drest it, and called on the name of Baal from morning till noon, and said, hear us, O Baal, hear us. And there was no voice, neither was there hearing, and they ran up and down on the altar which they had made. (Brenton)
In 1 Kings 18:26, the prophets of Baal are “running up and down,”[139] according to the Greek translation of the Piel of pāsaḥ. Note also that Brenton’s English translation of 1 Kings 18:21—made in 1897, nearly 300 years after the KJV was published, when “halt” certainly had its modern meaning—renders the verb in question in 1 Kings 18:21 as “halt.”[140]
Furthermore, as already noted, the Latin of 1 Kings 18:21 can also be rendered as “stop,” “halt,” or “waver”:
Accedens autem Elias ad omnem populum, ait: Usquequo claudicatis in duas partes? Si Dominus est Deus, sequimini eum: si autem Baal, sequimini illum. Et non respondit ei populus verbum. (Clementine Vulgate, 1 Kings 18:21)
accedens autem Helias ad omnem populum ait usquequo claudicatis in duas partes si Dominus est Deus sequimini eum si autem Baal sequimini illum et non respondit ei populus verbum (Weber)
And Elias coming to all the people, said: How long do you halt between two sides? If the Lord be God, follow him: but if Baal, then follow him. And the people did not answer him a word. (Douay)
What does the Latin say in 1 Kings 18:26?
Qui cum tulissent bovem, quem dederat ei, fecerunt: et invocabant nomen Baal de mane usque ad meridiem, dicentes: Baal, exaudi nos. Et non erat vox, nec qui responderet: transiliebantque altare quod fecerant. (Clementine Vulgate, 1 Kings 18:26)
qui cum tulissent bovem quem dederat eis fecerunt et invocabant nomen Baal de mane usque ad meridiem dicentes Baal exaudi nos et non erat vox nec qui responderet transiliebantque altare quod fecerant (Weber)
And they took the bullock, which he gave them, and dressed it: and they called on the name of Baal from morning even until noon, saying: O Baal, hear us. But there was no voice, nor any that answered: and they leaped over the altar that they had made. (Douay)
The Latin verb transı̆lı̆o means “to leap, jump, or spring across, to leap over, spring over.”[141] So according to both the Greek and Latin translations of the Old Testament, the Hebrew verb refers to “hesitation” or “halting” in 1 Kings 18:21 and then to something very active—to “leaping” and “running” in 18:26—which seems significantly more reasonable than a transition from “limping” to then suddenly “leaping.” Thus, there are contextual reasons to believe that a translation like “halt” or “hesitate” is not only acceptable in 1 Kings 18:21, but is actually superior to a translation such as “limp” in the passage. It would not be wrong to translate, “How long limp ye between two opinions?” However, “How long halt ye between two opinions?” is at least equally as good. When Dr. Ward makes “halt” his first and flagship example of a “false friend” in his book Authorized, he certainly is mistaken. Unfortunately, Mark Ward never interacts with the Hebrew evidence in favor of the KJV’s translation “halt” in his book Authorized, much less acknowledges the Greek or Latin evidence in its favor.
So what can we conclude about Ward’s survey question in 1 Kings 18:21? The question does not have only one correct answer. It has three correct answers on it. “Stop,” “waver or hesitate,” and “limp” are all correct answers, and “limp” is probably the least correct of the three. When he uses 1 Kings 18:21 as a KJV “false friend,” he also condemns modern versions like the NASB and NIV which say “waver” and “hesitate.” Mark Ward could be asked, “If we apply the same standard you are using to argue against the KJV in 1 Kings 18:21, should we also reject the NASB and NIV because they have “false friends,” Dr. Ward?” A study Bible note mentioning that the Hebrew word in 1 Kings 18:21 can mean “limp,” and from that sense the ideas of hesitation and of stopping are derived, would be fine; but the main problem in 1 Kings 18:21 is not the KJV, but Ward’s inaccurate and unnuanced survey question. Mark Ward is wrong about the Hebrew word pāsaḥ in 1 Kings 18:21.
Furthermore, when Dr. Ward claims that “halt did not mean in 1611 ‘to waver’ or ‘hesitate’ or ‘to come to an abrupt stop,’”[142] he is also simply wrong about 17th century English. The unabridged Oxford English Dictionary entry on the verb “halt” includes:
To walk unsteadily or hesitatingly; to waver, vacillate, oscillate; to remain in doubt. Esp. in the scriptural phrase ‘to halt between two opinions … 1382 Wyclif 1 Kings xviii. 21 How long halt ye into two parties? [1611 How long halt ye between two opinions?] … To make a halt; to make a temporary stoppage … [which became] a mere synonym of ‘stop.’ [four examples from the 17th century are supplied].[143]
Astonishingly, the OED itself not only obliterates Ward’s claim that the KJV translators must have intended to convey the sense of “limp,” rather than, say, “hesitate,” “waver,” or “stop” when they translated 1 Kings 18:21, but the OED itself actually cites, and even writes out the very passage, 1 Kings 18:21, in both the Wycliffe Bible and King James Version, as examples of a sense other than “limp” for “halt,” while stating that 1 Kings 18:21 is “especially” a crucial example of a sense other than “limp”! The OED itself says exactly the opposite of what Mark Ward claims, and even specifically says the opposite of what Mark Ward claims in 1 Kings 18:21, writing out the verse twice, and stating that it is “especially” an example of a use that eliminates Mark Ward’s “false friend” attack. How can Dr. Ward have so badly misrepresented the OED? In a video discussing “halt” as his primary example of a “false friend,” Dr. Ward states: “I have to admit, I never use the paper editions of the Oxford English Dictionary. It’s just too much.”[144] However, he proceeds to assert that he uses an electronic version, places the OED definition #1 of “halt” on the screen, namely, “to be lame, walk lame, limp, archaic,” and concludes: “This seals the deal, proving that we have a false friend.”[145] Someone looking at a paper copy of the OED is astonished at Ward’s conclusion—he ignores the fact that a handful of lines later the dictionary supplies definition number three, cited above, of “to walk unsteadily or hesitatingly …” where 1 Kings 18:21 is specifically cited in the Wycliffe Bible and the KJV. One does not wish to believe that Mark Ward is so intellectually dishonest as to deliberately and grossly misrepresent the OED’s definition of “halt,” claiming that definition one “seals the deal” for his case against the KJV and posting that definition on the screen, deliberately deceiving his audience and hiding what utterly contradicts his affirmations only a few lines later in the physical dictionary. Perhaps he does not understand how to use this electronic edition that he claims to employ instead of the physical book which he admits that he “never use[s],” or perhaps his electronic version is in some fashion abridged, altered, or incomplete.[146] Certainty is difficult to come by, since while the unabridged electronic OED available online provides the easy ability to produce proper citations of its text through specific “citations” buttons in its sections, Ward does not properly cites the OED in his book Authorized (much less provide proper citation information in his videos); it is impossible to determine what exactly he is referencing when he makes claims about this dictionary. The unabridged version of the OED available online for free access to this writer through his public library system contains the same information as his paper copy concerning the meaning of “halt”; both the paper and the electronic unabridged OED are grievously misrepresented by Dr. Ward.[147] While charity may hope that Dr. Ward’s argument here is simply breathtakingly sloppy and careless, rather than deliberately deceitful, the fact remains that he egregiously misrepresents the text of the Oxford English Dictionary in order to attack the KJV’s rendering of 1 Kings 18:21. Mark Ward states that “halt did not mean in 1611 ‘to waver’ or ‘hesitate’ or ‘to come to an abrupt stop,’”[148] but the Oxford English Dictionary not only states exactly the opposite but even specifically cites 1 Kings 18:21 in both the Authorized Version and the fourteenth century Wycliffe Bible to the contrary.
Mark Ward’s premier example in his “false friend” attack on the KJV—“halt” in 1 Kings 18:21—is a painfully severe failure. While he wishes to convince pro-KJV Christians that only a tiny percentage of them understand the word “halt,” in reality Dr. Ward is the one who either misunderstands or at best gives a very incomplete representation of the evidence from the Hebrew Old Testament, ignores the Greek and Latin Old Testament, and misrepresents in a shocking way the evidence in the Oxford English Dictionary concerning the diachronic development of the English word “halt.” It is Ward’s books and videos that are the “false friends” in this passage—not the KJV’s translation.[149]
B.) “Study”: Did Dr. Ward Do Proper Diligence With This (Alleged) “False Friend”?
In the KJV survey by Mark Ward and the “Textual Confidence Collective,” the word “study” in 2 Timothy 2:15 is listed as a “false friend.”[150] Since 2 Timothy 2:15 in the KJV reads: “Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth,” the KJV should be set aside because of the archaic “false friend” word “study.” Dr. Ward likewise employed this alleged “false friend” as one of only four examples given in his debate with Dr. Daniel Haifley[151] while producing other video resources criticizing the KJV’s translation in this passage.[152] Ward’s quiz question asked:
“Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.” (2 Timothy 2:15 KJV)
What does “study” mean here?
a.) To strive towards, direct one’s efforts to, set one’s mind on, devote oneself to
b.) I don’t know
c.) The devotion of time and attention to acquiring knowledge on an academic subject, especially by means of books
d.) To consider or ponder quietly[153]
Dr. Ward affirms that the correct answer is letter “a.” He claims:
The Greek here means “to be especially conscientious in discharging an obligation” (BDAG).
In 1611 “study” in a context like this meant “to strive towards, direct one’s efforts to, set one’s mind on, devote oneself to” (OED)–just like the Greek. That sense, however, is marked as “Obsolete” in the OED.
Today, “study” means “the devotion of time and attention to acquiring knowledge on an academic subject, especially by means of books” (NOAD). This is just what nearly all the KJV-Only pastors thought the word meant.[154]
Brother Mark states:
One of the greatest and saddest ironies of my work on the King James Version, the most ironic false friend … [is] 2 Timothy 2:15 … you won’t notice this one if you don’t check modern translations. The modern sense [of “study”] makes perfect sense in the King James in the context of 2 Timothy 2:15, but in fact all modern translations say something different. None of them uses the word “study.” …. “‘Study’ to show thyself approved” is a pretty easy and objective false friend, but I’ve never met a King James Only brother who would acknowledge that it is. This isn’t a funny irony to me. It’s a sad and even horrifying one.[155]
This “false friend,” Dr. Ward claims, is “one of the greatest and saddest ironies” of Dr. Ward’s years of effort seeking to get people to stop using the KJV in God’s work.[156] It is “sad” and even “horrifying” to him. Even though a work such as the King James Only Dean Burgon Society’s study Bible indicates archaism in 2 Timothy 2:15, so that “D. A. Waite’s Defined King James Bible did explain in the margin that ‘study’ in 2 Timothy 2:15 means ‘be diligent,”[157]nevertheless Dr. Ward had “never met a King James Only brother who would acknowledge it.”[158] It seems, according to Dr. Ward, that all King James Only Christians reject the definition of “be diligent” in 2 Timothy 2:15. Even the vast numbers of them who use the Defined King James Bible that he acknowledges defines “study” as “be diligent” right in its margin must (at least according to Dr. Ward’s unsubstantiated affirmation) reject their own marginal note to cling to the modern definition of “study” as “devotion of time and attention to acquiring knowledge on an academic subject, especially by means of books.” For reasons never explained by Dr. Ward, a marginal note on the word “study” in a KJV study Bible, knowledge of a word list of KJV archaisms, or even remembering that a few pages earlier in the KJV the text employs the phrase “study to be quiet” (1 Thessalonians 4:11) are all insufficient to determine the correct sense of 2 Timothy 2:15. Only turning away from the KJV and using modern Bible versions will help: “You won’t notice this one if you don’t check modern translations.”[159]
While Dr. Ward’s survey answer inaccurately states that the OED contains an archaic definition of “study” as “to strive towards, direct one’s efforts to, set one’s mind on, devote oneself to,” Ward is not actually quoting the physical OED; the words within the quote marks do not appear in that form in the Oxford English Dictionary’s definition of “study,” although they do summarize content that appears in several of the definitions.[160] Nevertheless, it is reasonable to recognize that 2 Timothy 2:15 emphasizes the need for Timothy to diligently hasten to show himself approved to God, to conscientiously take effort to present himself as such, something validated by the other uses of the same Greek root in 2 Timothy (2 Timothy 1:17; 4:9, 21).
However, if Dr. Ward wishes to maintain that the modern sense of “study” is completely excluded from 2 Timothy 2:15, he would do well to interact with the fact that standard lexica of classical Greek mention the modern sense of “study” as one of the definitions of the verb spoudazō (σπουδάζω). For example, Liddell-Scott-Jones[161]indicates that the verb in 2 Timothy 2:15 can mean “study … lecture, teach.” The Brill Dictionary of Ancient Greek[162] gives as its first definition “to apply oneself with zeal, devote oneself, attend, be interested, make an effort, do oneʼs utmost”—the likely emphasis in 2 Timothy 2:15—but also mentions that the Greek word can mean “to study.” Within ancient Greek, the sense “to study, to apply one’s self to”[163] is clearly present, and in Christendom the verb commonly meant “be studied” in connection to “literary works.”[164] Thus, Strabo can refer to Callimachus as a “poet” and a “studious scholar.”[165] Sirach can refer to “interpret[ing] … a book of no small learning” through “necessary … diligence / study [spoudē] and travail” (Sirach 27-34).[166] Josephus, who describes himself as one who “studied [spoudazō]” or “exercised effort” “to partake of the learning of the Greeks,”[167] can speak of people who “take great pains in studying [spoudazō] the writings of the ancients”[168] and of one whose “study [spoudazō] [was] to appear in all things better than his father.”[169] He can write of those whose “study” or “diligent effort” in “education” “fitted them for … country-schoolmasters,”[170] of one who “extraordinarily studied / diligent [spoudazō]” in what concerned “learning and the collection of books,”[171] and of one who “wrote … having studied to learn history” from the “writings” of native peoples.[172] Philostratus Life of Apollonius 1:7 reads:
On reaching the age when children are taught their letters, he showed great strength of memory and power of application; and his tongue affected the Attic dialect, nor was his accent corrupted by the race he lived among. All eyes were turned upon him, for he was, moreover, conspicuous for his beauty. When he reached his fourteenth year, his father brought him to Tarsus, to Euthydemus the teacher from Phoenicia. Now Euthydemus was a good rhetor, and began his education; but, though he was attached to his teacher, he found the atmosphere of the city harsh and strange and little conducive to the philosophic life, for nowhere are men more addicted than here to luxury; jesters and full of insolence are they all; and they attend more to their fine linen than the Athenians did to wisdom; and a stream called the Cydnus runs through their city, along the banks of which they sit like so many water-fowl. Hence the words which Apollonius addresses to them in his letter: “Be done with getting drunk upon your water.” He therefore transferred his teacher, with his father’s consent, to the town of Aegae, which was close by, where he found a peace congenial to one who would be a philosopher, and a more serious school of study and a temple of Asclepius, where that god reveals himself in person to men. There he had as his companions in philosophy followers of Plato and Chrysippus and peripatetic philosophers. And he diligently attended also to the discourses of Epicurus, for he did not despise these either, although it was to those of Pythagoras that he applied himself with unspeakable wisdom and ardor. However, his teacher of the Pythagorean system was not a very serious person, nor one who practiced in his conduct the philosophy he taught; for he was the slave of his belly and appetites, and modeled himself upon Epicurus.[173]
Eusebius, in his Ecclesiastical History, discusses his (erroneous) negative view of the canonicity of 2 Peter by stating: “The reputed second Epistle we have ascertained to be not canonical; nevertheless, since it appeared useful to many, it has been studied [spoudazō] together with the other Scriptures.”[174] In Koine Greek the senses of “to apply oneself with zeal” or “make an effort,” and “to study” in the modern sense frequently shade into each other.
Furthermore, 2 Timothy 2:15 is alluded to in 2 Timothy 3:15-4:2. Note 2 Timothy 4:1-2a: “I charge theetherefore before God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge the quick and the dead at his appearing and his kingdom; Preach the word[!]” 2 Timothy 4:1 is the largest buildup of preliminary exhortatory material before a command—“Preach the word[!]” (4:2a)—anywhere in Paul’s epistles. With the anaphoric article on “the” word in 4:2 referring back to the “all scripture” of 2 Timothy 3:16 and the “holy scriptures” of 3:15, and the command to “rightly divide” the Word in 2:15 being echoed in 3:15-16’s “the holy scriptures” and “all scripture” within the section 2 Timothy 2:14-4:8, can one reasonably deny that the diligent effort Timothy must make to rightly divide all the holy Scriptures so he can preach them necessarily involves “study” in the sense of “search[ing] the Scriptures” (John 5:39), so that this sense of “study” is not only contained within the semantic domain of 2 Timothy 2:15’s spoudazō, but the context of 2 Timothy 2:15 impels a recognition of this sense of “study” as a crucial, central aspect of how Timothy was to exert diligent effort to show himself approved to God?
Dr. Ward would do well to discuss the lexical evidence that the verb in 2 Timothy 2:15 can include the “book learning” sense of “study” before setting that modern sense against the idea of “showing diligence.” Second Timothy 2:15 commands Timothy to make diligent effort to show himself approved to God, but a crucial aspect of such effort is specifically engaging in “study” of Scripture. Regrettably, Dr. Ward completely ignores many lexical and contextual features in his zeal to attack the KJV’s translation “study” in 2 Timothy 2:15.
Furthermore, in 1611 the English word “study” could certainly refer to the diligent acquisition of learning through reading books, as it did even with the King James Bible itself. Ecclesiastes 12:12 reads: “And further, by these, my son, be admonished: of making many books there is no end; and much study is a weariness of the flesh.” The KJV marginal note on “study” reads “reading.” The OED cites Ecclesiastes 12:12 underneath its definition of “study” as “Application of mind to the acquisition of learning; mental labour, reading and reflection directed to learning, literary composition, invention, or the like.”[175] In the 1611 KJV’s Apocrypha, the prologue to Sirach reads:
This Jesus was the son of Sirach, and grandchild to Jesus of the same name with him: this man therefore lived in the latter times, after the people had been led away captive, and called home a again, and almost after all the prophets. Now his grandfather Jesus, as he himself witnesseth, was a man of great diligence and wisdom among the Hebrews, who did not only gather the grave and short sentences of wise men, that had been before him, but himself also uttered some of his own, full of much understanding and wisdom. When as therefore the first Jesus died, leaving this book almost perfected, Sirach his son receiving it after him left it to his own son Jesus, who, having gotten it into his hands, compiled it all orderly into one volume, and called it Wisdom, intituling it both by his own name, his father’s name, and his grandfather’s; alluring the hearer by the very name of Wisdom to have a greater love to the study of this book. It containeth therefore wise sayings, dark sentences, and parables, and certain particular ancient godly stories of men that pleased God; also his prayer and song; moreover, what benefits God had vouchsafed his people, and what plagues he had heaped upon their enemies. This Jesus did imitate Solomon, and was no less famous for wisdom and learning, both being indeed a man of great learning, and so reputed also.[176]
The prefatory material to the 1611 KJV contains the statement:
But now what piety without truth? What truth, what saving truth, without the word of God? What word of God, whereof we may be sure, without the Scripture? The Scriptures we are commanded to search. John 5. 39. Isaiah 8. 20. They are commended that searched and studied them. Acts 17. 11. and 8. 28, 29. They are reproved that were unskilful in them, or slow to believe them. Matth. 22. 29. Luke 24. 25. They can make us wise unto salvation. 2 Tim. 3. 15.[177]
While the archaic sense of “study” as to “endeavour, make it one’s aim, set oneself deliberately to do something” appears in the KJV’s “study to be quiet” in 1 Thessalonians 5:11—with the OED citing both the 1526 Tyndale and the 1611 Authorized Version for this sense of the English word[178]—the sense of “study” as diligent application to gaining knowledge through books was likewise alive and well in both the English of the year 1611 and in the pages of the 1611 KJV. Indeed, the English word “study” was used not only for the study of books in general, but for the study of Scripture in particular, not only in the seventeenth century, but even several hundred years before the translation of the Authorized Version. The printed Oxford English Dictionary indicates that “study” was used for “[a]pplication of mind to the acquisition of learning; mental labour, reading and reflection directed to learning, literary composition, invention, or the like.” Examples are cited from the year 1300 onward, including the KJV in Ecclesiastes 12:12. Another listed definition is “[t]he action of studying … mental effort in the acquisition of (some kind of learning); attentive reading of (a book, etc.)[.]” Examples from A. D. 1300 onward are listed, including examples such as “The second parte of contemplacyon is study or redynge of holy scripture” from 1526 and a 17th century sermon where the preacher affirmed, “God hath composed two books, by the diligent study of which we may attain to the knowledge of Himself: the Book of the creatures, and the book of the Scriptures.”[179] The definition “[t]o apply the mind to the acquisition of learning, whether by means of books, observation, or experiment” contains many examples from far before 1611, including, two-hundred years before the translation of the Authorized Version, the word “study” with reference to the “study of Scripture”:
c1300 St. Edmund 279 in E.E.P. (1862) 78 He lynede adoun vpon his boc, þo he ne miȝte studie nomore. c1320 Sir Tristr. 281 In bok, while he was þore, He stodieþ euer, þat stiþe. 1362 Langl. P. Pl. A. xii. 6 The were lef to lerne but loth for to stodie.c1375 Sc. Leg. Saints xxxi. (Eugenia) 34 Þir twa ȝung men Ithandly studyt in philosophy. c1386 Chaucer Prol. 184 What sholde he studie, and make hymseluen wood Vpon a boke in Cloystre alwey to poure. c1400 Rule St. Benet (Prose) xlviii. 33 When prime is sungen til vndern salle ye studie in lescuns. c1430 Lydg. Min. Poems (Percy Soc.) 217 Eche thyng of kynde drawith to his nature, Som to profite in wysdam and science, Som also to studyen in Scripture. 1450–80 tr. Secreta Secret.xxviii. 21 The nobille Plato he stodied in the science of Astronomye. 1530 Palsgr. 741/2, I wolde fayne be a great clerke, but I love not to studye. 1661 H. Newcome Diary (Chetham Soc.) 9, I kept in all ye afternoone and studdyed on another doct. on my text Act. xxiv. 25. 1709 Hearne Collect. (O.H.S.) II. 245 [Harduin] maliciously asserts that the Cardinal’s way of studying was to read Indexes. a1721 Prior Advice of Venus 12 On female idleness his [Cupid’s] pow’r relies, But when he finds us studying-hard he flies. 1746 Francis tr. Hor., Sat. ii. vii. 20 [He] Now rakes at Rome, and now to Athens flies; Intensely studies with the Learn’d and Wise.[180]
The definition “[t]o read (a book, a passage, an author) with close attention” lists examples from 1422 onward, including the prefatory material to the King James Version: “1422 … Good bokys to rede and study … 1526 … But rather I beseech all the reders so to study this present treatyse … 1611 Bible Transl. Pref. … If we do not studie them [the Scriptures].”[181]
The unabridged electronic OED that Mark Ward claims to use instead of the physical book defines “study” as “To acquire knowledge, and related senses. … [t]o devote time and effort to acquiring knowledge, esp. by means of written sources, observation, or experiment; to apply one’s mind to learning” from the 1300s onward, listing examples such as:
c1300 He lynede adoun vpon his boc, þo he nemiȝte studie nomore. … c1330 In bok, while he was þore, He stodieþ euer, þat stiþe. … c1405 … What sholde he studie, and make hym seluen wood Vp on a book in Cloystre alwey to poure. … c1450 The nobille Plato he stodied in the science of Astronomye. … 1661 I kept in all ye afternoone and studdyed on another doct. on my text Act. xxiv. 25.
Underneath the definition “[t]o devote time and effort to acquiring knowledge of (a science, art, language, etc.),” examples from the 1400s onward are listed, including:
1445 Aonias also, which crafte of musys studyed. … 1481 The aged mans office is to mynistre his sage counseill by his instruction to the yong oratours studyeng the lawes. … a1500 Hoso wil fyndyn þat he must stodyyn. … 1516 As he was studyinge arythmetryke, his moder then latlye deed apperyd to hym. … 1616 In briefe sir, studie what you most affect. … 1634 Happy he, who studieth prudence on anothers bookes. … 1698 Studying all the Arts of Thrift, will Travel for Fifty Shillings. … 1714 If a Gentleman be to study any Language, it ought to be that of his own Country.[182]
Underneath the definition “to read (a book, a passage, an author) with close attention,” examples from the 1400s onward are provided, including from the KJV’s own preface:
1425 Manye studien seche stories … for to kunne talke of perfeccioun. …1500 … Good bokys to rede and study. … 1526 But rather I beseche all the reders so to study this present treatyse, that [etc.]. … 1568 The children of vanyty are occupyed many years in the schools to learn rethoryk, they excercise them selues in philosophy, they here Aristottel, they learn Homere without booke, they study Cicero. … 1611 If we doe not studie them [sc. the Scriptures]. M. Smith in Bible (King James) Transl. To Reader sig. A4v … 1683 I had press’d the Cleargy for many years together to study their Common Prayer-book. … 1701 The Learned Men who study Aristotle.[183]
Thus, both the physical and the electronic unabridged Oxford English Dictionary indicate that the English word “study” was used for “book learning” and specifically for the study of Scripture not only in 1611, but centuries earlier. It cites the KJV’s own prefatory material for this sense of “study” in this sense. Such a sense for “study” appears not only in contemporary English, but also in 17th century English and even in 14th century English. Mark Ward’s misuse of the OED is shocking.
There is every reason to believe that when the KJV translated spoudazō as something like “do diligence” elsewhere in the pastoral epistles (2 Timothy 4:9, 21; Titus 3:12) but employed “study” in 2 Timothy 2:15—following the practice of all earlier Reformation-era English translations[184]—they wished to deliberately include something like the modern sense of “study” in addition to the broader sense of “engaging in serious effort.”
While Dr. Ward claims that “all modern translations” disagree with the “false friend” study in the KJV,[185]numbers of modern versions would beg to differ:
Study and do your best to present yourself to God approved, a workman [tested by trial] who has no reason to be ashamed, accurately handling and skillfully teaching the word of truth. (AMP)
Study to show thyself approved unto God, a workman who needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. (KJ21)
Study and be eager and do your utmost to present yourself to God approved (tested by trial), a workman who has no cause to be ashamed, correctly analyzing and accurately dividing [rightly handling and skillfully teaching] the Word of Truth. (AMPC)
Study to show yourself approved by God, a workman who need not be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. (MEV)
Regrettably, Mark Ward’s claim here is another of many examples where his claims are inaccurate and unnuanced.
Mark Ward claims the word study in 2 Timothy 2:15 is “the most ironic ‘false friend,’” and misunderstanding of this word by advocates the Authorized Version is “one of the greatest and saddest ironies,” even something he can call “horrifying.”[186] However, while Dr. Ward’s survey of KJV words sets in opposition the definitions of study as “to strive towards, direct one’s efforts to, set one’s mind on, devote oneself to” and “the devotion of time and attention to acquiring knowledge … especially by means of books,”[187] these ideas are actually coordinated, and both are contained in the semantic domain for the Greek verb spoudazō and the English word “study” as used in the King James Version in A. D. 1611. Furthermore, both ideas receive contextual support in 2 Timothy 2:14-4:8. It is unfortunate that in Dr. Ward’s many criticisms of the KJV in 2 Timothy 2:15 he never acknowledges, nor provids any evidence that he is even aware, that the modern sense of the word “study” is part of the semantic domain of the Greek word he labels a “false friend” in 2 Timothy 2:15. Ward’s misuse and misrepresentation of the Oxford English Dictionary and the diachronic development of the English word “study” are also very troubling. The reason the “modern sense [of] … study … makes perfect sense in the King James in the context of 2 Timothy 2:15”[188] is because it is an important aspect of the meaning Paul conveyed to Timothy. Paul exhorts Timothy to conscientiously and zealously discharge his obligation to receive God’s approval as an unashamed workman who is rightly dividing and rightly preaching all the holy Scripture as the Word of truth. A crucial element of that obedience is “study” of Scripture.
C.) “Mansion”: Is there Room in the Bible for This (Alleged) “False Friend”?
Debating Dr. Daniel Haifley, Mark Ward claimed that the KJV word mansion in John 14:2 is a “false friend.”[189] In the King James Bible, the Lord Jesus promises: “In my Father’s house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you” (John 14:2). Because of the alleged “false friend” mansion, the KJV must be set aside. Dr. Ward also produced videos attacking the translation mansion in John 14:2 in the King James Version.[190] In his debate with Dr. Haifley, Ward asked:
What does “mansions” mean in John 14:2?
a.) A “mansion” is a large, stately, opulent residence.
b.) A “mansion” is each of a number of separate dwelling places or apartments in a large house [or] group of buildings.”
c.) A “mansion” is the action of remaining, living, or staying in a place.
d.) I don’t know.[191]
In the debate with Haifley, Ward claimed that the word “did not mean” a “large stately opulent residence” but “each of a number of separate dwelling places or apartments in a large house or group of buildings.” He said that the word “‘mansions’ meant something like rooms or individual dwelling places within a larger house.”[192] Ward states:
[In John 14:2] the word means “room.” … “In my Father’s house there are many rooms.” … What in the world does it mean for the Father’s house to have many mansions inside it? Mansions are houses. How can a mansion have a house in it? … It most certainly does not specify the large opulent house that we hear when we hear “mansion.” … [T]here’s just no way it means a whole separate house. … [Rather, the saints are promised] “rooms” … sort of like a duplex or triplex today. … We’re not talking about “mansions.” … [T]he Greek word in John 14 means “rooms” … the humble room, [not] the glorious mansion. … Jesus did not promise us mansions. … [W]hat a bummer of a way to end[.][193]
The word, therefore, is a “false friend.” Even if it is a “bummer,” Christians need to just deal with the fact that Christ did not promise them “large, stately, opulent residence[s].” Rather, they will be packed in, each having only a “room,” in a situation that is “sort of like a duplex or triplex.”
Is the KJV word “mansion,” translating the Greek word monē (μονή), a “false friend”? First, as might be expected for a word related to the verb meno (μένω) meaning “to abide” or “to remain,” monē actually refers to many different types of “abodes.” The Greek word appears only twice in the New Testament, in John 14:2 and 14:23, but it does appear in relatively contemporary Greek literature with some frequency. The word is much broader than Dr. Ward’s sole allegedly “correct” definition lets on. A monē, an “abode,” can clearly refer to a complete, large, and separate house in Koine Greek. The word can be set in parallel to an oikos, a house:
And when I had landed, and was seeking for a lodging, I learned that one named Peter, who was the most esteemed disciple of the Man who had appeared in Judæa, and had done signs and wonders, was going to have a verbal controversy next day with Simon, a Samaritan of Gitthi. When I heard this, I begged to be shown his lodging [monē]; and as soon as I learned it, I stood before the door. And those who were in the house [oikos], seeing me, discussed the question who I was, and whence I had come.[194]
Likewise, an oikos can be styled the “eternal mansion [monē]” of the redeemed.[195] Josephus calls the opulent residence of the high priest in Jerusalem a monē.[196] The high priest certainly did not live in a single room. Philo can employ monē for “houses for our children and wives,” as part of a living area inclusive of both “stables for … cattle” and walled fortifications, set in contrast with “unwalled and unprotected dwellings.”[197] He can call a monē a “home” that includes a “centre” with its “innermost doors,” as well as “apartments,” a “vestibule,” and “outer courts.”[198] Very early Christian tradition referred to the entire vast city, the New Jerusalem, as a monē.[199] Christ will stand as God in the midst … of the saved, distinguishing and deciding of what honour and of what mansion each is worthy.”[200] The idea of a “large, stately, opulent residence” is well within the semantic domain of the Greek word monē.
Similarly, Mark Ward’s claim that the translation “mansion” cannot be correct because “the Father’s house” cannot “have many mansions inside of it … There’s just no way it means a whole separate house”[201] ignores the fact that the entire New Jerusalem is the Father’s house, comparable to the Holy of Holies in the Tabernacle and Temple. The length, breath, and height of the New Jerusalem is “twelve thousand furlongs,” estimated as “fourteen or fifteen hundred miles, depending on the exact length of a stadion”[202] or alternatively as “one thousand seven hundred and fourteen miles.”[203] Assuming a smaller, rather than a larger stadion, the city would still be extraordinarily large:
Were [the] city to be superimposed on the present-day United States, it would extend from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico, and from Colorado to the Atlantic Ocean[.] … Obviously, God will design the new Jerusalem with plenty of room for all the redeemed (cf. John 14:2–3). … [Making] certain assumptions about the design of the city and the number of the redeemed who will live in it, [it has been] calculate[d] that each person’s [dwelling] would be approximately seventy-five acres on each side.[204]
There is plenty of room in the New Jerusalem, the Father’s house, for each saint to have an opulent mansion, or even many mansions. Dr. Ward’s argument that believers will only have a “humble room,” not a “glorious mansion,”[205]and that for that reason the KJV should be rejected because of its (alleged) “false friend” in John 14:2, fails when evaluated by the usage of the word monē in Koine Greek.
Furthermore, in 1611 the English word mansion could clearly refer to a spacious and grand “abode,” according to the Oxford English Dictionary. The printed OED includes examples of the word mansion from far before 1611 for what the OED calls the “early use” as “the chief residence of a lord,” so that from this use was derived the use of “a large and stately residence.” The English word mansion refers to places such as “the king’s mansion” in an example from A. D. 1513. Other definitions for the English word refer to large, stately dwellings, such as an example from Chaucer in A. D. 1386 where “the great temple of Mars” is called the god’s “sovereign mansion.” Another definition, of “a separate dwelling place,” gives an example from A. D. 1400 of “many mansions and many great dwelling places.”[206] Similarly, the first words of the first definition in the most up-to-date electronic edition of the OED for “mansion” are: “A large house or other building.” Examples are provided from A. D. 1375 onward.[207]
Can the Greek word monē refer to something like an apartment? Certainly—the semantic domain of the word includes many different types of abodes, as well as a variety of senses different from a reference to either a small dwelling or a large one. But is the idea of a large, stately separate dwelling or “abode” outside the semantic domain of the word? Not at all. The English word mansion in 1611 could clearly refer to a large, stately, separate dwelling place. The “false friend” in John 14:2 is not the Authorized, King James Version; the “false friend” is Mark Ward, his inaccurate anti-KJV survey question, and his misrepresentation of the Greek and English linguistic evidence.
Furthermore, a number of modern English Bible versions, including the New King James Version, retain the translation mansion in John 14:2:
In My Father’s house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. (KJ21)
In my Father’s house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you; for I go to prepare a place for you. (ASV)
In my Father’s house are many mansions. If it were not so, I would have told you. I am going to prepare a place for you. (EHV)
In My Father’s house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. (NKJV)
in the house of my Father are many mansions; and if not, I would have told you; I go on to prepare a place for you; (YLT)
Is the word mansion an archaism or “false friend” in the late nineteenth century in Young’s Literal Translation, in the early twentieth century in the American Standard Version, or in the late twentieth century in the New King James Version? Must these Bible versions be abandoned because of their retention of this (alleged) “false friend”—or is the King James Bible the only one that needs to go?
Imagine that in the future someone is touring the New Jerusalem. He sees a large group of incredibly beautiful, large, stately dwellings. He notices these amazing dwellings and say to his tour guide, “Wow, those are amazing. Who lives there?”
“Ah yes,” the tour guide answers: “Those are the ‘mansions’ that the King James Only Baptists live in.”
“Wow, they are so nice—incredible! Now I also see a big apartment building—it’s really packed with people, everyone in really tiny spaces. It reminds me of dormitory rooms, maybe like those at Bob Jones University. The people are very happy, of course, because we are in heaven, but boy, they are sure packed in! Who lives there?”
“Ah yes—those are the ‘rooms’ that the Christians live in who set the KJV aside for the ESV.”[208]
Nothing in the Greek word mone indicates that the future abodes of God’s people will be anything less than stately, beautiful, and opulent. When each gate to the heavenly City is one huge pearl, the dwellings also surely will be opulent. According to both John 14:2 and the Revelation given to the Apostle John, there is nothing shabby, mean, or mini about where the saints will live. Christians dwellings in God’s eternal kingdom will be far better accommodations than the most beautiful mansion ever seen in this fallen world. The Greek word monē in John 14:2 does not actually emphasize either a large or a small dwelling, but the fact that believers will dwell or abide with their Father and Redeemer forever. Nevertheless, it is entirely unjustifiable to adopt a modern English Bible version, with its less-literal translations in chapter after chapter after chapter of Scripture, based on Mark Ward’s neglect of the Koine Greek uses of the Greek monē, combined with a distortion of the Oxford English Dictionary. John 14:2’s grand translation mansionconveys the glory of God’s future kingdom better than the word room does. Furthermore, the KJV’s beautiful rendering of Christ’s blessed promise in John 14:2 is so far from containing a “false friend” that justifies setting aside the KJV that, on the contrary, it is another one of the many reasons to retain the exclusive use of the Authorized Version among English-speaking Christians.
D.) “Remove”: Should This (Alleged) “False Friend” Be Taken Off the List?
Perhaps thinking he saved the best for last, Mark Ward’s final example of six “false friends” mentioned in his book Authorized is “remove” in Proverbs 22:28: “Remove not the ancient landmark, which thy fathers have set.” He writes:
FALSE FRIEND 6: REMOVE NOT THE ANCIENT LANDMARK
A final example, and one I find sadly ironic, comes from Proverbs 22:28:
Remove not the ancient landmark, which thy fathers have set.
… [T]he word remove no longer means what it did in 1611. … Solomon is not talking about removing a landmark, that is, taking it away and disposing of it or hiding it. … Solomon is talking about moving the landmark, as every single one of the major contemporary English translations makes clear.[209]
His survey with the “Textual Confidence Collective” asks:
“Remove not the ancient landmark, which thy fathers have set.” (Proverbs 22:28 KJV)
What does it mean to “remove” a landmark?
a.) I don’t know.
b.) To progress in a direction.
c.) To change position; to move a short distance or in a certain direction.
d.) Take (something) away or off from the position occupied.[210]
Ward claims that the correct answer is “c.” The word remove here is an archaic “false friend,” according to Mark Ward. Ward criticizes the Defined King James Bible[211] because it “misses remove in Proverbs 22:28 … a KJV with tons of footnotes offering contemporary equivalents of archaic words is not enough.”[212] Ward states:
The Hebrew here means “to displace [that is, to ‘cause (something) to move from its proper or usual place’] a boundary mark.” (HALOT/NOAD)
In 1611 “remove” in a context like this meant “to change position; to move a short distance or in a certain direction.” (OED)–just like the Hebrew. That sense, however, is marked as “Obsolete” in the OED.
Today, “remove” means to “take (something) away or off from the position occupied” or to “eliminate or get rid of” (NOAD).[213]
Mark Ward specifically states that definition d, “Take (something) away or off from the position occupied,” is wrong. According to Dr. Ward, in 1611 “remove” meant to “move a short distance,” but not to “take (something) away or off from the position occupied”; that is a modern sense that the word has “today,” but that did not exist in 1611. He argues:
What Proverbs is warning against is moving boundary markers and thereby stealing land from your neighbor, and it just so happens that remove used to be used in the sense of move. Here’s the Oxford English Dictionary: Someone in 1633, for example, could say “[W]e will remove nearer the court,” and what they meant was “they were going to move closer to the court.”[214] The Oxford English Dictionary marks this sense as now somewhat archaic. I feel we can safely drop the “somewhat.” I’ve never heard anyone say this “remove not the ancient landmark” means “Don’t steal your neighbor’s land by moving a boundary marker.”[215]
Thus, according to Mark Ward, the word “remove” is another one of those words, of which there may be “countless more,” that “modern readers quite literally can’t—not merely don’t—know … they’re missing when they read the KJV.”[216]
Is the word remove an archaism in Proverbs 22:28, like Mark Ward’s book, survey, and video claim? Consider the verse in Hebrew and in the Septuagint, along with an older and a more modern standard English translation of the LXX:
אַל־תַּ֭סֵּג גְּב֣וּל עוֹלָ֑ם אֲשֶׁ֖ר עָשׂ֣וּ אֲבוֹתֶֽיךָ׃
μὴ μέταιρε ὅρια αἰώνια, ἃ ἔθεντο οἱ πατέρες σου. (LXX)
Remove not the old landmarks, which thy fathers placed. (Brenton LXX)
Do not remove ancient borders which your fathers set up. (NETS LXX)
The Hebrew verb in question is tassēg̱ (תַּ֭סֵּג), the Hiphil of sûg̱ (סוּג). What does this verb mean in the Hiphil?
[D]isplacing, moving back a boundary mark … remove, carry away (BDB)
[R]emove, move back … one who removes a boundary … remove, carry away (DCH)
[T]o displace a boundary (HALOT)
[D]isplace, shift, remove; put away (NIDOTTE)[217]
Thus, standard Hebrew lexica like Brown-Driver-Briggs, or the Dictionary of Classical Hebrew, define this verb in the Hiphil using the English word remove. The Dictionary of Classical Hebrew was published in eight volumes between and 1993 and 2011. NIDOTTE was published in 1997. If the word “remove” is archaic in Proverbs 22:28, many leading Hebrew scholars who published premier Hebrew lexical resources do not seem to have known about it, just as the Hebrew scholars who produced BDB did not know it. It is unfortunate that Mark Ward did not take five minutes to look at standard Hebrew lexica before writing a book, bothering many pastors who preach from the KJV with survey questions, publishing his biased and inaccurate results on the Internet, and producing video resources attacking the KJV in Proverbs 22:28.
Mark Ward’s survey question defines the word rendered remove in Proverbs 22:28 as, in part, “to move a short distance.” However, nothing whatsoever in any standard modern Hebrew lexicon states that the Hiphil of sûg̱ means “to move a short distance.” What is Ward’s source for his “short” part? It is not in the Hebrew lexicon his survey cites—HALOT. It is not in any Hebrew lexical source known to this author. The definition that Ward’s survey says is correct—letter c—is actually simply wrong. “C” is a wrong answer on this survey, although the survey claims it is the right answer.
Indeed, it is painfully obvious from a study of the uses of sûg̱ that the idea that it involves moving only a “short” distance, or a small amount, is severely inaccurate. In Proverbs 23:10, “remove not the old landmark” is explicated by “enter not into the fields of the fatherless.” One does not steal a plurality of the “fields” of others by moving a boundary stone only a short distance. In many other instances where sûg̱ appears, the idea of only a small movement does not make any sense. Those who worship idols are not only “turned back” (sûg̱) a short distance, but are “greatly ashamed” (Isaiah 42:17). Transgressors who are “departing [sûg̱] away from our God” are not moving only a short distance as they engage in “lying against the LORD … speaking oppression and revolt, conceiving and uttering from the heart words of falsehood” (Isaiah 59:13), with the result that “judgment is turned away (sûg̱) backward, and justice standeth afar off” (Isaiah 59:14). When the enemies of God, the Messiah, and King David are “driven backward (sûg̱) and put to shame” (Psalm 40:14), they do not receive only a small amount of Divine judgment. An examination of the uses of sûg̱ in the Old Testament reveals that Mark Ward’s claim in his anti-KJV survey that the word involves movement only a short distance is just completely wrong.[218.0] Likewise, warnings to stay far from the strange woman, such as: “Remove thy way far from her, and come not nigh the door of her house” (Proverbs 5:8) make it painfully clear that the English word “remove” in the KJV is not a hidden archaism, a “false friend,” that allegedly refers to moving only a short distance. The reader who examines the uses of the Hebrew word translated “remove” in Proverbs 22:28 and the English word “remove” in the Authorized Version cannot help but wonder if Ward ever bothered to study either before utilizing “remove” as his culminating, climactic attack on the King James Version.
Unfortunately, it also appears unlikely that Dr. Ward ever took the time to examine the LXX in Proverbs 22:28:
μὴ μέταιρε ὅρια αἰώνια, ἃ ἔθεντο οἱ πατέρες σου.
Remove not the old landmarks, which thy fathers placed (Brenton)
Do not remove ancient borders which your fathers set up. (NETS)
The LXX translates the Hebrew tassēg̱ in Proverbs 22:28 with a form of metairō (μεταίρω), which means “to remove” (Lust),[218] “lift up and remove, shift” (LSJ), “to raise, shift, remove” (Brill), “to lift up and remove from one place to another, to transfer” (Thayer). Such facts explain why both older and newer translations of the LXX render the word in question as “remove.” Unfortunately, not only is there no evidence that either Dr. Ward, or anyone affiliated with his survey, spent five minutes seeing what a fair sample of Hebrew lexica said that the Hebrew word “remove” meant, but nobody took five minutes to see how the LXX translated it. If remove is archaic, both Hebrew lexicographers and the LXX translators seem to have missed it.
Ward claimed in Authorized that “every single one of the major contemporary English translations makes clear”[219] that remove in Proverbs 22:28 is an archaic “false friend,” one of Brother Mark’s six primary examples for why Christians must set aside the King James Bible. His claim that “every single … contemporary English translatio[n]” can be set against the translation in the KJV is puzzling. For example, note the following:
Do not remove the ancient landmark which your fathers have set. (NKJV)
Do not remove the ancient landmark that your ancestors set up. (NRSV)
Do not remove an ancient boundary marker which your ancestors made. (LEB)
Remove not the ancient landmark which your fathers have set. (RSV)
Never remove the ancient boundary stone that your ancestors set up. (NCB)
Remove not the ancient landmark which thy fathers have set. (Darby)
Remove not the ancient landmark, which thy fathers have set. (ASV)
Remove not a border of olden times, That thy fathers have made. (YLT)
Many modern Bible versions, from the New King James Version to the New Revised Standard Version, translate the Hebrew verb in Proverbs 22:28 as remove, just as the KJV. Mark Ward misrepresents the Hebrew Old Testament, the Greek Old Testament, and the usage of modern English versions.
Furthermore, an examination of the unabridged Oxford English Dictionary in print for the verb remove[220]does not yield the definition “to change position; to move a short distance or in a certain direction.” The OED’s printed text simply does not contain what Ward’s survey with the “Textual Confidence Collective” claims. In addition, while Dr. Ward claims that only “today” does “remove” mean “take (something) away or off from the position occupied,” the OED definitions read very differently:
To move or shift from or out of the place occupied; to lift or push aside; to lift up and take away; to take off [examples from 1300s+] … To take away, withdraw, from a place, person, etc. … [ex from 1400s+] … To take or convey away from a place [ex from 1400s+] … To move, shift, transfer or convey from one place to another; to change the place or situation of [ex from 1300s+] … [o]f things: To change place; to move off or away [ex from 1400s+].[221]
Thus, what Ward’s survey claimed was the definition of remove in the OED is actually not a definition in the OED as a book. Also, what Ward claims remove means only “today” is actually a meaning extant in the English language centuries before the translation of the Authorized Version, as documented in the OED. One who pulls the OED off from a shelf and looks at its definitions for remove may recall Ward’s statement: “I have to admit, I never use the paper editions of the Oxford English Dictionary. It’s just too much.”[222]
Mark Ward’s survey definition of remove as “to change position; to move a short distance or in a certain direction,” while it is hardly “just like the Hebrew”[223] (which says nothing about moving only a “short” distance) does at least appear in the electronic OED.[224] Even if Brother Ward never bothered to take the OED off from a shelf and open it, simply looking at an online version, it is unclear how he can affirm that only “today,” but not in 1611, remove means “take (something) away or off from the position occupied.”[225] The electronic definitions include:
Of a person or animal: to go away from a place; to leave, to depart; to move to another place. [AD 1380-present][226]
Of things: to move off, away, or to another location; to go from a place; to depart, to disappear. [AD 1481-present][227]
To move or take (a person or a thing) away, to withdraw. Also: to set at a distance; to make remote in space, time, or relationship; to keep apart or separate [AD 1384-present].[228]
To move (something) from or out of the space that it occupies; to push aside; to take or lift off (something which is attached, an article of clothing, etc.); to detach. [AD 1398-present][229]
To move or take (something) away from a place. [AD 1459-present][230]
To transfer or move (a person or thing) from one place to another; to change the place or situation of something. [AD 1387-present][231]
Unfortunately, it appears that just as Dr. Ward ignored the meaning of the Hebrew word rendered remove in Proverbs 22:28, the Greek translation of that word, the translation remove found in many contemporary English versions, and the evidence of the Oxford English Dictionary in print, so he needed to overlook (at least) six definitions of remove in the electronic OED in order to find one archaic meaning which he could then utilize to claim a “false friend” in Proverbs 22:28. (His survey question’s claim that only “today” does “remove” mean “eliminate or get rid of”[232] is also egregiously inaccurate, as the electronic OED lists examples of remove meaning “eliminate … to get rid of” from AD 1405 onward.[233]) Sadly, Mark Ward egregiously abuses the evidence in the electronic version of the Oxford English Dictionary in order to invent a completely unsubstantiated attack on the Authorized Version in Proverbs 22:28.
Finally, Ward provides no documentation for his claim that “readers of the King James who don’t wish to see other Christians set it aside” claim that Proverbs 22:28 is “a rallying cry urging others to hold onto the KJV and assorted other traditions,” rather than the verse meaning “Don’t steal your neighbor’s land by moving a boundary marker.”[234] Many pro-KJV Christians interpret the verse to mean exactly what the independent Baptist, King James Only commentary on the complete Bible by David Sorenson affirms:
[Proverbs] 22:28 Remove not the ancient landmark, which thy fathers have set. The literal application has to do with property markers. Under the law of Moses, tampering with such landmarks was forbidden. See Deuteronomy 19:14. It was a matter of fraud. To this day, it is illegal in most jurisdictions to tamper with a land-survey property marker. A broader application of the truth is to not depart from the ancient truths of our heritage. They have been developed for a reason. A sure indicator of liberalism is discarding the standards and truths of the past. Beware of such![235]
Regrettably, just as Dr. Ward can so easily put in print sweeping generalizations, such as that of 10,000 godly Christians, including seminary-trained pastors, not only did no one know what a verse meant in the KJV but none even care to know—of 10,000, “no one understood. Nobody. Not one,” a claim based on nothing other than that he “asked around”[236]—so here he can easily broadbrush, making sweeping claims that the entire perfect preservationist, pro-KJV movement misunderstands Proverbs 22:28, without providing any documented evidence at all and ignoring extant contrary evidence.
In conclusion, Ward’s book Authorized, his KJV survey, and his YouTube videos claim that the word remove in Proverbs 22:28 is an archaic “false friend.” The verse is his climactic example in his anti-KJV book and one of only ten examples of “false friends” in his allegedly “definitive” survey. However, the Hebrew word translated remove in the Authorized Version actually means “remove,” as a glance at standard Hebrew lexica indicates. Mark Ward inserts the idea of the Hebrew word involving moving a boundary marker only a “short” distance, although that idea is absent from standard Hebrew lexica. Ward overlooks that the Greek LXX and English translations of the LXX render the word as remove. Ward claims that contemporary English Bible versions unanimously abandon remove as archaic, but many modern English versions translate the word as “remove.” Dr. Ward also claims a definition for remove is in the Oxford English Dictionary as the correct definition that is actually not in the physical dictionary at all, while he ignores and misrepresents the definitions actually present in both the print and electronic versions of the OED. His survey’s “correct” answer is completely wrong, and the reasons he supplies are egregiously shoddy work that misrepresent the Hebrew text, the Greek LXX, modern English Bible versions, and the Oxford English Dictionary.[237]
VII.) Mark Ward’s “False Friends”: A Hermeneutic of KJV Trust or of KJV Suspicion?
The allegations Dr. Ward makes concerning “false friends” often comes down to a hermeneutic of trust or suspicion for the KJV. While there is no verse in Scripture that specifically promises that God’s “singular care and providence” in preserving His Words[238] would result in an infallible translation into English, nor is that a good and necessary consequence of any statement in Scripture about the verbal, plenary preservation of the original language words of Scripture, there are many reasons why Christians should be strongly biased in favor of the King James Version and its translation choices. God’s promises to preserve every one of His inspired Hebrew, Greek, and Aramaic words (Matthew 5:18; 24:35; Proverbs 30:5-6; Revelation 22:18-19) in use among His people and, in this dispensation, His churches (Isaiah 59:21; Matthew 4:4; 28:18-20; John 17:8) relate specifically to the original language words of the infallibly inspired Scriptures. However, there is every reason to believe that God’s special providence is involved in the translation of His Word. While only the original language words are “immediately inspired,” and for that reason as the final authority “the Church is finally to appeal unto them,”[239] accurate vernacular translations are still God’s Word, in that they are derivatively inspired, having the breath of God on them as they depend upon the original language text for their authority:
[T]ranslations can be authoritative quoad res [according to the substance or thing] because the authority is not so much in the words as in the entirety of the teaching as distributed throughout the canon. … [T]he issue of “things” (res) and “words” (verba) … is crucial to the Protestant [and Baptist] doctrine of Scripture[.] … [T]he words of the text are signs pointing to the doctrinal “things.” This distinction between signa and res significata, the sign and the thing signified, carries over into the language typical of scholastic Protestantism, of the words of the text and the substance of the text, of the authority of translations not strictly quoad verba but quoad res, according to the substance or meaning indicated by the original. … [O]nly the [original language] sources are inspired (theopneustoi) both according to their substance (quoad res) and according to their words (quoad verba)[.] This must be the case, since holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Spirit, 2 Pet. 1:21, who dictated to them not only the substance (res) but also the very words (verba). For the same reason, the Hebrew and the Greek are the norms and rules by which the various versions are examined and evaluated. … [There is] a distinction between authenticity and authorship quoad verba, which belongs only to the Hebrew and Greek originals, and authenticity and authority quoad res, which inheres in valid translations. … Thus translations can be used, but with the reservation that only the Hebrew Old Testament and Greek New Testament are the authentic norms of doctrine and the rule by which doctrinal controversy is to be decided[.] Versions that are congruent with the sources are indeed authentic according to substance (quoad res); for the Word of God [may be] translated into other languages: the Word of God is not to be limited, since whether it is thought or spoken or written, it remains the Word of God. Nonetheless they are not authentic according to the idiom or word, inasmuch as the words have been explained in French or Dutch. In relation to all translations, therefore, the Hebrew and Greek texts stand as antiquissimus, originalis, and archetypos. Thus, translations are the Word of God insofar as they permit the Word of God to address the reader or hearer: for Scripture is most certainly the Word of God in the things it teaches and to the extent that in and by means of it power of God touches the conscience. Even so, in translations as well as in the original the testimony of the Holy Spirit demonstrates the graciousness of God toward us. All translations have divine authority insofar as they correctly render the original: the tongue and dialect is but an accident, and as it were an argument of divine truth, which remains one and the same in all idioms.[240]
Thus, the original-language text has the two-fold Divine authority, the authoritas Divina duplex, in its words and in its substance, while accurate translations retain the authority of the thing or the substance:
[The] authoritas divina duplex [is a] twofold divine authority; a distinction [exists] between (1) the authoritas rerum, or authority of the things of Scripture, the substantia doctrinae (substance of doctrine), and (2) the authoritas verborum, or authority of the words of Scripture, arising from the accidens scriptionis, the … incidental property … of the writing. The authority of the substantia, or res, is a formal, inward authority that belongs both to the text of Scripture in the original languages and to the accurate translations of Scripture. The authoritas verborum is an external and … incidental property[’s] … authority that belongs only to the text in the original languages and is a property … lost in translation. Thus the infallibilitas of the originals is both quoad verbum and quoad res, whereas the infallibilitas of the versions is only quoad res.[241]
Since the KJV is the most widely-copied and widely-read vernacular language Bible in all of Christian history, there is every reason to think that God exercised special providential care in its translation, as He both decreed and foreknew the centuries of world-wide impact it would exert (Ephesians 1:11). Since God’s special providential care is not removed from His Word when translated, Christians who believe His promises of preservation should expect His special providence to be involved not only in the original language text, with its authoritas Divina duplex, but also in His vernacular language Word, with its authority quoad res. They should have a hermeneutic of trust, not of suspicion, when they approach the translation choices in that form of His Word which provided “the foundational language and symbolic imagery of a whole culture … present in every home, quoted in every church, and echoed in every public meeting … the vehicle for expressing matters of high import and grand spiritual scope.”[242]
Furthermore, Baptists should recognize that the God who providentially works through His churches has led Baptist confessional statements to highly esteem the Authorized, King James Version. As the Particular Baptists’ Second London Baptist Confession affirmed, the Bible “translated into the vulgar language” in the English Authorized Version quoted in the confession was still “the Word of God” and “the Scriptures.”[243] Similarly, the 1679 General Baptist[244] Orthodox Creed contains a powerful affirmation of Scripture’s preservation in the Received Text and its English representation, the Authorized Version. It affirms that “we have the scriptures delivered to us now … by the holy scriptures we understand, the canonical books of the old and new testament, as they are now translated into our English mother-tongue, of which there hath never been any doubt of their verity, and authority, in the protestant churches of Christ to this day.”[245] The Hebrew and Greek Received Text, with its authoritas Divina duplex, and the English King James Version, the Scripture in these Baptists’ “mother tongue,” possessed derivative authority as God’s Word. Both were universally received by Baptists and by the wider family of God, “all true Protestants [who hold] the fundamental articles of the Christian religion, against the errors and heresies of Rome.”[246] These available scriptures in English “are [note the present tense] given by the inspiration of God”[247]; accurate original language apographs of the infallible autographs, and accurate Scripture in the vernacular, still possesses the very breath of God.[248] When bodies of true churches are led by the Holy Spirit to confess their faith that the “holy scriptures” in “their mother tongue,” “as they are now translated into our English” in the King James Version are “God’s Word,” so that there “hath never been any doubt of their veracity, and authority, in the … churches of Christ to this day,”[249] believers should clearly exercise a hermeneutic of trust, awe, and reverence, not of suspicion, when they approach the English Authorized, King James Version of the Bible.
Scholarship validates the testimony of the Spirit in the churches to God’s special providential care in the translation of the King James Bible. Bart Ehrman notes:
[The KJV] translators … were all skilled, highly skilled, in Greek and Hebrew. Today, when somebody is highly skilled in Greek … ([as I am considered] highly skilled in Greek) that means we can kind of slosh our way through a Greek text if we have a dictionary. … [T]hese guys … could speak Greek, and did speak Greek to each other when they felt like it. And they could read Hebrew like the newspaper[.] … These were serious, serious scholars … they didn’t have TV … they sat around and studied Greek … and Latin and Hebrew.[250]
Leland Ryken explained:
[The KJV translators] were the best of the best that England possessed in regard to biblical knowledge and facility with the Hebrew and Greek texts of the Bible. … [T]he King James style is as flexible and varied as what we find in the original text … because the King James translators accepted an essentially literal translation philosophy that preserved the stylistic range of the original text of the Bible. … [T]he style of the KJV is matchless, a blend of the simple and the majestic[.] … The most important translation in English [is] the King James Version, which … contain[s] the best of [earlier] translations. [T]he KJV is demonstrably the greatest English Bible ever[.][251]
Those who have a hermeneutic of suspicion instead of confidence towards the King James Version should learn from the experience of previous critics:
[O]ne of the translators of the [King James] Bible …was to ride a journey into Derbyshire [with a companion] … and they going together on a Sunday … to that parish church where they then were, found the young preacher to have no more discretion, than to waste a great part of the hour allotted for his sermon in exceptions against the late translation of several words, (not expecting such a hearer as [the KJV translator],) and shewed three reasons why a particular word should have been otherwise translated. When Evening Prayer was ended, the preacher was invited to the doctor’s friend’s house; where, after some other conference, the doctor told him, “He might have preached more useful doctrine, and not filled his auditors’ ears with needless exceptions against the late translation: and for that word, for which he offered to that poor congregation three reasons why it ought to have been translated as he said; he and others had considered all them, and found thirteen more considerable reasons why it was translated as now printed[.]” … [T]he [young] preacher … [said,] “He would not justify himself.”[252]
The special providence of God, the Spirit’s testimony through the confessional life of Christ’s churches, and the testimony of scholarship unite to indicate the need for a hermeneutic of trust and confidence in the KJV.
Mark Ward—who, while an intelligent person, does not speak Greek, nor read Hebrew like the newspaper, nor is among the best of the best in regard to Biblical knowledge and facility with the Hebrew and Greek texts of the Bible—supplies insufficient reasons for criticizing and setting aside the KJV. His hermeneutic of suspicion toward “demonstrably the greatest English Bible ever”[253] is insufficient. Both taking 1 Corinthians 14 out of context to claim that the English of the KJV is too hard and ignoring the standard of linguistic difficulty set by the original language texts of Scripture supply insufficient bases to establish a hermeneutic of suspicion towards the KJV. Inaccurate, problematic quotations of Greek scholars about the linguistic level of the Greek New Testament and the LXX are insufficient. Claiming that a small number of archaic words in the KJV are a problem, while ignoring that there are many more comparable words in the original languages of Scripture, is insufficient. Borrowing the term “false friend” from the English scholar John McWhorter but giving it a novel definition that Dr. McWhorter would not accept in order to draw inferences that Dr. McWhorter would not draw, and then using that novel definition to claim that there could be vast, “countless”[254] multitudes of words in the KJV that are unrecognizable and almost impossible to understand, even with all study Bibles, KJV word lists, and even Webster’s 1828 Dictionary, so that one must use the Oxford English Dictionary, and nothing else, while perhaps needing to look up every single word in the KJV, is insufficient. Claiming that the KJV must be set aside because of “false friends,” while ignoring that the Hebrew and Greek Bible has many more such words than does the English Authorized Version, is insufficient. Distorting or ignoring standard Hebrew and Greek lexica, ancient translational evidence, and even statements in the Oxford English Dictionary in order to claim KJV words as “false friends,” that are not in the least false, is insufficient. Ignoring the complete semantic domain of Hebrew and Greek words, and ignoring extrabiblical original language evidence of the sort with which the KJV translators would have been intimately familiar and would have been able to discuss in Greek with each other, is insufficient. Claims that KJV words are unrecognizably archaic “false friends” the existence of which requires that one set the KJV aside for modern Bible versions which themselves have these very same allegedly archaic “false friends,” is insufficient. Creating an unscientific, anti-KJV survey with poor methodology containing distorted and inaccurate questions and answers is insufficient. Claiming that “not one” person in a group of 10,000 people using the KJV, including seminary-trained pastors, either knew or cared what a KJV phrase meant simply because Ward said he “asked around,”[255] is insufficient. Baseless comparisons of Christian defense of the KJV to persecutory and bloody Catholic defense of the Latin Vulgate, ignoring the intuitively obvious fact that the KJV is in comprehensible modern English, is insufficient. Claiming to stand for the translation philosophy of the KJV translators and William Tyndale, while distorting the KJV’s own prefatory material and ignoring Tyndale’s own statements and practice, is insufficient.
It is possible that the Multiple Version Onlyism and bias against King James Onlyism in Dr. Ward’s education makes it so clear in his mind that the KJV is archaic and needs to be set aside that the astonishing weakness of his reasoning and arguments are sufficient, in his opinion, within a framework of what must be called a hermeneutic of suspicion toward the KJV. However, those who respect the singular care and providence of God in the preservation of His Word, the testimony of the Spirit through His churches to that Word, and the testimony of sound scholarship, approach the Authorized, King James Version with a hermeneutic of trust, not of suspicion. For such persons, Mark Ward’s anti-KJV arguments appear most insufficient. Since the world in which the Triune God of Scripture and the resurrected God-Man, Jesus Christ, gave precious promises about the inspiration and preservation of His Word in His church, is the real world, Mark Ward’s anti-KJV arguments not only appear insufficient to those Christians who approach the original language texts and vernacular English KJV with a hermeneutic of trust, but they are objectively insufficient and should objectively be rejected. The canonical Hebrew and Greek Textus Receptus should be received by the churches because God testifies to them in the promises of His Word and by the leading of His Spirit. The Nestle-Aland Textus Rejectus, from which almost all modern English versions are translated, should be rejected. Likewise, the received English Bible, the Authorized, King James Version, should be embraced, preached, taught, memorized, and obeyed in love by Christ’s churches for His glory.
Mark Ward’s Three Videos Responding to My Video on Original Language Intelligibility:
A Summary of My Video[256]
Dr. Ward produced three videos in which he offered a response to my video Is the King James Version (KJV) Too Hard to Understand? James White / Thomas Ross Debate Review 11.[257] It is unfortunate that Dr. Ward made it difficult for his audience to actually locate my video, so that they could listen first-hand to the argument to which he was offering a response. I will here summarize what I believe provided about as significant a case as I could make when producing a video geared towards a popular audience. I will then examine Dr. Ward’s responses. After demonstrating that the preface to the KJV did not state that the Authorized Version would be in the language of the common man, but be understandable by the common man, I pointed out that the KJV is not in “Old English,” nor in “Middle English,” but in “Modern English”—it is written in early modern English, and, indeed, scholars such as James A. H. Murray, editor of the Oxford English Dictionary, pointed out that the translation of the King James Version actually marks the point at which modern English began. This editor of the Oxford English Dictionary wrote: “The date of 1611, which coincides with the end of Shakespeare’s literary work, and marks the appearance of the Authorized Version of the Bible … may be taken as marking the close of Tudor English. The language was thenceforth Modern in structure, style, and expression.”[258]
I then addressed the crucial question: What if the level of English in the KJV fits very well within the level of difficulty one finds in the Greek and Hebrew text infallibly dictated by the Holy Ghost? Is the English of the King James Version significantly more complex and harder to understand English than the Greek of the New Testament was to the New Testament people of God or the Hebrew of the Old Testament was to Israel? If the answer to this question is “yes,” then one would expect that true churches and Christians generally will be led by the Holy Spirit to revise the Authorized Version. If the answer to this question is “no,” then we are not surprised that the strongest churches are not being led by the Holy Spirit to advocate a revision of the King James Version, but that churches that are compromising in other areas of Biblical doctrine and practice are the ones clamoring for a revision or a rejection of the KJV.
I pointed out that there are a variety of literary levels in the New Testament itself. The Greek of the book of Hebrews is much harder to read than the Greek of the Gospel of John. The Gospel of Luke and Acts are harder to read than is 1 John. I also pointed out that sometimes the New Testament contains very long sentences. Ephesians 1:3-14 is just one sentence in Greek. The Holy Spirit did not just dictate very short Greek sentences like “Jesus wept” (John 11:35) but also very long sentences, like Ephesians 1:3-14. God did not believe such long sentences were too hard to understand, and both God and the Apostle Paul were happy for inspired epistles with such complex syntax to be sent to churches like the one at Ephesus—congregations that were filled, not with highbrow urban elites, but with simple people who received an inspired epistle that was not in their language, but was on a higher syntactical level. They could understand it, but it was at a higher level than that at which they commonly spoke to each other. Paul wrote Hebrews, with its complex Greek, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. God revealed Luke and Acts and led His churches to receive the complex level of Greek these books as canonical. Both in the eyes of the Triune Jehovah and in the eyes of the simple people who made up the large majority of the membership of the first-century churches, the rather complex Greek of those portions of Scripture was not a problem that required rewriting. Some complex syntax and some rare words were received by God’s people with reverence—not removed to bring the Bible down to the level of the barely literate. The common man did not speak in sentences like Ephesians 1:3-14, but such sentences could be understood by the common man who put in a little effort.
I also pointed out that significant portions of the Hebrew prophetic and poetical books are much more challenging Hebrew than are many of the narrative sections of the Old Testament. The Hebrew Bible contains some very long sentences. For example, Proverbs chapter two is only one very long Hebrew sentence. The whole chapter—all 22 verses, which match the 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet—is a single, chapter-long sentence divided by logical particles into parts. The sentence contains beautiful reiteration whereby each new stanza in the first half of the sentence, 2:1-11, begins with the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet, aleph, and each stanza of the second half with its twelfth consonant, lamed.[259] No ancient Jew walked up to the stone landmark that divided his farm from his neighbor’s farm and spoke in sentences like Proverbs chapter two. What is more, the KJV does not have sentences as complex as the Greek of Ephesians 1 or the Hebrew of Proverbs 2. Thus, both the Hebrew and the Greek Bible contain sentences and syntactical structures that are considerably more complex than anything found in the King James Bible. If contemporary Christians must set aside the KJV because its syntax and structure are too hard to understand, how much the more necessary would it be to abandon the infallible Hebrew and Greek text (were Mark Ward’s argument valid, which it is not)?
Furthermore, greater literacy exists in the English-speaking world now than existed in the first-century world of the New Testament, or in the world where God gave the Hebrew Old Testament. Learning to read, and improving one’s reading level, is much easier now than it was in those days. Very few people in the extremely wealthy English-speaking world (historically speaking) need to work on a farm twelve hours a day, six days a week, week after week, just to barely avoid starvation doing subsistence farming, while carrying water from a well by hand, washing clothes by hand, and doing everything else by hand that our modern mechanized “servants” do for us today. A modern English speaker living at the American “poverty” line is extremely wealthy compared to the average person living in Bible times, enjoys a much easier life, and possesses much more free time that he can spend on reading and on improving his reading ability. Thus, if contemporary Christians live in a time where it is much easier to develop language proficiency than it was in Bible times—and yet the KJV is on a simpler linguistic level than at least large portions of the original Biblical text—what need is there to replace the KJV?
I also pointed out that the KJV seeks to replicate the syntax of the original language texts as much as possible, giving the example of why every verse from Genesis 1:3 to Genesis 1:26 begins with the word and: people may not write that way in non-translation English, but the KJV accurately represents what the Hebrew, given by the Holy Spirit, says. If a modern Bible version does not begin with and or some other close equivalent in every verse from Genesis 1:3 to 1:26, it is not accurately translating the Hebrew text the Holy Spirit dictated through Moses, but is paraphrasing God’s holy Word in a manner that does not fit the fact that the very Hebrew words, not just the general sense, of the Old Testament is Divinely and infallibly inspired.
I then pointed out that the KJV has vastly fewer “hard” words than there are in either the Greek New Testament or the Hebrew Old Testament. I explained that there are approximately 3,600 hapax legomena in the Old and New Testament—words occurring only once, many (though not all) of which would have been rare words to people living in Biblical times. The KJV contains approximately 300 archaic words in a total vocabulary of approximately 12,000 words. To read the Bible in the original languages one must learn approximately 14,000 words, out of which 3,600 are hapax legomena (not even including the approximately 648 different Aramaic words in Scripture). Since the KJV contains two-thousand fewer total vocabulary words than the original languages of Scripture and many fewer “hard” or archaic words than the original languages, the Authorized Version is emphatically not far above the linguistic level of the Hebrew and Greek Bible. What is more, the average four-year-old knows approximately 5,000 vocabulary words;[260] learning the approximately 300 archaic words in the KJV is adding to one’s vocabulary around 6% of what a four-year old child knows. Indeed, if someone does not even want to learn 300 words, he can just put his finger on a word on his smartphone in his Bible app and get a definition of that word to come up in less than one second. Alternatively, he can easily buy a study Bible that defines the archaic words in the KJV at the bottom of the page or in the margin, and then can instantly know what those words mean with a single flutter of his eyes to the margin or bottom of a page. Thus, finding out what an unknown Biblical word means is easier and less time-intensive than at any time in history.
I also pointed out that someone who reads the earliest portions of the Hebrew Old Testament is reading something written by Moses around 1,000 years before the latest portions of the inspired Hebrew Scriptures (and Job is dated even earlier than the books of Moses) but there was no inspired “updating” or “editing” of the Hebrew text to make it “more understandable.” In other words, Ezra, or Malachi, or some other one of God’s later prophets and Scripture writers, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, did not “update” the “archaic” books of Moses to change them from an “old” KJV-sort of Hebrew to a “new” NKJV-or-ESV-sort of Hebrew. I argued that if the English language changes to the extent that we no longer speak modern English—if the early modern English of the KJV is no longer our language, but modern people come to speak something clearly different, like the Old English of Beowulf or the Middle English of Chaucer—then the Holy Spirit will lead true churches to agree that it is time to update the English of the KJV, with the likely agreement of any other saints who are not in true churches but who likewise believe in the perfect inspiration and preservation of Scripture coming to agreement. Nevertheless, not updating, but leaving the text alone, is a precedent modeled by the practice of the human authors of the later inspired books of the Old Testament leaving alone the “archaic” Hebrew from 1,000 or more years earlier. Thus, Scripture itself provides a principle that an accurate translation such as the KJV should not be updated lightly, carelessly, or needlessly.
I therefore concluded that, evaluated by the standard of Scripture itself—by the standard of the Greek and Hebrew text God gave to His people—the English of the Authorized, King James Version is indubitably not “too hard,” not does it require an update at this time, nor is it at all likely to need one in the lifetimes of my contemporaries. I pointed out that people who claim that the KJV is too difficult to read should be enthusiastically promoting something like the fine Defined King James Bible produced by the KJV-only organization Bible for Today, which leaves the actual King James Version text unchanged but defines the few archaic words at the bottom of its pages for readers, or other good KJV study Bibles that do the same thing but also include notes. Someone who is genuinely concerned about hard words in the KJV will enthusiastically promote works such as David Cloud’s Way of Life Encylopedia of the Bible and Christianity, where all the rare KJV words are defined. Christians would do well to obtain a Defined KJV from Bible For Today, or a Westminster Reference Bible from the Trinitarian Bible Society, or a Way of Life Encyclopedia of the Bible from Way of Life literature, instead of rejecting the KJV’s fantastic translation of the perfectly preserved Hebrew and Greek Textus Receptus for corrupt modern Bible versions. So is the King James Bible too hard to understand? Employing God’s objective, infallible standard—the only rule for Christian faith and practice, Scripture itself—the answer is “No!”
In response to the argument above, explained at more length in my Is the King James Version (KJV) Too Hard to Understand? James White / Thomas Ross Debate Review 11[261] and summarized above, Mark Ward produced three videos tendering a response. (Dr. Ward should be commended for at least offering a response; James White never bothered.) I would have liked it had Brother Ward initially said something like:
“Thank you, Brother Ross. I think it is great that you are placing the question of what level of English is appropriate for a Bible version, and when it is appropriate to revise a good translation, within the framework of the linguistic difficulty of the Greek and Hebrew Bible that God gave His church. Rather than our unauthoritative speculations about what is ‘too hard’ or ‘not too hard,’ that is exactly the way we should look at it. Thank you. Even though I got a PhD at Bob Jones University and received much anti-KJV teaching there, nobody made this point in my entire seminary education. For that matter, even though I wrote a book claiming that the KJV was too hard to read, I had never even thought of it. Thank you so much for getting this debate off from our fallible opinions and placing it within the framework of an objective standard—the standard God gave us in His infallible, beautiful, ineffably glorious written Word.”
I would have liked it had Mark said something like the above, but he did not. Nevertheless, even though he never said it, and whether he acknowledges the deficiencies of his education and his book Authorized or not, if KJV debates get placed on this objective exegetical ground, a real positive step forward will have been taken. Pro-KJV people will be glad, because their blessed English Bible is, by God’s objective standard, not too hard to read. Anti-KJV people should be glad, because the pro-KJV people are not saying, “We will never change the KJV, even if Christ does not come back for 500 years and nobody understands one word of it!” Rather, King James Onlyists are admitting that there is a place where change would be appropriate, namely (if Christ does not come back first) when a time comes that the English of the KJV is clearly and substantially more difficult than the Hebrew Old Testament and Greek New Testament. At that point, revision becomes appropriate, and true churches will be led by the Spirit to support such a revision. Anti-KJV apologists should be thankful if King James Only Christians, people who defend the traditional texts of Christ’s churches, are arguing this way. It would be a great positive if both sides of this debate began to think more Biblically, evaluating both preservation and translation in light of the principles and promises God has revealed in Scripture. Of course, the more Christians start to think about the questions of Biblical preservation and Bible translation in light of Scripture’s promises and principles, the more they are pushed towards the Received texts in Hebrew and Greek and the Authorized Version in English.
The objective standard for revision of vernacular Bible versions (and the appropriate level is to aim for when making new translations of Scripture into languages that do not yet have the Word) is linked to the level of difficulty of the Hebrew Old Testament and the Greek New Testament. However, recognizing this fact does not immediately solve all problems in Bible translation. Hebrew and Greek are different from modern English (and from many other common modern languages). How exactly difficulty is defined has its own difficulties. What is involved in difficulty in vocabulary, or in syntax? How must Christians account for the fact that some parts of the Hebrew and Greek Scriptures are clearly simpler, while other portions are clearly more complex? Linking vernacular Bible translation to the objective standard of God’s inspired Word does not make things as easy as stating that 2 + 2 = 4 while 3 x 3 = 9, but it still supplies an objective foothold in Scripture—God’s mind revealed to the saints in Christ by the Spirit—for the glorious task and weighty responsibility of translating and revising the Bible. If God’s people spend less time arguing about what is right and wrong in translation from their own fallible opinions and spend more time seriously meditating on the words and books God’s Spirit has dictated through holy men of old, and all the good and necessary consequences of what God has given to His people, Christ’s kingdom will be more greatly advanced, and the Lord will be more greatly glorified.
Mark Ward’s Three Videos Responding to My Video Argument:
My Questions for Dr. Ward
After discovering that Brother Ward had produced three videos critiquing my exegetical argument, I tried to e-mail Mark Ward, but I discovered that it was not possible to contact him by e-mail. I therefore posted the following on Part Two of his critique. The substance of my comment, and my reason for its content, appears below:
Dear Dr. Ward,
Thank you for taking the time to review my Is the King James Version (KJV) Too Hard to Understand? James White / Thomas Ross Debate Review 11 video in two videos (and apparently a third video coming). Someone brought these videos to my attention and so I thought I should take a peek. I hope that both my video—which, of course, was not about anything you said in particular, but about Dr. White’s comments in our debate—and your response will contribute to Christians thinking Biblically about the issue of Bible translation, and evaluating their philosophy of Bible translation from a sola Scripturaperspective, instead of just creating whatever standard they wish. If my video and your responses lead to that happening, then something useful for God’s kingdom will certainly have been accomplished for His glory.
Lord willing, at some point I will create a response to your videos. You may not be surprised that I have not found your responses especially compelling, although I am looking forward to hearing what you have to say in part three. I was wondering if you would be so kind as to let me know:
1.) If, before I produced my video, you had written or set forth in any setting an exegetical basis for your position on Bible translations, other than your claim that the KJV is in a different language and so violates 1 Corinthians 14 on not speaking in foreign tongues in the church without an interpreter. I must say that I find the idea that 1 Corinthians 14 teaches that we must abandon the KJV, or at least its exclusive use in English, most unconvincing exegetically. I would like to confirm that you view my claim that we should evaluate what is appropriate for English Bible translations based on the level of difficulty of the Old Testament and New Testament Hebrew and Greek texts as a claim that is indeed “novel” or new to you, and thus as something that you never considered before writing your book Authorized?
2.) If you could please also let me know how many times you have read the Greek NT cover to cover and / or the Hebrew OT, as well as what training in the languages you have, I would appreciate that as well. It will help me to be accurate in what I say in response to you, as I am sure we both believe accuracy is very important, as our God is a God of truth. Thank you very much. Let me say that I also appreciate that you provided a significant quote from my video and appeared to want to accurately represent me. I thank you for that.
3.) I would also be interested in seeing if you have any grammatical sources for your claim that the difficulty in Luke-Acts, for example, versus the Johannine literature, is mainly because participles are placed in different locations, as well as your other grammatical claims. Some of the claims seemed quite unusual to my mind, and I would like to know if any Greek grammarians make such affirmations as you made. I may be into having sources for my claims more than most people who make YouTube videos, but I did not notice any grammatical sources cited in your videos.
4.) When you spoke about a test that you had given to KJVO pastors that definitively proved that they did not understand the KJV themselves, I was interested and took the test, and had some KJVO folk take it as well. I must say that they did much, much better than did the people whom you surveyed. (I myself got a 19 out of 20, and I think that the one I got wrong was a problem with the question.) I am wondering if it is possible to get more information about who these people are. Are they Baptists? Are they people who believe in justification by works or baptismal regeneration and do not even have the Holy Spirit, as one finds even among various denominational “Baptist” groups if one goes house to house regularly in evangelism? Would they claim to be fundamentalists?
5.) I would be interested if you have done anything to encourage KJVO saints to do something like read KJVs that have the (small number of) archaic words defined in the margin of their Bibles, as do many study Bibles, the Defined KJV, etc. If not, could you explain why you believe such a solution to your “false friends” idea is insufficient, and why what needs to be done is to replace the KJV with a multiplicity of modern versions that do things like take “hell” out of the Old Testament and replace it with that easy to understand and commonly used word “Sheol,” or attack the classical doctrine of the Trinity by changing the Son from being “only begotten” to being “unique,” or change the Son’s going forth from the Father in His eternal generation from being “from everlasting” to the Arian “from ancient days,” and so on, that would be appreciated. If you do not appreciate such changes in modern versions, I am wondering if you have any written sources or videos warning about them. I at least would rather have a Bible that teaches Athanasian Trinitarianism but uses “conversation” in an older sense meaning “conduct” than a Bible that has a nice new “conduct” translation but undermines the holy Trinity in some verses (while, thankfully, still supporting it in others). Also, please feel free to get in touch with me if you ever change your mind about being willing to publicly dialogue or debate on this matter. I happen to think there would be more profit from a face-to-face encounter where we both have equal time to present our case than there is in your producing videos on your YouTube channel that are mainly preaching to your choir while I do the same on my KJB1611 channel with videos that will mainly be watched by people who are already convinced of the perfect preservation of Scripture.
Finally, thank you for complementing me as being “super intelligent.” That was very kind of you. The “very dangerous” part, maybe not so much, but I suppose we can’t have everything. I am not planning to respond to any comments here, as I am not convinced that YouTube comments are the best place to engage in scholarly discussion, but I will look forward to hearing from you if you are able to answer my questions.
Let us review my questions and my reasons for asking them. First, I asked:
Dear Dr. Ward,
Thank you for taking the time to review my Is the King James Version (KJV) Too Hard to Understand? James White / Thomas Ross Debate Review 11 video in two videos (and apparently a third video coming).
In my comment I mentioned the name of the video Brother Ward was critiquing so that people could actually watch it instead of just hearing Mark’s critique with a very limited ability to even find and hear first-hand what he was arguing against. As we will see, at times Brother Mark’s understanding of my argument was less than impressive.
Someone brought these videos to my attention and so I thought I should take a peek. I hope that both my video–which, of course, was not about anything you said in particular, but about Dr. White’s comments in our debate–and your response will contribute to Christians thinking Biblically about the issue of Bible translation, and evaluating their philosophy of Bible translation from a sola Scriptura perspective, instead of just creating whatever standard they wish. If my video and your responses lead to that happening, then something useful for God’s kingdom will certainly have been accomplished for His glory.
Those were not just nice-sounding words—I really do mean them. I am glad that Dr. Ward made his videos critiques, and I hope that people who are anti-King James Only will start to approach the question of Bible translation exegetically. Of course, if they do, and they are English-speakers, they just might end up becoming perfect preservationists who use exclusively the Authorized Version.
Lord willing, at some point I will create a response to your videos. You may not be surprised that I have not found your responses especially compelling, although I am looking forward to hearing what you have to say in part three.
I wrote my comment after watching Part Two; I also did not find part three anything close to compelling, for the reasons explained below. In his Part Three video, Brother Ward did not seem, in some places, to even grasp my argument accurately. For example, in Part Three, he argued that if I was right, then we should just add in archaic words when we make new translations. However, my point was not about making new translations but about when it is appropriate to revise an already extant translation. The idea that one should randomly decide to add in archaic words for fun has nothing to do with my argument. For at least the large majority of the time since the canon of Scripture has been revealed, God’s people would have found more rare or hard-to-understand words in the Hebrew and Greek texts than there are in the KJV, but God never instructed His apostles and prophets to make a revision of the Hebrew or Greek texts. It is unfortunate that, at least in part because Ward does not mention the name of the video to which he was responding and provides no links to that video, people who just watch his critique without first seeing what I actually argued will think that I am making a crazy argument about sprinkling archaic words here and there in a vernacular translation for no reason.
I was wondering if you would be so kind as to let me know:
1.) If, before I produced my video, you had written or set forth in any setting an exegetical basis for your position on Bible translations, other than your claim that the KJV is in a different language and so violates 1 Corinthians 14 on not speaking in foreign tongues in the church without an interpreter. I must say that I find the idea that 1 Corinthians 14 teaches that we must abandon the KJV, or at least its exclusive use in English, most unconvincing exegetically. I would like to confirm that you view my claim that we should evaluate what is appropriate for English Bible translations based on the level of difficulty of the Old Testament and New Testament Hebrew and Greek texts as a claim that is indeed “novel” or new to you, and thus as something that you never considered before writing your book Authorized?
Brother Ward’s 1 Corinthians 14 argument has been examined in depth above—probably in greater depth than it is worth spending time on—and it is indeed most unconvincing. It is easier to read into Matthew 16:18 the fiction of a series of infallible popes in Rome than it is to make 1 Corinthians 14’s requirements about enunciating when miraculously speaking in a foreign language into a requirement to revise the King James Version.
Ward’s argument also “proves” too much—it would “prove” that the Jews in Ezra’s day should have revised the books of Moses. It was fine for the Jews in Malachi’s day simply to read the Hebrew Pentateuch and the book of Job, even though their language had changed much more in 1,000 years or more than the English language has changed between 1611 and today. The Jews produced translations of the Hebrew Old Testament into Greek, and paraphrases of the Hebrew Old Testament in Aramaic, but they never produced a revision of the Hebrew text itself where they “updated” the archaic words.
It is telling that my argument (explaining that the level at which Bible translations require revision should be based on the level of difficulty of the Hebrew and Greek texts of Scripture) is “novel” to Dr. Ward, although he has been a leading anti-King James Only person in his Bob Jones University orbit for years. The anti-KJVO side does notseem to begin with Scripture as the fundamental basis for their position.
I note that Dr. Ward was kind enough to post a reply to my comment on his video, but he made no response to this question, Question #1. I think he did not reply because he indeed had never thought of the Biblical basis for the linguistic level of vernacular translation that I set forth.
2.) If you could please also let me know how many times you have read the Greek NT cover to cover and / or the Hebrew OT, as well as what training in the languages you have, I would appreciate that as well. It will help me to be accurate in what I say in response to you, as I am sure we both believe accuracy is very important, as our God is a God of truth. Thank you very much. Let me say that I also appreciate that you provided a significant quote from my video and appeared to want to accurately represent me. I thank you for that.
Dr. Ward never answered this question, and I suspect the answer is “zero” for both how many times he has read through the Greek New Testament or the Hebrew Old Testament. As we will see, there are not a few things that he says in his videos that make me rather strongly suspect this. They are not things one would say who is closely acquainted with the original language texts of Scripture. He seems like he is out of his league when he makes many of his linguistic arguments, just as he seems out of his league when he is making inaccurate assertions in his books about the Biblical languages and their difficulty or saying that the New Testament is at the level of the average papyrus, when it is not. I like to hope that Dr. Ward is not deliberately misrepresenting his sources in his book or deliberately making obvious errors when he discusses (for example) the Hebrew of Proverbs 22:28. I hope that Dr. Ward is not engaging in the blatant distortion of sources that, say, Mrs. Gail Riplinger seems to engage in.[262] Hopefully Brother Ward’s mistakes are not deliberate; he is just out of his league and is doing the best he can in a field where it would have been better for him to gain some expertise before he began to comment.
I thought it was interesting that after I asked this question in Part Two of his three-part series, that in Part Three he mentioned he had started reading a book on Hebrew discourse analysis. That is great. However, Ward never said a word about my actual question–how much of the Hebrew Old Testament itself, and Greek New Testament itself, he had actually read. Brother Ward did not respond to my question either in his comment section or in Part Three of his series. He may not have wanted to put down in writing that the answer is “zero” for how many times he has read through the New Testament in Greek or the Old Testament in Hebrew. Perhaps he is aware that his training in the languages left something to be desired.
Thank you very much. Let me say that I also appreciate that you provided a significant quote from my video and appeared to want to accurately represent me. I thank you for that.
I do appreciate that, as far as I can tell, Dr. Ward did not intentionally misrepresent my argument. Did he misrepresent it? Yes, but I think this was a matter of inaccuracy, not intentionality. Keeping in mind that his anti-KJVO side does not approach issues like this through exegesis, through looking at Scripture first to see what it says about preservation and Bible translation, Ward is rather like a fish out of water here. I am glad he is trying. I wish he had plainly told his audience where they could find my argument so they could go ad fontes and compare what I had actually said with what he argued against.
3.) I would also be interested in seeing if you have any grammatical sources for your claim that the difficulty in Luke-Acts, for example, versus the Johannine literature, is mainly because participles are placed in different locations, as well as your other grammatical claims. Some of the claims seemed quite unusual to my mind, and I would like to know if any Greek grammarians make such affirmations as you made. I may be into having sources for my claims more than most people who make YouTube videos, but I did not notice any grammatical sources cited in your videos.
Brother Mark never provided any sources for his claims. I suspect that is because there are no such sources, as people who write Greek and Hebrew grammars are likely to be quite surprised by not a few of the arguments that Brother Ward made. I do not think that those who have actually read Luke-Acts and the Johannine literature in the New Testament would say that the main or even the chief difficulty in harder NT Greek is knowing what adverbial participles modify. This statement sounds to me like the claim of someone who is not very familiar with the Greek of these books. I note that Dr. Ward did respond to this question. His answer was: “I mentioned in the video that I was offering my thoughts as a reader of the Greek New Testament; I self-consciously chose not to cite authorities here.” However, not only did he fail to cite any sources in his video, he never cited any sources for his claims anywhere. Note that Dr. Ward did not say, “I did not cite any sources in my video, but here are five sources: X, Y, Z, A, B.” He just said that he did not cite any sources in his video and left it at that, because he has never cited any sources for these affirmations. That is one of the major problems with producing YouTube videos instead of writing things down, or instead of doing face-to-face debate. Dr. Ward can make claims that are unsubstantiated by Greek scholarship, and because he is doing a video instead of writing something down, or making a presentation in a debate where his opponent can ask for evidence, it is too easy to overlook the fact that what Ward is saying has no basis in Greek scholarship.
4.) When you spoke about a test that you had given to KJVO pastors that definitively proved that they did not understand the KJV themselves, I was interested and took the test, and had some KJVO folk take it as well. I must say that they did much, much better than did the people whom you surveyed. (I myself got a 19 out of 20, and I think that the one I got wrong was a problem with the question.) I am wondering if it is possible to get more information about who these people are. Are they Baptists? Are they people who believe in justification by works or baptismal regeneration and do not even have the Holy Spirit, as one finds even among various denominational “Baptist” groups if one goes house to house regularly in evangelism? Would they claim to be fundamentalists?
The only question I got wrong was the one where his test made up something that was not in the Hebrew text nor in the KJV and defined “remove” in Proverbs 22:28, as, in part, “to move a short distance” when nothing in the Hebrew or the English says anything about “short,” and the “correct” answer is actually wrong, as already noted above.
Dr. Ward responded to this question and referred me to his kjbstudyproject.com website for the demographic information. He has said that only 7% of the respondents knew the differences between “thee/thou/thy” as singular in the KJV and “ye/you” as plural. This claim seems highly dubious. In churches that I am familiar with, the preachers all know this distinction. Likewise, the adults are instructed; the children are instructed; and this difference is even in Bible study #1 in our evangelistic Bible study series for the unconverted.[263] Ninety-three percent of those who took his survey did not know the difference? Are his survey results verifiable, reproducible, and falsifiable, or are they none of the above?
I would be interested if you have done anything to encourage KJVO saints to do something like read KJVs that have the (small number of) archaic words defined in the margin of their Bibles, as do many study Bibles, the Defined KJV, etc. If not, could you explain why you believe such a solution to your “false friends” idea is insufficient, and why what needs to be done is to replace the KJV with a multiplicity of modern versions that do things like take “hell” out of the Old Testament and replace it with that easy to understand and commonly used word “Sheol,” or attack the classical doctrine of the Trinity by changing the Son from being “only begotten” to being “unique,” or change the Son’s going forth from the Father in His eternal generation from being “from everlasting” to the Arian “from ancient days,” and so on, that would be appreciated. If you do not appreciate such changes in modern versions, I am wondering if you have any written sources or videos warning about them.
I suspect that Dr. Ward has done almost nothing to encourage saints who are going to cleave to their KJVs to understand them better by having them read editions of the Authorized Version where the archaic words are defined in the margin. I will applaud Dr. Ward if he donates the profits from his book Authorized—which is heavily promoted by Logos Bible Software—to purchasing copies of works that define archaic KJV words, such as David Cloud’s Believer’s Bible Dictionary, and then Ward gives these helpful books to King James Only Christians. After all, his real goal is for people to understand those archaic words, and not misunderstand them—correct?
One wonders if Dr. Ward has written or taught about any of the serious corruptions—really evil “false friends” like removing the eternal generation of the Son of God—in many modern Bible versions. Nor am I aware of Dr. Ward ever demonstrating why marginal notes is not a solution that is more than sufficient to deal with the small number of KJV archaisms. I note as well that Dr. Ward voiced not one word of criticism of James White’s inaccurate claims, the ones I was actually dealing with, in my video Is the King James Version (KJV) Too Hard to Understand? James White / Thomas Ross Debate Review 11.[264] Only King James Only Christians deserve criticism, it appears.
I at least would rather have a Bible that teaches Athanasian Trinitarianism but uses “conversation” in an older sense meaning “conduct” than a Bible that has a nice new “conduct” translation but undermines the holy Trinity in some verses (while, thankfully, still supporting it in others).
Who would disagree?
Also, please feel free to get in touch with me if you ever change your mind about being willing to publicly dialogue or debate on this matter. I happen to think there would be more profit from a face-to-face encounter where we both have equal time to present our case than there is in your producing videos on your YouTube channel that are mainly preaching to your choir while I do the same on my KJB1611 channel with videos that will mainly be watched by people who are already convinced of the perfect preservation of Scripture.
Dr. Ward has declined multiple offers to debate me, although he was willing to debate someone who does not seriously question his arguments.[265] Could it be that he is concerned that his position would fall apart if he engaged me in open debate? Could it be that his whole case would fall apart if he had to do what Christ and the Apostles did in the Gospels and Acts, namely, debate and refute their opponents face-to-face?
Finally, thank you for complementing me as being “super intelligent.” That was very kind of you. The “very dangerous” part, maybe not so much, but I suppose we can’t have everything. I am not planning to respond to any comments here, as I am not convinced that YouTube comments are the best place to engage in scholarly discussion, but I will look forward to hearing from you if you are able to answer my questions.
I will comment on Ward’s calling me “very dangerous” below, in conjunction with his agreeing to debate Daniel Haifley. Brother Ward made no reply to my fifth question.
So, as noted, Mark only answered questions three and four, not one, two, and five. It is unreasonable to conclude that he did not reply to 60% of what I asked him because I am unwilling to get into a big discussion in the comment section on his YouTube channel where he can delete or block me at a click—after all, he did reply to two questions. I indicated that I was considering producing a response to his three videos. Certainly he must want me to have the best and most accurate information for when I actually respond to him—surely it is not because he does not have a good answer to those questions. Or is it?
Response to Mark Ward’s Brand New KJV-Only Arguments (Part 1 of 3).[266]
Specific responses to Dr. Ward’s three videos are now in order. How do I respond specifically to Part One of Dr. Ward’s three-part series directed towards me, Brand New KJV-Only Arguments (Part 1 of 3)?[267]
In the initial two minutes of Brother Ward’s video, he claims that King James Only people do not respond to him and that he is running out of things to say. I would respectfully suggest that if he is running out of things to say he would do well to take some time to revise his book Authorized and make it scholarly, taking out the painful misuse of Scripture, developing an exegetical basis for what is objectively “too hard” for a vernacular translation, making sure to actually look at the Oxford English Dictionary’s entries and eliminating his gross misuses of that dictionary, and eliminating other quotations where he is taking authors out of context.
Also, I am aware of numbers of scholarly KJV people who, when they comment on Ward’s videos, making substantive arguments, have their comments deleted. I note as well that he refused to debate me. Perhaps if he no longer refused to debate, upped the level of his book and his other arguments and stopped deleting comments by people on our side, he might find that his claim that people on our side just do not respond will no longer be the problem he claims that it is.
In minutes two and three, Mark was very kind to say that both Dr. Kent Brandenburg and I are “very intelligent.” That was very kind of him. The next minute, however, he says that I am an “extremist of a particularly dangerous kind, a kind that is super intelligent.” This is why he will not debate me—I am an “extremist.” I note, however, that Dr. Ward will debate Daniel Haifley on the KJV issue, despite the fact that Dr. Haifley preaches a false gospel that is different from the one Paul preached[268] and which, I fear, falls under the curse of Galatians 1:8-9. Dr. Ward will happily appear with Tommy McMurty,[269] who, while distancing himself from the immorality in Steven Anderson’s[270] “New IFB” cult, denies that repentance involves turning from one’s sins[271] and agrees with Anderson’s heresy that Jesus Christ went to the place of torment, hell, after His death on the cross, as well as other false teachings of Steven Anderson.[272] So Ward will not debate me, because I am a particularly dangerous extremist—I think people should keep preaching from the Bible that they preached from in chapel when Dr. Ward was at Bob Jones University. According to a preface to an article by Mark Ward on the BJU website entitled “Let Me Help You Help Your KJV-Only Friend,” Bob Jones University affirms: “[W]e continue to use the King James Version (KJV) as the campus standard in the undergraduate classroom and chapel pulpit.”[273] I think that Bob Jones University does well to have the KJV as its Bible for the chapel pulpit and undergraduate classroom. I think every English-speaking pulpit should have the KJV as its standard Bible. According to Dr. Ward, however, this belief makes me a “particularly dangerous extremist”—someone he will not debate. But someone who preaches a false gospel that denies Biblical repentance and that denies that people must believe that Jesus is the Christ, that is, the King, like Daniel Haifley, or someone who believes the heresy that the Lord Jesus was tortured in hell, compromising the completion of His atoning work on the cross, like Tommy McMurty? No problem! Are such individuals “particularly dangerous extremist[s]” for rejecting Biblical repentance and the true gospel?
Four to eight minutes in, Ward agrees with White “profoundly” that the KJV translators wanted a Bible translation “in” the language of the common people rather than one that was “understood” by them. Ward said he had “never heard before” that the KJV was intending to be comprehensible by the common people but not “in” the language of the common person. That is unfortunate, for a careful reading of the preface to the KJV makes this distinction clear. People in 1611 did not speak “in” the language of the KJV, just like nobody speaks “in” that language today, but the KJV is comprehensible by the common man.[274] Why has the Authorized Version never, whether in the 17th or the 21st century, been in common spoken English? As a formal equivalent Bible translation, the KJV is “translation” English. Every single verse from Genesis 1:3 to Genesis 1:26 begins with the word and in the KJV, because Hebrew narrative strings passages together with and. English speakers have never regularly spoken to each other with twenty-three consecutive sentences starting with the word and. Nevertheless, Genesis 1:3-26 is perfectly comprehensible by the common man, even though neither in 1611 nor in 2024 do English-speakers talk the way Moses and ancient Hebrews wrote narrative. It is unfortunate that Brother Ward has written a book attacking the KJV’s continued use but has never interacted with the fact that the KJV never was in the language people spoke either in 1611 or in 2024, but was comprehensible by them.
Brother Ward goes on to say that he “does not know” why the KJV retained different pronouns for second-person singular and plural forms and “-est” and “-eth” verb endings. I appreciate his honesty here. Those who do not know something should admit it. Of course, the obvious reason is because the KJV never intended to be in the language of the common man, but to be comprehensible by the common man—the est and eth endings prove Ward’s thesis false. Mark Ward has a different explanation, though. He speculates that the KJV translators thought that changing these pronouns and verb endings was just too much work! Dozens of translators, working for years, between 1604 and 1611—they just had “no time” to make the changes! The instructions for the KJV required that “As any one Company [of translators] hath despatched any book … they shall send it to the rest to be considered of seriously and judiciously,” and also that “If any Company doubt or differ upon any place … the difference be compounded at the general meeting, which is to be of the chief persons of each company at the end of the work.”[275] There were multiple committees of some of the greatest Greek and Hebrew scholars ever, who also possessed an absolute mastery of the English language. All the committees—years of work—the historical evidence supporting many sets of eyes pouring over every word of the translation—but Dr. Ward floats the fantasy that they did not update the “thee/thou/thy” pronouns and the old verb endings just because it was too much work, without a single shred of historical evidence for his assertion! (And then he wonders why serious defenders of the KJV do not take his arguments seriously?) Recall the following concerning a situation of one of the KJV translators, a professor of Hebrew at Oxford University:
The doctor … going … to that parish church where they then were, found the young preacher to have no more discretion, than to waste a great part of the hour allotted for his sermon in exceptions against the late translation of several words (not expecting such a hearer as [the KJV translator,]) and shewed three reasons why a particular word should have been otherwise translated. When evening prayer was ended, the preacher was invited to the doctor’s friend’s house; where, after some other conference, the doctor told him, “He might have preached more useful doctrine, and not have filled his auditors ears with needless exceptions against the late translation; and for that word, for which he offered to that poor congregation three reasons, why it ought to have been translated, as he said; he and others had considered all them, and found thirteen more considerable reasons why it was translated as now printed.”[276]
This is the sort of care the KJV translators took—but without a shred of evidence, we are supposed to believe that they retained the very useful distinction between the singular and plural second person pronouns, not for accuracy’s sake, but just because it was “too much work” to change them!
Between eight and thirteen minutes in, Mark says that the common man today “cannot” fully understand the KJV because of archaisms. That is simply false. Brother Ward may not like the fact that there are 200-300 archaic words out of the (according to an Accordance Bible software search) approximately 790,868 total words from Genesis 1 to Revelation 22, and that someone has to either look up this small number of words or, utilizing an electronic device, must put his finger on the word in order to see what it means, taking perhaps one second, to do that, just like he may need to look up some words in the NASV or the ESV. He may be convinced that putting down one finger on a phone, or moving his eye to the margin of a study Bible page to get a word definition, or getting a dictionary off a shelf, is too much work in order to properly understand the best English Bible version ever made, one translated from the pure and preserved original language words. But to say that the common man “cannot” understand the KJV is a great overstatement.
Ward asks if the KJV translators would be happy if people have to use a dictionary to look up words. (He never specifies whether that would be something that happens very infrequently or something that could be necessary every third word—which would make quite a difference.) While I question the value of engaging in speculative psychoanalysis of what people who are dead might have thought, if we must go that direction, would the KJV translators have thought that a (very precise and accurate) word like “propitiation” (Romans 3:25) was something nobody would have to look up when they deliberately chose to retain it? Ironically, Ward himself quotes the New American Standard Bible thirteen minutes into this video and mentions that it uses words like “gall” (Job 20:25; Acts 8:23). Does Ward think the NASB translators would be happy if people have to use a dictionary to look up words? Can he be consistent with his argument against the KJV here while promoting and endorsing the NASB?
Brother Ward says that I present only the options of a “high” English and a “low” English, ignoring that language changes over time. I do nothing of the kind. (Ironically, Dr. Ward, just a few minutes later, is discussing how I placed the KJV, properly, at the beginning of Modern English, after discussing Old English and Middle English. How is it again that I ignore that language changes over time?) Of course, in my debate review #11 video[277] I was responding to James White, who did not make exactly the same arguments as Dr. Ward does. Ward then repeatedly cites the NASB in order to prove that he is not for what he calls “slang” Bibles. Has Ward completely forgotten his own endorsement of gutter English translations in his book Authorized? Consider the NLT, the “New Living Translation.” Ward quotes the NLT multiple times in his book, and makes statements such as: “People who use the ESV exclusively need to discover the help the NLT can provide.”[278] “[P]eople are wrong to despise or neglect the … NLT, NET Bible, and other good evangelical Bible translations.”[279] In Part Two of his critique of my video on the English intelligibility of the KJV, More New KJV-Only Arguments (Part 2 of 3),[280] Ward argues: “Well, if you’ve only ever read literal translations, I beg you to just try an NIV or CSB—or even the NLT.” So Ward not only would permit you to, not only thinks you should, but he is “beg[ging]” you to read the NLT if you have only ever read the KJV. The NLT, in 1 Samuel 20:30, said Saul called his son a “Son of a bi***”! It originally had these swear words in its text, and until today retains the S and O and B reading in a footnote. A footnote in the NET, which Ward also endorses, commends the translation “You stupid son of a bi***”![281] in 1 Samuel 20:30. These are Bibles that Mark Ward thinks we need to “discover” and read. Does he have any videos warning about this filthy, ungodly language, language that does not literally translate the Hebrew of 1 Samuel 20:30? No, of course not! We need to get rid of the majestic language of the KJV because of a few archaic words, and need to “discover the help” we can get from versions like the NLT and NET; it is “wrong,” according to Ward, to neglect them, although in godly Christian families if a child read aloud from this verse in the NLT and NET it would be time for the rod and reproof. Are you surprised that there is now such a thing as “Christian” swearing? Is Ward going to revise his book against the KJV to take out its endorsements of the NLT and NET?
Fifteen minutes into his video, Ward says: “Intelligible with effort is OK” for Bible translations. He either gives away his whole case against the KJV here or he has to make the argument that even “with effort” the KJV is “not intelligible”—but that is a very heavy lift.
Ward also says that my video showed “no apparent awareness of anything I’ve said” concerning second-person personal pronouns in the KJV. Yes, in a video responding to James White, I am not going to be aware of everything Mark Ward has said on a particular subject, especially since, as I have noted above, I do not think that Ward’s arguments are especially serious and do not take time to follow them very closely. The only thing I want to add to the second person pronoun discussion is that if one concedes to Dr. Ward that sometimes English readers do not pay attention to whether a pronoun is singular or plural, that is no reason to remove the distinction from a translation. If we needed to change Bible translations every time we find out that someone does not pay attention when reading the Bible, we will not have anything left, as, unfortunately, even godly people still have indwelling sin that makes them not pay attention sometimes. The only Bible reader who always paid perfect attention to what He was reading was the Lord Jesus Himself during His earthly ministry. That sometimes people forget the simple rule that the pronouns beginning with t are 2nd person singular while the ones beginning with y are plural, so you is second-person plural, not singular, in the KJV, is no reason to eliminate the AV’s accuracy in differentiating between the singular and plural.
Sixteen to twenty-one minutes in, having just claimed that I ignore the fact that language changes over time, Ward proceeds to engage my discussion of how the English language changes over time, how the KJV is not Old English, or Middle English, but Modern English—it falls in the early period of Modern English. Brother Mark does not disagree. In fact, he does not deny that Modern English actually begins in 1611 with the translation of the greatest English masterpiece, the King James Bible, although he seems to downplay the significance of this fact. I would point out that defining the KJV as Modern English rather than Middle or Old English is not arbitrary, but is based on objective factors in the English language. English has been standardized and has actually been much more stable between 1611 and today than it was between 1400 and 1600. That does not mean that there have been no changes, but linguistic change does not always happen steadily; English has actually changed substantially less between 1611 and 2011 than it did between 1211 and 1611.
With that caveat, I am glad that Mark Ward agrees that the King James Version is Modern English. He is arguing that a Bible that is in Modern English “cannot” be understood by people today who also speak Modern English. You can see why opponents of the KJV like to (falsely) claim that the Authorized Version is in Old English—it just does not sound good to say that the KJV is in Modern English, and we speak and read Modern English, but we need to abandon the KJV because it (allegedly) cannot be understood.
This concludes my analysis of video #1. Everyone certainly has his predispositions, but I cannot say that I found Dr. Ward’s arguments anything like compelling here. I did discover some comic relief, though, in Ward’s arguments, such as his suggestion that the KJV does not, for accuracy’s sake, differentiate between second-person singular and second-person plural pronouns, but because the translators were just too busy to change everything. Perhaps what most people sympathetic to the KJV will remember is that Brother Ward said that I was an “extremist of a particularly dangerous kind.” So remember that—watch out! I am very dangerous.
Response to Mark Ward’s More New KJV-Only Arguments (Part 2 of 3)[282]
Brother Ward begins his second video by claiming that “KJV-Onlyism is a great evil.” In his first video he said that I was an “extremist of a particularly dangerous kind.” Now, because I say that English speakers should continue to use the same fantastically accurate English Bible they have been using for centuries through times of amazing revival and blessing in God’s churches, I am advocating something that is a “great evil.” What we need to do is eliminate the KJV for modern versions that are less accurate, are based on a tiny minority of Greek manuscripts that attack the Deity of Christ in many passages of Scripture, attack inerrancy in many other passages, take the resurrection appearances and the Great Commission out of Mark’s Gospel (Mark 16:9-20), and so on. That is good—a Bible that is more literal, that has more passages teaching the Deity of Christ, that is inerrant, that has Christ appearing to people after His resurrection and giving the Great Commission, a Bible like that needs to be rejected because it has a small number of archaic words. It is too hard for people to put their fingers on the word in an app or with a flicker of an eye glance at their study Bible’s marginal notes and find out instantly what those words mean.
After mixing in a few nice statements to balance the “great evil” that I am allegedly advocating, I appreciated that Dr. Ward was kind enough to say that my arguments were “truly creative and interesting,” ones that “surprised and delighted” him. He said that I was “worth listening to at length.” He said I had “genuine knowledge.” Around six minutes in, he says that I “spea[k] some real truth.” These statements were kind of him; thank you, Dr. Ward. I encourage all fans of Mark Ward to accept his statements here. Maybe in other places he was not correct, but here everyone should definitely agree with Dr. Ward. Listen to me at length, like he recommends. Watch my debate with James White and all the review videos I made of it. Read the material at faithsaves.net with an open Bible and an open mind. Read my written reviews of Dr. Ward’s arguments.[283] If you have not yet repented and believed the gospel, turn to Christ today and be saved. If you have, then listen to me at length, compare what I preach and teach with Scripture, and then adopt it and join a good independent Baptist church that practices ecclesiastical and personal separation and defends the Received Text and the KJV out of love for the holy Triune God whose first recorded act after creating the universe was to separate the light from the darkness. Follow God’s example—be holy, come out, and be separate. Today is the day to start!
Brother Mark, up through the six-minute mark, gives a quotation of my argument that the KJV fits within the range of linguistic difficulty that is found in the Hebrew and Greek texts of the Old and New Testament. I appreciated that he gave a significant quotation of my argument. Although I have pointed out numbers of examples where he has misunderstood or misquoted sources, I do not believe he is doing this intentionally. Any of us can unintentionally misquote and misrepresent sources and arguments; I do wish Dr. Ward would do it a bit less often. In any case, I appreciated that he gave a significant quotation from me in my own words.
In what Dr. Ward quotes, I point out that the Greek New Testament contains some very long sentences, such as Ephesians 1:3-14, and the Hebrew Old Testament also has some very long sentences, such as Proverbs 2:1-22. Are such sentences “in” the language of the common man? Did the slaves and lower-class people in the church at Ephesus speak with sentences like Ephesians 1:3-14? Did the farmers and plowboys in Solomon’s day speak in sentences that were as long as Proverbs 2:1-22? No. But would these sentences fit within the parameters of what Ward himself said fifteen minutes into his Part-One video critique: “Intelligible with effort is Okay”? Yes. In terms of syntax, not only is the KJV is simpler—not more complex—than the original language texts. There are no sentences in the KJV that are 22 verses long like Proverbs 2 is in Hebrew. Based on the syntactical standards God Himself has given in His Word, the KJV’s English is not too hard, and it does not need revision.
How did Dr. Ward respond to these facts? Seven minutes into his video, he makes the surprising claim that “word order” is “the big thing” that makes reading Luke, Acts, and Hebrews more difficult. He also says, “I’m not citing any authorities here.” (I point out that, at least to my knowledge, he also does not cite any authorities—not only here, but anywhere else—for this surprising affirmation, as I think it would be hard to find any that make his idiosyncratic claim that “word order” is “THE big thing” that makes those books harder Greek.) After a discussion of Greek word order, he concludes, nine minutes in: “Word order is the main thing, I would say, that makes the Greek of Luke, Acts, and Hebrew difficult.”
Listening to Brother Mark’s affirmations makes me wonder how familiar he is with the Greek of the New Testament. He makes other surprising statements, such as that the Greek genitive case is “used … especially” for “objects of prepositions.” Note the uses of the genitive from Dan Wallace’s Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics:
Overview of Genitive Uses
Adjectival Genitive 78
- Descriptive Genitive (“Aporetic” Genitive) 79
- Possessive Genitive 81
- Genitive of Relationship 83
- Partitive Genitive (“Wholative”) 84
- Attributive Genitive 86
- Attributed Genitive 89
- Genitive of Material 91
- Genitive of Content 92
- Genitive in Simple Apposition 94
- Genitive of Apposition 95
- Genitive of Destination (a. k. a. Direction or Purpose) 100
- Predicate Genitive 102
- Genitive of Subordination 103
- Genitive of Production/Producer 104
- Genitive of Product 106
Ablatival Genitive 107
- Genitive of Separation 107
- Genitive of Source (or Origin) 109
- Genitive of Comparison 110
Verbal Genitive (i.e., Genitive Related to a Verbal Noun) 112
- Subjective Genitive 113
- Objective Genitive 116
- Plenary Genitive 119
Adverbial Genitive 121
- Genitive of Price or Value or Quantity 122
- Genitive of Time (within which or during which) 122
- Genitive of Place (where or within which) 124
- Genitive of Means 125
- Genitive of Agency 126
→ 6. Genitive Absolute 127
- Genitive of Reference 127
- Genitive of Association 128
After Certain Words 131
- Genitive After Certain Verbs (as Direct Object) 131
- Genitive After Certain Adjectives (and Adverbs) 134
- Genitive After Certain Nouns 135
- Genitive After Certain Prepositions 136[284]
Out of thirty-three different uses of the genitive, one is “genitive after certain prepositions.” Are there common prepositions that take the genitive? Yes. Is the genitive used “especially” for “objects of prepositions”? No, not at all.
Brother Mark also does not divide the dative case into the pure dative, the locative, and the instrumental dative—the three basic divisions into which the dative falls, after which there are many subdivisions—but says that the “dative case is used for things like location and time.” Location, yes—that is one of the three major divisions. But time? This is hardly one of the main divisions of the dative, although it certainly appears; the dative of time is being phased out in Koine Greek and being replaced by the Greek preposition en plus the dative. Is Brother Mark a bit out of his element?
However, Mark Ward’s level of knowledge of Greek is not the main point. I pointed out that the syntax of the Hebrew Old Testament and the Greek New Testament are more complex than the syntax of the King James Version. If we evaluate vernacular Bible translations based on the standard God Himself gives in the syntax of His holy Word, then the syntax of the KJV is not too complex, and it does not need revision. How did Brother Mark respond to my main argument? He did not respond at all! He talked about Greek word order, making some accurate statements about it and some dubious ones, but he did not actually rebut or refute what I pointed out. Numbers of factors make the language of Luke-Acts and Hebrews more complex than the Johannine literature, such as the increase in hypotaxis instead of parataxis (which Ward will discuss later in his video), a larger vocabulary, and other features of their Greek. But let us say, for the sake of argument, that what Brother Mark says is the main reason really is the main reason—differences in word order. He seems to have the curious idea that words vary in order more frequently in Luke than in John. Whatever; fine. The point still remains, totally unrefuted, that the syntax of the Greek New Testament and the Hebrew Old Testament are in many places more complex than that of the English of the King James Version! Therefore, based on the standard God provides in His Word, there is no basis in this aspect of the English of the King James Version to say that the KJV is too complex and needs revision. The KJV is actually simpler than the Hebrew and Greek text. If God expected the church at Ephesus to understand the harder Greek syntax in the epistle to the Ephesians, we have no reason to say that the simpler syntax of the KJV cannot be understood by a church in San Francisco or in Chicago or in Dallas.
What did Brother Ward do instead of refuting this fact? He made affirmations that do not seem particularly relevant and then refuted those. For example, he argued, ten minutes into his video: “So exactly what should translators do who want to reflect the difficulty of Greek in Luke, Acts, and Hebrews? Monkey with the word order anyway—maybe just follow the Greek order? ‘Is and faith having hoped for substance, of things evidence not having seen.’” (Ward is referring to Hebrews 11:1.) He continues: “I hope you see: that isn’t translation.” Now Ward is quite right—what he did was not translation, but mistranslation. He mistranslates both present tense participles in Hebrews 11:1 as if they were aorist participles. He is also right that one cannot just mindlessly replicate the word order of the Greek. Ward claims that such an incomprehensible rendering is “what lies at the end of the road of the common obsession with literal translation.” Of course, his claim is a misrepresentation of what defenders of formal equivalence argue, and a misrepresentation of what is involved in literal translation. Ward continues: “If translators can’t reflect word order difficulties directly via the English word order, lest they break English, should they choose some equivalent difficulty to introduce? Which one? Maybe use some more literary English? Maybe. Maybe add some archaic English words on purpose? I think not.” Of course, I said absolutely nothing about introducing archaic words on purpose—Ward’s viewers would know that if Ward made it easy for them to locate my video instead of making it very difficult for people to actually find my own words. I did not say one thing about just randomly adding in difficulties to make English vocabulary or syntax more difficult. What Ward is arguing against has nothing to do with my point. I demonstrated that the syntax of the Hebrew Old Testament and the Greek New Testament is more complex than the syntax of the English in the King James Version. Therefore, it is wrong to say that the KJV’s syntax is too complex and must be made simpler. That is simply not true, based on the levels of complexity God Himself placed in the Hebrew Old Testament and Greek New Testament. Introducing arguments that I never made about randomly inserting archaic words and refuting these arguments that I did not make does not change the fact that Brother Mark has not refuted the point that I did make—and the straw-men he introduces make me wonder if he even understood my point, as I do not believe he is intentionally misrepresenting me. If he wants to refute arguments that I never made, that is fine; I would simply request that he clarify that I did not make them, and that he refute the arguments I did not make after admitting that the point which I did make is true, accurate, and unrefuted—the syntax of the KJV is simpler and less complicated than the syntax of the original language texts God gave His people, so there is no syntactical justification for revision of the KJV.
Eleven minutes into his video, Ward makes a good point from 1 Samuel 9:9: “(Beforetime in Israel, when a man went to enquire of God, thus he spake, Come, and let us go to the seer: for he that is now called a Prophet was beforetime called a Seer.).” This text is a clear example in the English Bible that demonstrates that Hebrew was not completely stable between the days of Moses and Malachi; words that were in common use earlier were archaic later. Hold on to that thought—we will come back to it when we examine his third video. Some of the other things that Ward says are not as easily intelligible. In my argument, I said that the syntax of the Greek and Hebrew text was more complex than what the average man spoke, and that the KJV’s English falls within the parameters of difficulty God placed in the original language text. We can see both simple sentences like “Jesus wept” (John 11:35) and highly complex structures like Ephesians 1:3-14 or Proverbs 2:1-22. In response to this, Ward says that this was “more literary Greek, but it was ‘contemporary’ literary Greek. It wasn’t archaic.” When he says it was “more literary,” he is conceding my point that it was not what the person on the street was speaking. When he says it was “contemporary,” he is essentially saying that it was comprehensible to the person on the street, even if the common man had to work at it a bit. Basically, Ward is here conceding what I was actually arguing for, at least as far as I can comprehend his point. If Brother Mark means something else, perhaps he could explain what he means by “archaic” syntax versus “contemporary” syntax and how his point is relevant to the point I made from Ephesians 1:3-14 and Proverbs 2:1-22. Luke-Acts does employ more archaic forms. For example, the Greek optative is phasing out of the Greek language. It never appears in Matthew, appears only once in John’s Gospel and never in John’s epistles, and only once in Mark’s Gospel, but appears twenty-nine times in Luke-Acts. We should not be surprised that the only future perfect active (outside of periphrastic forms) in the New Testament is in Hebrews 8:11, while Luke 19:40 in the Received Text, following 99.5% of Greek manuscripts, contains a future perfect middle (the Nestle-Aland Textus Rejectus follows 0.2% of manuscripts and does not have a future perfect in Luke 19:40).[285] One can find Greek grammars saying things such as that what is “called [the] future perfect … is proper to [Attic] and Atticistic compositions only.”[286] Thus, the New Testament books at a higher literary level actually do have archaic forms. I note that while significant Greek grammarians view the word in question in Hebrews 8:11[287] as a future perfect, some scholars claim that the verb in Hebrews 8:11 is not one; Blass and Debrunner’s Greek Grammar, sections 99 and 101 on pages 50-51, states that the word in question is an Ionic-Hellenistic (that is, non-Attic, an irregular) future active form.[288] For our purposes, whether it is an archaic / very rare future perfect more common in the Attic Greek from centuries before the composition of the New Testament, or a rare Ionic-Hellenistic form of the future active, it is still what is certainly comparable to a rare or archaic word in the Authorized Version. Thus, facts obvious to English readers such as 1 Samuel 9:9 referring to the archaic word “seer” and its contemporary equivalent “prophet,” along with facts observed by careful readers of the Greek New Testament, such as the frequency of the optative and the use of the non-periphrastic future perfect in Luke-Acts and Hebrews, call into serious question Ward’s dubious claim that there are no archaic forms in the Old or New Testaments.
Brother Ward goes on to discuss the frequency of participles in different books of the New Testament as a measure of their increased syntactical difficulty. He says that the number of participles per thousand words in Luke, Acts, and Hebrews “isn’t radically, massively out of step with the number of participles in other books.” I am not sure what “radically, massively out of step” would look like, but my Accordance Bible Software indicates that there are 69.21 participles for every 1,000 words in Acts and 31.49 for every thousand words in John. That is more than double. Ward’s comparison with the very short books of 1 and 2 Peter and Jude is not especially cogent, as just a few big sentences in those small books can skew the numbers; 1 Peter is recognized at being at a high literary level; 2 Peter was also written by Peter; and 2 Peter and Jude have some kind of dependent relationship.
Thirteen minutes in, Brother Mark discusses the word left in Matthew 4:22:
And they immediately left the ship and their father, and followed him.
οἱ δὲ εὐθέως ἀφέντες τὸ πλοῖον καὶ τὸν πατέρα αὐτῶν ἠκολούθησαν αὐτῷ.
Ward claims that since we “just don’t talk” as did the Greeks, “the KJV translators wisely and rightly shifted the verb here and made it what we call ‘finite.’” However, the participle “left,” aphentes, is a participle of attendant circumstance.[289] I discussed this construction in my video review #15 of my debate with James White.[290] James White did not seem to understand the common Greek grammatical category of the attendant circumstance participle, and Mark Ward does not seem to understand it very well, either; or at least he does not show evidence of that understanding in his discussion of Matthew 4:22. He claimed that in Matthew 4:22, the KJV translators were seeking to strike some balance between accuracy and readability, when all they were doing was accurately translating a participle of attendant circumstance. Again, I keep getting the sense that Brother Ward is sincerely doing the best he can in his discussions of the Biblical languages, but signs keep appearing that he needs greater expertise. Students should learn about attendant circumstance participles in a second year of undergraduate Greek—they are not some obscure, difficult area of the language of the New Testament. Ward’s troubling misunderstanding of rather rudimentary New Testament Greek makes his assertion in his debate with Dr. Haifley that he would be glad to assist in updating the KJV rather shocking—Mark Ward’s level of understanding the Biblical languages by no means qualifies him to engage in such a project.[291]
Fourteen to fifteen minutes in, Ward seems to be making the curious assertion that the English of a book like 1 John, and thus, I presume, of the Johannine literature, is not simpler English in the KJV than the English in books such as Luke and Acts. Of course, while English cannot perfectly model the syntax of Greek, his assertion is simply false. Compare the first sentence of John with the first sentence of Luke:
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. (John 1:1)
Forasmuch as many have taken in hand to set forth in order a declaration of those things which are most surely believed among us, even as they delivered them unto us, which from the beginning were eyewitnesses, and ministers of the word; it seemed good to me also, having had perfect understanding of all things from the very first, to write unto thee in order, most excellent Theophilus, that thou mightest know the certainty of those things, wherein thou hast been instructed. (Luke 1:1-4)
Perhaps since Brother Ward is reading all kinds of modern Bible versions that are less literal than the KJV, he misses the fact that the KJV does a great job accurately bringing the more complex Greek syntax and vocabulary of Luke-Acts into English. The beginning of John’s Gospel is immeasurably profound in its meaning, but its vocabulary and syntax are very simple. Luke’s Greek—and the English of Luke in the KJV—are more complex than the Greek or the English of John’s inspired writings in the KJV. Perhaps Dr. Ward says the opposite because he has forsaken the accurate English of the KJV for translations that regularly opt for non-literal paraphrase. (By the way, do you think that the common man on the street, either in 1611 or today, spoke like Luke 1:1-4? Of course not. Can the common man understand Luke 1:1-4? Yes. It is foolish for Brother Mark to deny this fact in order to attempt to make a case for his less-accurate modern English versions.)
Fifteen minutes in, Ward makes the curious assertion that Deismann established that “the NT is more like than unlike other Greek literature of the time.” I wonder what work of Koine Greek Ward thinks is more unlike than like the rest. If the New Testament were more unlike than like other works in Koine Greek, it would not be in Koine Greek. Neither Josephus, Philo, Ignatius, Clement, Athanasius—you name the writer—what work of Koine Greek that is more unlike than like other Greek literature roughly contemporary with it? Herodotus, or even Homer, are more like than unlike the New Testament. What is Brother Mark’s point here? How in the world does it disprove what I was actually arguing, or even relate to it? I keep getting the sense that Brother Ward is splashing around, trying to swim, but having difficulty staying afloat.
Fifteen to eighteen minutes in, Ward claims, again, that I ignore that language changes over time; he seems to have forgotten that just a few minutes earlier he was critiquing my discussion of how language changes over time. He then discusses the “translation” The Message by Eugene Peterson. What Ward says about me and about Eugene Peterson and The Message are tell-tale. He says that I am a “very dangerous extremist.” Why? I think English speakers should continue to use the same Bible that has served the Lord’s churches very well for a long time instead of replacing it with Bible versions that are translated from an inferior Greek text into an inferior and less accurate English. That makes me a “very dangerous extremist.” What does Dr. Ward say about Eugene Peterson? He says “I’m not a big fan of the theology of Eugene Peterson.” Is Eugene Peterson “very dangerous”? No—Ward just is “not a big fan,” perhaps similar to the way he may like one football team instead of a different football team. Ward says he sees “value” in Mr. Peterson’s The Message “Bible” and says that people should read it. What did Mr. Peterson believe?
Peterson was a big promoter of Catholic contemplative mysticism. He was on the Board of Reference for [an] international ecumenical contemplative organization … Foster praised Pope John Paul II and called for unity in the Body of Christ through the “five streams of Christianity: the contemplative, holiness, charismatic, social justice and evangelical” … Foster advocated the practices of Catholic mystics and “the integration of psychology and theology.” [The contemplative organization where he was part of the Board] promotes guided imagery, visualization, centering prayer, astral projection, Zen meditation, and Jungian psychology. … Peterson’s translation has a New Agey flavor to it. The Message is an environmental Bible, as well … in 1 Corinthians 6:9-10 it says that those who “use and abuse the earth and everything in it, don’t qualify as citizens in God’s kingdom.” [But while you are not getting into heaven if you are not an environmentalist,] The Message is pro-homosexual, playing right into the hands of those who teach that homosexuality is a natural condition that God can bless instead of a sin that needs to be repented of. Every passage that condemns homosexuality is tampered with in The Message. … It is not surprising that Peterson told Religion News Service on July 12, 2017, that he did not believe that homosexuality is sinful. He said, “I know a lot of people who are gay and lesbian and they seem to have as good a spiritual life as I do.[”] … Peterson told the RNS that the church he pastored hired a homosexual minister of music.[292]
Peterson believed not a few other false teachings and heresies. But Mark Ward is just “not a fan” of his theology; nevertheless, you should read his tampered-with “translation” of Scripture called The Message. On the other hand, although I believe what Scripture teaches on every one of the issues where Peterson is a heretic, I am “very dangerous.” How often does Ward encourage people to read my writings? Or should they read only what Peterson has written, corrupting God’s Word? Ward also says that King James Only people rarely quote The Message at any length, and Ward denies that it is “dumbed down” or “slangy.” In 1 Samuel 20:30, the verse I discussed earlier, I am not going to quote “The Message” because it contains inappropriate language that I am not willing to reproduce. The article by David Cloud just cited gives many quotes from The Message that are corrupt, erroneous, or blatantly heretical.
Around the eighteen-minute point, Mark again speaks about “adding unnecessary difficulties” into an English translation, although, again—if people actually watched my video instead of only his critique—they would know I never said a word about “adding unnecessary difficulties.” Ward also says that I am “using one kind of difficulty in the originals to justify a totally different kind of difficulty”—namely, archaic English vocabulary words. Of course, Brother Ward is actually the one who is confusing things here. I did not point out that Proverbs 2:1-22 is only one sentence in Hebrew and Ephesians 1:3-14 is only one sentence in Greek in order to make a point about vocabulary words. I addressed the question of vocabulary later in my debate review #11 of the James White debate video, when discussing hapax legomena.
Brother Mark did not, to my recollection, say a single word about this part of my argument:
Consider further: is there more literacy in the English-speaking world now than there was in the first-century world of the New Testament, or in the world where God gave the Hebrew Old Testament? When was learning to read–or improving one’s reading level–easier? Surely—indubitably—it is easier, indeed, much easier—now. Very, very few people in the extremely wealthy English-speaking world (historically speaking) need to work on a farm twelve hours a day, six days a week, week after week, just to barely avoid starvation doing subsistence farming, while carrying water from a well by hand, washing clothes by hand, and doing everything else by hand that our modern mechanized “servants” do for us today. Someone at the American “poverty” line is extremely, extremely wealthy compared to the average person living in Bible times, with a much, much easier life, and much, much more free time that he can spend on reading and on improving his reading ability. So if we live in a time where it is much easier to develop language proficiency than it was in Bible times—and yet the KJV is on a simpler linguistic level than at least large portions of the original Biblical text—what need is there to replace the KJV?
Perhaps he simply had nothing to say against it. In any case, he skips to what I say after this, namely:
The King James seeks to replicate the syntax of the original language texts as much as possible. That is why every verse from Genesis 1:3 to Genesis 1:26 begins with the word “And”—we may not write that way in non-translation English, but the KJV accurately represents what the Hebrew given by the Holy Spirit says.
I appreciated that Dr. Ward conceded, nineteen minutes into his video: “It is true that the KJV frequently, normally follows the syntax of the Hebrew and Greek more often than, say, the NIV. … I’d guess that the KJV follows the Hebrew and Greek word order more often than the NASB does, too.” He continues, twenty-one minutes in, to say: “It is genuinely valuable to retain the original word order in translation if you can.” I appreciate this concession, which indicates that the KJV is a better English translation than the NIV or NASB. The KJV is not only more beautiful the NIV or NASB; the KJV has not only been vastly more influential, shaping the entire history of Western civilization; the KJV has not only been received by strong churches for centuries and positively affirmed in Baptist confessional life the way no other English translation has been done, but Ward admits that it also follows the original text more closely; and Ward is not willing to discuss the crucial fact that it is translated from a clearly superior original language text, the Received Text, instead of the Nestle-Aland Textus Rejectus.
Brother Mark, then, 19-21 minutes in, discusses Matthew 17:19:
Then came the disciples to Jesus apart, and said, Why could not we cast him out?
τότε προσελθόντες οἱ μαθηταὶ τῷ Ἰησοῦ κατ’ ἰδίαν εἶπον, Διατί ἡμεῖς οὐκ ἠδυνήθημεν ἐκβαλεῖν αὐτό;
He spends a good deal of time discussing “Then came the disciples” versus “Then the disciples came,” which is not something I would stress, and which I have never said anything about in any written, video, or other source. I noticed, though, that Ward says: “And the KJV actually does change the forms here: it makes ‘came’ into a finite verb, even though it’s a participle in the Greek.” Actually, this is another instance of an attendant circumstance participle, which should be translated into English as a verb, “came,” not as “coming,” a participle. Since in Matthew 4:22, just a few minutes earlier, Brother Mark did not recognize the attendant circumstance participle, and here in Matthew 17:19, Brother Mark again did not recognize the attendant circumstance participle and actually makes a point about the KJV being inaccurate when it actually translates a participle of attendant circumstance with perfect accuracy and just as one is supposed to translate such a participle, I have serious doubts about Mark Ward’s understanding of this basic category of Greek syntax. And if he does not understand Greek syntax especially well, I must wonder how wise it is for him to be doing videos sincerely telling people inaccurate things about Greek syntax in order to get them to reject the KJV. I would suggest that the KJV translators knew Greek much better than the average Ph. D. from Bob Jones University. We should to keep this fact in mind when a person with a Ph. D. from Bob Jones University critiques the KJV.
Let’s move on to Dr. Ward’s Surprising New KJV-Only Arguments! (Part 3 of 3).
Response to Mark Ward’s More New KJV-Only Arguments (Part 3 of 3)[293]
Dr. Ward began this video with some kind words, stating that I was one of the “most highly educated and capable KJV-Onlyists out there, Thomas Ross.” He also said that the argument I made that he was about to review was “creative and demanding,” and that I had a “real knowledge of Biblical studies.” I think it was good that he began this final video with words like those instead of repeating the lines about how I was a “very dangerous extremist” and how exclusive use of the KJV was a “great evil.” When Dr. Ward is much harsher on KJV people like me than he is on pro-sodomy, New-Age types like Eugene Peterson, it does not make his case look very convincing. So I am glad he got off on a better start. May God help us all to use the gifts He gives us in the very best way we can for His kingdom and for His glory alone.
Brother Ward then went on to use a word that I did not know: horcrux. Looking it up, I discovered that it is a word associated with demonic magic in the evil Harry Potter books. May God raise up more churches full of godly people that know what the archaic words in the KJV mean but have no idea what a horcrux is, and greatly decrease the number of churches full of worldly people who can banter and allude to Satanic magic in the Harry Potter series but do not know what the small number of archaic words mean in the KJV. Is it fine to learn new vocabulary in order to read about Satanic sorcery in Harry Potter, and fine to read modern Bible versions with swear words in them, but not fine to learn new vocabulary in order to read the best English Bible translation ever, the Authorized, King James Version, and so learn of and love the holy God?
Do you know what I did to find out what horcrux meant? I did a quick search on DuckDuckGo and quickly discovered what it meant, finding out to my sorrow that Dr. Ward was alluding to something that God hates. What God says is abominable is not a funny joke. God says that sorcerers will be in the lake of fire in Revelation 21:8. Perhaps most of Dr. Ward’s audience didn’t need to do that DuckDuckGo search because, while they don’t read the KJV, they do read Harry Potter. In any case, it was not very hard to find out what this word meant—certainly finding out what the “hardest” KJV word means is just about as easy.
I do not want to be overly pedantic, but for the sake of accuracy let me just point out that when Ward says that “we have very little biblical Hebrew to read outside the Old Testament,” two minutes into his video, this statement may be taken in two ways. It may not be especially significant, in that if something is outside of the Old Testament it is by definition not Biblical Hebrew. On the other hand, if Dr. Ward is referring to inscriptional Hebrew, we actually have Hebrew inscriptions from the following places, according to Kang’s Dictionary of Epigraphic Hebrew:
- Tel ʿAmal
- Arad
- Tell el-Areni
- Aroer
- Tel Batash
- Beersheba
- Khirbet Beit Lei
- Tell Beit Mirsim
- Bethsaida
- Beth-Shean
- Tel Dan
- En-Gedi
- Eshtemoa
- Gezer
- Gibeon
- Tell el-Ḥammah
- Hazor
- Tell el-Ḥesi
- Tel ʿIra
- Jerusalem
- Kadesh-Barnea
- Ketef Hinnom
- Kuntillet ʿAjrûd
- Lachish
- Mareshah
- Megiddo
- Meṣad Ḫashavyahu
- Khirbet el-Meshash
- Wadi Murabbaʿat
- Tell en-Naṣbeh
- Nimrud
- Tell el-Oreimeh
- Tell Qasile
- Khirbet el-Qôm
- Ramat Raḥel
- Samaria
- Siloam Tunnel
- Silwan
- Susa
- Ḫorvat ʿUza
- Tell Zeitah[294]
Would I say that this is “very little”? Probably not. But Ward’s greater point is true: we have much more extrabiblical Greek relatively contemporary with the New Testament than we do extrabiblical Hebrew relatively contemporary with the Old Testament.
Let us proceed to the main argument that I made and to which Dr. Ward is responding. I had made the following argument in my “Is the King James Version (KJV) Too Hard to Understand? James White / Thomas Ross Debate Review 11”[295] video:
[D]oes the King James Version have more archaic words than the Greek of the New Testament or the Hebrew of the Old Testament? Numbers vary somewhat based on how one counts words, but “[n]early two thousand words of the … vocabulary in the Hebrew Bible are hapax legomena.”[296] The New Testament has nearly 2,000 hapax legomena as well;[297] for the two testaments together the number is approximately 3,600. … While not all of those Old and New Testament hapax legomena—words that occur only once—would have been rare or archaic words to first century readers, many of them would have been. (For the non-Jewish majority of Christians in the early churches who wanted to read the Old Testament in Hebrew, the situation with hapax legomena in the Old Testament would have been relatively close to our situation today.) By way of contrast, there are nowhere near as many archaic words in the King James Version as there are hapax legomena in the original languages. The KJV contains approximately 12,000 different words and approximately 300 archaic words. The Hebrew Old Testament has approximately 8,500 Hebrew words, and the Greek New Testament approximately 5,500 words, for a total of 14,000 different words. To read the Bible in the original languages, one must learn around 2,000 more words than there are in the KJV (not even including the approximately 648 different Aramaic words in Scripture). Thus, comparing the KJV to the original language text, we note:
Fewer total words than the original language texts (c. 12,000 vs. 14,000 words)
Fewer “hard” words (archaic vs. hapax, 300 vs. 3,600)
Thus, the KJV contains fewer total vocabulary words than the original languages of Scripture, and the number of archaic KJV words is approximately 10% of the total number of “hard” words in the original language text. What is more, the average four-year-old knows approximately 5,000 vocabulary words;[298] learning the approximately 300 archaic words in the KJV is adding to one’s vocabulary around 6% of what a four-year old child knows. In fact, if one does not even want to learn 6% of the vocabulary words of a four-year old child in order to read what scholars recognize as “demonstrably the greatest English Bible ever,” today with one’s phone, or with good Bible dictionaries such as the Way of Life Encyclopedia of the Bible and Christianity, or with a study Bible that defines the archaic words in the margin, it is easier and less time-intensive than at any time in history to find out what an unknown Biblical word means.
How did Dr. Ward respond to this argument? First, 7-8 minutes in, he gives an example of the word agathopoios(ἀγαθοποιός) in 1 Peter 2:14, “well-doers.” Ward says that “a check of the major lexicons suggests that this word first appears in the New Testament and not in literature from outside it.” However, it appears in the LXX in Sirach 42:14:
Better the wickedness of a man than a well–doing woman and a woman bringing shame to the point of reproach.
κρείσσων πονηρία ἀνδρὸς ἢ ἀγαθοποιὸς γυνή, καὶ γυνὴ καταισχύνουσα εἰς ὀνειδισμόν.
So it actually does not first appear in the New Testament. It is in the Greek Old Testament. It is also puzzling that Ward says that the word does not appear “in literature from outside … the New Testament,” allegedly based on “a check of the major lexicons.” If you just open the standard New Testament Greek lexicon, BDAG, and look at the definition, you will see that the word appears in Athenagoras, Sextus Empiricus, Greek magical papyri, Plutarch, and so on; the reference in the LXX is also mentioned. The standard classical Greek lexicon, Liddell-Scott-Jones, mentions that the word appears in the LXX and six different extra-biblical Greek sources. You can find it in Greek patristics such as the Apologists as well. I do not know how to account for Dr. Ward’s statement that the word in 1 Peter 2:14 does not appear in literature outside the New Testament, allegedly based on a check of the major lexicons. I want to think that he knows how to read a lexicon, but this is an astonishing misreading. At the very least, it is the same sort of sloppy work that we have seen too often in his book, in his anti-KJV survey, and in his responses to my video on the KJV’s readability.
The next example Ward supplies is the word epiousios (ἐπιούσιος) in Matthew 6:11. Brother Mark claims that this word is “commonly translated “this day.” However, it is actually not commonly translated as “this day,” but as “daily,” as in “give us this day our daily bread.” Brother Ward argues: “Our best Greek scholars tend to validate the Tyndale tradition by using ‘this day.’” However, when I looked at the Tyndale Bible, Coverdale Bible, Bishop’s Bible, and the Geneva Bible, they all read “daily.” How can Ward say that the “Tyndale tradition” translates epiousios as “this day” when it uniformly translates as “daily,” not as “this day”? Did Ward take the time to look carefully at even one of these Bibles? Unfortunately, we have here yet another of the many proofs that Brother Ward’s affirmations, whether in his book, in his survey, or in his videos, are far too often unreliable and inaccurate.
Brother Mark goes on to make a variety of assertions about this word “daily,” epiousios, in the model prayer. I agree with Ward that Christ spoke in Greek when He preached the Sermon on the Mount. Let us see what we can learn about the word epiousios from the earliest extant commentary upon its derivation, Origen, Prayer 27:7:
We must now examine the meaning of [this] word[.] … First we must note that the term epiousios … is not used by the Greeks: neither does it occur with the scholars, nor does it have a place in the language of the people. It seems to have been invented by the Evangelists. At least, Matthew and Luke, when they introduce it, are in complete agreement in their use of it. The translators of the Hebrew texts have done this same kind of thing with regard to other words also. Thus, what Greek has ever used the terms enotizou or akoutistheti to signify “receive in your ear” and “make yourself to hear”? [Origen speaks of two words that appear to have been invented by the LXX translators; see Gen. 4:23, Ps. 5:2, Job 33:1; Ps. 50:10, Eccles. 45:5. LSJ lists no occurences of either word in secular literature.] A term very similar to epiousios is found in the Books of Moses, and is there put in the mouth of God: You shall be to me a periousios people. I believe that both words derive from the word ousia (substance).[299]
The translator of Origen’s treatise on prayer notes on this same page: “Origen’s observation on the rarity of the celebrated word ἐπιούσιος [epiousios] has been completely sustained through the centuries.”
I agree with Dr. Ward that those who heard Christ speak the Sermon on the Mount and the Jews in Jerusalem who recieved the Gospel of Matthew, as well as Theophilus and others who initially received the Gospel of Luke could indeed have figured out what epiousios means. Someone can also figure out that the KJV word conversation means conduct. But was epiousios commonly in use? All evidence indicates that the answer is “no.” Thus, the Lord Jesus Himself, in a crucial, extremely practical matter—how to pray—used a “hard” word, a word that was not in common use, and Christ’s word was reproduced in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke under the infallible direction of the Holy Spirit. Did the Lord Jesus and the Holy Spirit make a mistake when they used an extremely rare word in explaining such a crucial matter as how we ought to pray? No, neither the Father, who gave the Word, nor the Son, who spoke it, nor the Holy Ghost who superintended its recording in Scripture, made a mistake. Now is the entire model prayer a jumble of very rare, hard-to-understand words? No, not at all. But one hard, extremely rare word in the few verses of the Model Prayer is a much higher rate of archaisms, of “hard” words, than are present in the body of the KJV—only around three hundred in the entire English Bible. The example of Christ Himself in the extremely important matter of how we ought to pray gives a clear principle, a good and necessary consequence, that the small number of archaic words in the Authorized Version are not a basis for rejecting it and adopting a modern English version instead.
None of Ward’s examples so far are helping him at all. The only other comment he makes about Greek in this video is his embarrassingly out-of-context 1 Corinthians 14 argument, where Paul’s command for tongue speakers to enunciate clearly is supposed to prove that we need to get rid of the King James Version. We have already looked at Ward’s 1 Corinthians 14 argument in more depth than it really deserved.
Starting eleven minutes into his video, Dr. Ward turns to the Hebrew Old Testament. He says that “not all hapaxes are difficult.” I agree, of course, and said that very thing. But there are 3,600 of them in the Old and New Testaments. There are perhaps three hundred archaic, “hard,” words in the KJV. There are only c. 8% as many “hard” words in the KJV as there are hapax legomena in the Bible. We can agree that not all the hapax legomena were “hard” to Greek and Hebrew readers of Scripture. Fine. But surely at least 10% of them were hard. The number of “hard” words in the KJV very easily falls within the parameters of the number of “hard” words in the original language text. Discussing what he views as harder hapax legomena, Ward says, fifteen minutes in, that “none of [the] methods” he is discussing “yield absolute certainty” about what the words in question mean. If I agree with Ward here, for the sake of argument (I actually do not, but would say that the words are things “hard” to be understood (2 Peter 3:16), but not “impossible” to be understood), then the KJV archaic words are indubitably less of a problem than the hapax legomena of the Old Testament. Every single archaic word in the KJV can certainly be understood, and understood easily—one can simply look them up in a dictionary. Ward is stating that Biblical hapax legomena are actually harder to understand than the “hard” words in the KJV! The ultimate authority for Christ’s churches and people is the Hebrew Old Testament and the Greek New Testament. There are words in that ultimate authority that are harder to understand than any word in the English of the King James Version; one has to do things like compare roots, etymology, ancient translations, other extrabiblical sources, and so on. Indeed, Dr. Ward goes farther than he should and says that we cannot know for sure what some of these words mean. Yet all one has to do with a “hard” KJV word is look up the word in a good English dictionary. There are many more of these “hard” words in the original language texts than there are in the English of the KJV. Yet man must not live by bread alone, but by every single one of these words, as Matthew 4:4 teaches. If Ward were correct, and we must reject the English KJV because of a smaller number of much more easily understood words, how much the more would we need to reject the Hebrew Old Testament and the Greek New Testament because of a much larger number of much less easily understood words? That would be the good and necessary consequence of Ward’s argument, were it valid—but it is not valid. We need not reject the English KJV because of a much smaller number of “hard” words more easily understood than the number of “hard” words in the Old and New Testaments.
Sixteen to seventeen minutes into his video Ward appears to dispute my statement that “while not all of those Old and New Testament hapax legomena (words that occur only once) would have been rare or archaic words to first century readers—many of them would have been.” It is amazing that he can disagree with this statement when his own video gave the excellent example of the word epiousios, “daily,” in Matthew 6:11, that indicated exactly the opposite of what he now affirms. It is overwhelmingly clear that this was a rare word, a word that many people who heard Christ preach the Sermon on the Mount or read Matthew and Luke would never have heard before.
Ward then changes the argument that I was actually making into something different. Seventeen minutes in, he says: “The key measure here is this: would the hapax legomena used in various places in the Hebrew Bible have been unknown or ‘illegible’ to the original readers? Ross cannot know that the answer is yes.” Of course, I never said that these words were “illegible” or “impossible” to understand.[300] In any case, they were “hard” words, more difficult to understand, but not “impossible” to understand. There is not one word in the KJV that is impossible to understand. The hardest of the small number of archaic KJV words can have its mystery revealed by simply looking it up in a dictionary. We do not even need to get the dictionary off the bookshelf now; we can find out what those words mean simply by putting our finger on them in our Bible apps. Ward is now trying to refute something that I never said and do not believe, instead of doing what he needs to do—namely, explain why we need to get rid of the KJV because of a smaller number of more easily understood “hard” words but retain the larger number of more difficult-to-understand words in the original language texts.
To refute the impossible-to-understand word argument that I never made, Ward states: “I believe that God inspired language that was generally accessible to the original hearers, in both testaments. Not easy as pie, not dummy speak, just generally intelligible.” By admitting this, Ward is giving away his whole case. The KJV is not easy as pie, not dummy speak, but it is certainly generally intelligible. And one can easily purchase an edition of the KJV that has every single one of those rare archaic words defined at the bottom of the page or in the margin of one’s Bible. So to find out what they mean involves the flicker of one’s eye to the bottom of the page of one’s Bible, something that takes a fraction of a second. Ward’s response says not a word about the fact that one can more easily and more quickly than at any time in history find out the meaning of the few archaic words in the King James Version.
Brother Mark then goes on to argue that churches and Christians need to have multiple versions to learn and preach from—Multiple Version Onlyism—instead of King James Onlyism, because of hapax legomena. It is interesting that eighteen minutes in, Ward can say that “hapaxes are a profound argument against KJV-Onlyism,” and he had “thought this for a long time,” while twelve minutes in—just six minutes earlier—he had said that he had never “studied [hapax legomena] as a group until [he] sat down to prepare for this video.” It appears that Dr. Ward has been convinced for “a long time” that he had a “profound argument” against exclusive use of the KJV in English-speaking pulpits based on something he had never studied carefully until he produced this video. Such statements appear to provide another confirmation of the questionable intellectual rigor of his arguments—something we have seen many times already. But let us consider the specifics of Ward’s case.
Dr. Ward says: “I’ve never heard anyone who believes that the Bible teaches perfect preservation reflect on such words [hapax legomena], even though the KJV preface mentions them, as we’ll see in a moment.” This is quite an assertion, since he is reviewing my video, I believe that the Bible teaches perfect preservation; I am making a point about the linguistic level of vernacular translations based on hapax legomena; I point out the reference to hapaxes in the KJV preface; and Dr. Ward is reviewing my argument. How can he say that he has never heard anyone who believes in perfect preservation reflect on such words while reviewing a video of someone who believes in perfect preservation reflecting on such words?
Does Dr. Ward exegete any Scripture here, or show how perfect preservationists incorrectly interpret the many passages that a plowboy would conclude teach that God preserves every word that He inspires, preserves them in use among His people, and uses His institution—Israel in the Old Testament and the church in the New Testament—for that preservation? No. What does he do instead? Without any Scriptural exegesis, Ward argues: “What sense does it make for God to preserve a text perfectly but leave in it at least dozens of words whose meaning we just don’t know? And it’s not just words: it’s grammatical constructions.” If we were to put Ward’s “profound” argument into a syllogism, it would run as follows:
- If God preserved every word of the Bible, then He would enable men to understand those words.
- There are words in the Bible that no man can understand.
- Therefore, God did not preserve every word of the Bible.
I note that Ward’s “profound” argument here would also equally deny the infallible inspiration of the Bible, were it valid:
- If God inspired every word of the Bible, then He would enable men to understand those words.
- There are words in the Bible that no man can understand.
- Therefore, God did not inspire every word of the Bible.
Dr. Ward’s argument here is a great example of the different way that perfect preservationists—King James Only people, Confessional Bibliology people, Textus Receptus people—and anti-preservationists—modern Bible version people, Nestle-Aland Greek people—approach the question of preservation. Received Text, pro-KJV people first go to Scripture, see what the Bible says about its own preservation, and then, because the fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom (Proverbs 9:10), they humbly submit to and faithfully trust in God’s promises. The all-powerful, sovereign God has kept His promises to preserve His Word. Since He commands: “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God” (Matthew 4:4), we therefore can live by every one of those words. He has kept them around, and we can know where they are. Where are they? In the mouths and hearts of God’s people: “As for me, this is my covenant with them, saith the LORD; My spirit that is upon thee, and my words which I have put in thy mouth, shall not depart out of thy mouth, nor out of the mouth of thy seed, nor out of the mouth of thy seed’s seed, saith the LORD, from henceforth and for ever” (Isaiah 59:21). Christ’s churches are able to make disciples and teach them to obey “all things whatsoever” He has commanded because the churches have all the words of God available (Matthew 28:18-20). We know this by faith, because God keeps His covenants and is always faithful to His promises. We then look at historical evidence and examine it from the logic of faith, believing that God has done what He promised. We look, not to see if God has done what He said, but how and where He has done it. This is the only consistently Christian position. But what does an anti-preservationist like Dr. Ward do? He exegetes no Scripture, creates an argument he thinks is strong based on what he supposes historical evidence supports, and then based on that historical evidence rejects the plain meaning of Biblical passages on Scripture’s preservation. If he applied this same unbelieving methodology to inspiration, he would reject not only the verbal, plenary preservation of Scripture but also the verbal, plenary inspiration of Scripture. No longer would he be an evangelical (Ward is certainly no longer a fundamentalist, as he was when growing up; has he broken his parents’ hearts?). Although his alma mater once was a bastion of fundamentalism and still professes to be fundamentalist, although exhibiting a troubling drift away from separatism towards the doctrinally confused waters of broad evangelicalism. This trajectory is consistent with Ward’s embrace of the United Bible Society’s Nestle-Aland Greek Textus Rejectus, the inferior Greek text from which the modern versions Ward promotes are translated, a text created by people who did indeed reject not only the preservation but also the inspiration of Scripture, and which, as I clearly demonstrated in my debate with James White, is not inerrant. We will soon see how Ward’s anti-preservation position undermines the infallible inspiration of Scripture. However, we will first show why his “profound” argument against preservation from hapax legomena is both unscriptural and illogical.
First, his argument is unscriptural. He may claim that there are words in the Bible that nobody can understand, but in Matthew 4:4 the Son of God told us to live by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God (as did Moses in the passage from the Pentateuch Christ is referencing ). So Christ is right, and Ward is wrong. There may be hard-to-understand words, but there are no impossible-to-understand words. This is also specifically what Peter affirms. There are “some things hard to be understood” (2 Peter 3:16). Not “impossible,” but “hard.” No verse of Scripture anywhere says that some of God’s Words are “impossible” to understand, and many passages either teach by direct affirmation or by good and necessary consequence the exact opposite. Thus, Christ, Peter, and Moses are right; but Dr. Ward is wrong. No words in Scripture are “impossible” to understand, although there are some that are “hard” to understand. Furthermore, note that 2 Peter 3 also does not say that the “hard to be understood” parts are unimportant. Those who twist the “hard to be understood” parts are in big trouble—they get “destroyed” (2 Peter 3:15-16). So Ward claims there are things not merely hard to be understood. However, he asserts that this situation is fine, because those words do not matter and do not affect how we live. But God requires us to live by every one of His words. None of them are impossible to be understood, most are easy, and some are hard to be understood. We must live by even the hard ones, because they do matter, and He destroys those who pervert them. What Dr. Ward says, and what God’s Word says, are exactly opposite each other.
Second, Ward’s argument is illogical. Dr. Ward claims that there are words in the Hebrew and Greek Bible that are impossible to understand (and here he is wrong). Ward also claims that the Bible is God’s infallible Word and that the Hebrew and Greek text are the only rule of faith and practice for the church (and here he is right). Scripture is the sole external principle through which we know God; to use the scholastic phrase, Scripture is the principium cognoscendi externum.[301] But if Ward is correct in his view of Scripture, and about his claim that there are words in the Greek and Hebrew text that are impossible to understand, he cannot logically object to there being a few archaic words in the King James Version. If God can give His church words that are not only difficult, but even impossible to understand, and yet we must receive those Greek and Hebrew words, unrevised, unmodified, until the end of time, how can Ward claim that we need to get rid of the King James Version because of a small number of words—less than 10% of the number of hapax legomena that are found in the original language text—that are far from impossible, but only slightly difficult to understand? Ward’s “profound” argument against KJV-Onlyism from hapax legomena would, if it were valid (which it is not), destroy the entire foundation on which he argues that the KJV needs to be set aside because its English is allegedly too hard.
Dr. Ward goes on to appeal to the Westminster Confession of Faith (without citing any part of it specifically, just as he has never cited any Scripture in his “profound” argument here), claiming that the Confession somehow gives support to his view that some parts of Scripture are “impossible” to understand. Readers are encouraged to study chapter one of the Westminster Confession of Faith—the chapter on Scripture—and look up its proof-texts in their context.[302] They will clearly see that the Westminster Confession of Faith never even hints that some parts of Scripture are impossible understand. On the contrary, those who take seriously what the Westminster Confession of Faith declares about Scripture will reject Ward’s claim that some of the Bible is impossible to understand. Readers studying chapter one of the Confession and considering how the proof-texts annexed relate to the propositions being established will see that every word of Scripture is the “rule of faith and life,” and is profitable for doctrine, reproof, correction, and instruction in righteousness. Not a word of Scripture is impossible to understand and useless—all is heavenly in its matter, powerful in its doctrine, majestic in its style, full of many other incomparable excellencies, and is entirely perfect—not worthless and incomprehensible. While, contrary to Roman Catholicism, the way of salvation is set down in many places and in many different passages, so even someone with a basic understanding can see that Christ saves based on His substitutionary death and resurrection through the instrumentality of repentant faith alone, nevertheless every word of Scripture is part of the whole counsel of God, every word is recorded for His glory and not for our salvation alone, but also for our faith and life. Every word is immediately inspired by God, and is kept pure in all ages through His singular care and providence, so that we must live by every jot and tittle of it (Matthew 5:18-19—note that Matthew 5:18 is the proof text for the section of chapter one to which I am referring). Christians can come to the true and full sense of every Scripture passage through appropriate rules of interpretation; nothing in God’s revelation is impossible to understand. That is the teaching of chapter one of the Westminster Confession of Faith, and, more importantly, that is the teaching of Scripture itself. Ward is misusing the Westminster Confession, just as he is taking Scripture out of context when he makes Paul’s warning tongues-speakers that they need to enunciate properly into a command to get rid of the KJV.
Ward continues, nineteen to twenty minutes in: “KJV-Onlyists constantly insist that the Bible itself teaches that the Hebrew and Greek texts of Scripture have been perfectly preserved, every jot and tittle. But one reason I don’t believe the Bible teaches this is hapaxes. God didn’t seem to be concerned to give us every last little detail with exhaustive certainty.”
Why do KJV-Onlyists constantly insist that the Bible itself teaches that the Hebrew and Greek texts of Scripture have been perfectly preserved, every jot and tittle? Because that is exactly what the text of Scripture says! “For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled. Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven: but whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 5:18-19). Christ’s words are true even without a “verily,” but he even adds “verily” to His command here. Until heaven and earth pass—which has not happened yet—not the smallest consonant or vowel—not the smallest Hebrew consonant, the yod, nor the smallest vowel, the chireq, a single dot—not one jot or tittle, shall pass away from the law. That is not just what some King James Onlyist said. That is what the Son of God promised. And the Son of God went on to say that we must live by every one of those words. You break even the least of His commands and you will be the least in the kingdom of heaven. God did not mess up and put in some words that are just gobbledygook. President Joe Biden may mess his words up as he, sadly, progresses into the senility of extreme old age, but God is the ever-living God, and He has a purpose—His glory, and our obedience—in every sentence, word, and letter of His infallible Word.
Do you see how Ward’s argument—if applied consistently—would not only undermine perfect preservation but also perfect inspiration? Let us change his statement a bit:
“KJV-Onlyists constantly insist that the Bible itself teaches that the Hebrew and Greek texts of Scripture have been perfectly inspired, every jot and tittle. But one reason I don’t believe the Bible teaches this is hapaxes. God didn’t seem to be concerned to give us every last little detail with exhaustive certainty.”
That would work just as well, would it not? Let us not reject what Matthew 5:18-19 teaches, but believe Christ and reject what Mark Ward says, most importantly because what God says is always true and we should believe His promises, even if we cannot explain historical data. However, here there are no historical data that are difficult to explain. All we have is Ward’s empty assertion that hapax legomena are not just difficult to understand, but that at least some of them are impossible, backed up by no proof of any kind. It is unfortunate that Brother Ward classifies his deeply flawed and clearly invalid argument as “profound.”
Dr. Ward goes on, twenty to twenty-three minutes into his video, to quote what the KJV translators said about hapax legomena. He says that since the 1611 KJV has marginal notes (he does not mention that the overwhelming majority of them are on the meaning of Hebrew and Greek words, not about textual variation, and none of them attack Biblical doctrine), therefore modern versions are justified in having textual footnotes. In other words, notes in modern versions that question if Mark 16:9-20 is Scripture, whether 1 Timothy 3:16 teaches the Deity of Christ, whether Isaiah wrote the book of Malachi or Malachi wrote the book of Malachi in Mark 1:2, whether Christ was killed by a spear thrust rather than dying from crucifixion in Matthew 27:49, and so on, are all justified, Dr. Ward claims, because of the marginal notes in the 1611 KJV. Because I do not think that Brother Ward is deliberately distorting the facts, I think he must never have watched my 1611 KJV Marginal Notes = Modern Version Textual Footnotes? James White Thomas Ross Debate Review #9[303] video, or, for that matter, spent much time comparing the marginal notes in the KJV with those in modern Bible versions. One reason I think this is that Ward quotes a statement by Augustine in the KJV preface as if it were a threat to my position, when I discuss that very quote in some detail in my marginal-note review video and show how James White misuses it—I doubt that Dr. Ward would ignore my explanation and misuse Augustine in a fashion similar to the way Dr. White misuses him if Dr. Ward were aware of my comments on it. In any case, Ward certainly never explains, or even comments upon, the rule the KJV translators were to follow: “No marginal notes at all be affixed, but only for the explanation of the Hebrew or Greek words, which cannot, without some circumlocution, so briefly and fitly be expressed in the text.”[304] There is an incredibly significant difference between notes explaining things like Hebrew idioms or pointing out what proper names mean in the 1611 KJV and notes in modern Bible versions attacking orthodox doctrine or inaccurately slanting manuscript evidence. I do not believe that Ward is deliberately making an invalid argument. I think he is just being sloppy here—again—and should have done more examination of the historical data before making one more invalid argument. The 1611 KJV does things like explaining in its margin that in Hebrew one communicates the idea of “of one language” by saying “of one lip” (Genesis 11:1). Because of the KJV’s incredible concern for accuracy, it informs the reader in the margin that the Hebrew says “lip” but the word was translated “language,” because “of one lip” would not make sense in English, although that is how the Hebrews conveyed that idea. How are notes such as this one supposed to justify textual notes in modern versions that cast doubt on verses of Scripture and teach heresy like the one in Matthew 27:49 in many modern versions that affirm that Christ did not die for our sins by crucifixion but was killed by a Roman soldier’s spear thrust? Ward also persistently confuses the fact that hapax legomena are some of the things “hard to be understood,” but still able to be understood. They are not things “impossible to be understood” and thus an unresolvable uncertainty. What is truly impossible to be understood is why we should find Brother Mark’s inaccurate argument convincing.
Dr. Ward moves on to what he calls my “seventh argument.” He does not comment on the following part of my video:
[T]he average four-year-old knows approximately 5,000 vocabulary words;[305] learning the approximately 300 archaic words in the KJV is adding to one’s vocabulary around 6% of what a four-year old child knows. In fact, if one does not even want to learn 6% of the vocabulary words of a four-year old child in order to read what scholars recognize as “demonstrably the greatest English Bible ever,” today with one’s phone, or with good Bible dictionaries such as the Way of Life Encyclopedia of the Bible and Christianity, or with a study Bible that defines the archaic words in the margin, it is easier and less time-intensive than at any time in history to find out what an unknown Biblical word means.
I suppose if one has nothing to say in response it is appropriate to say nothing. In any case, Dr. Ward makes no comment on those facts and skips to what I say afterwards. Ward begins with a quotation from the book Diachrony in Biblical Hebrew, edited by Cynthia L. Miller-Naudé and Ziony Zevit.[306] (Ward does not mention the name of the book or the page he is quoting); the quotation sounds very complicated. If Brother Mark wants to read about diachrony in Biblical Hebrew, that is just great; I wish, however, that he would carefully read his own book Authorized against the KJV and remove its mistakes first, and perhaps also eliminate the many mistakes in his videos’ arguments against the KJV, but I suppose he did not ask my opinion.
What is the last argument of mine to which Brother Ward responds? Up through minute 27 of his video he presents this argument I made:
Let me also point out that someone who reads the earliest portions of the Hebrew Old Testament is reading something written by Moses around 1,000 years before the latest portions of the inspired Hebrew Scriptures. Yet (unless you are a theological modernist who believes in JEDP or other intellectually bankrupt and false theories about textual revision) there was no inspired “updating” or “editing” of the Hebrew text to make it “more understandable.” In other words, Ezra, or Malachi, or some other one of God’s later prophets and Scripture writers, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, did not “update” the “archaic” books of Moses to change them from an “old” KJV sort of Hebrew to a “new” NKJV sort of Hebrew. As I pointed out earlier, if the English language changes to the extent that we no longer speak modern English—if the modern English of the KJV is no longer our language, but we now speak something as different from modern English as Beowulf’s Old English of Chaucer’s Middle English—then the Holy Spirit will lead true churches to agree that it is time to update the English of the KJV, with the likely agreement of any other saints who are not in true churches but who likewise believe in the perfect inspiration and preservation of Scripture coming to agreement. Nevertheless, the precedent of NOT updating, but leaving the text alone, that we see in the practice of the human authors of the later inspired books of the Old Testament leaving alone the “archaic” Hebrew from 1,000 years earlier, provides a principle that an accurate translation such as the KJV should not be updated lightly, carelessly, or needlessly.
How does he respond? Ward says: “Let me clear out the easy arguments first. We should not wait to update the KJV till the English of the KJV is as difficult as the English of Beowulf is today. That will be far, far too late. The English of Beowulf is completely unintelligible.” Of course, I was not saying we need to wait until the KJV is as hard to understand as Beowulf. I referenced Beowulf as an illustration because earlier in my video I had reproduced an excerpt from Beowulf for people who mistakenly say the KJV is Old English, just as I had quoted from Chaucer to show that the KJV is not Middle English. I gave the objective basis for when revision is justifiable—when the difficulty of the English text is sufficiently and consistently above what the difficulty of the Hebrew and Greek text is. Of course that point is before the Bible becomes like Beowulf.
Ward then goes back to his 1 Corinthians 14 argument again. He seems to be genuinely convinced that Paul’s command that tongues speakers enunciate clearly proves that the KJV should be set aside. This fact is amazing, but we have already discussed 1 Corinthians 14 earlier.
Ward continues, twenty-seven minutes in: “And yet the whole Old Testament uses basically the same style of Hebrew.” He seems to view this as part of my argument and also seems to think that this is in fact the case. It is ironic that the book that he has just cited without specifying its name, Diachrony in Biblical Hebrew, edited by Cynthia L. Miller-Naudé and Ziony Zevit, says exactly the opposite—early Biblical Hebrew and late Biblical Hebrew are different in their style, and that is why diachronic analysis of the language—analysis of how it changes over time—is possible. Then again, Ward did not say he actually had read this book; he merely gave a quotation from it that sounded complicated and said he had given it a “hard skim.” His statement also makes me wonder how much of the Hebrew Old Testament he has read. The Hebrew of Moses in the Pentateuch and the Hebrew of Solomon in Ecclesiastes are clearly different in style. I could give you some differences, but if you cannot read Hebrew, you will not understand what I am talking about, and if you can read Hebrew, you will not need me to explain it.
Up through minute thirty-one of his video, Ward says that the Jews would have been reticent to update their sacred text because it was a sacred text. I agree with Dr. Ward that this is a reasonable speculation. However, God, not Jeremiah, or Moses, or Malachi, is the ultimate Author of Scripture. Far more important than whatever Jether ben Jada the Jew in the 5th century B. C. believed about updating the Hebrew Moses wrote many hundreds of years earlier is the fact that God did not move His prophets to do any inspired updating. That fact is what Dr. Ward needs to explain.
Sadly, at this point Dr. Ward opens the door to theological modernism. Thirty-one minutes in, he says:
There are serious biblical scholars who think that the Old Testament went through a recension—just a formal term for “revision.” I do not believe it is inconsistent with an evangelical view of Scripture to think that Ezra, for example, may have done exactly what Ross describes. He may have updated the language of the Hebrew Bible. … I have an evangelical PhD friend who is an Old Testament guy who believes this is probably what occurred.
What is Ward saying is fine? Let me explain the standard theologically modernist view of what happened to the Old Testament. The allegedly uninspired Old Testament books, many of them not written by their purported authors, were supposedly changed up and down and left and right:
[S]cribes, aiming to teach the people by disseminating an understandable text, felt free to revise the script, orthography (i.e., spelling), and grammar, according to the conventions of their own times. … Hebrew possessed final short vowels … [t]he grammar preserved by the Masoretes, however, represents a later period, after these vowels had been dropped. … Shortly after the Arameans borrowed the alphabet from the Phoenicians (ca. 11th-10th centuries BCE), they began to indicate final vowels by using consonants which were homogeneous to them, namely, yod for final ī, waw for final ū, and he for the remaining signs. (In the [Masoretic Text] he is sometimes used for ō as well as for ā; this archaic spelling has largely been replaced by waw for ō.) Consonants used for indicating vowels are known as matres lectionis (‘mothers of reading’). The same system for the representation of final vowels was used in Moabite and Hebrew from the ninth century on. In Aramaic texts the system of vowel representation was extended sporadically to medial vowels after the ninth century. It was begun in Hebrew thereafter. The process coincided with diphthongal contractions in both Aramaic and Hebrew (e.g., *aw> ô as *yawm > yôm), and as a result yod and waw acquired new values: yod for ê < ay, and waw for o < aw; he later came to represent only the â vowel. Eventually other medial long vowels came to be notated, with yod used for –ī/ē– and waw for –ū/ō– (the last from historical long –ā-). … The process of inserting matres lectionis also continued. … More significantly, scribes altered the text for both philological and theological reasons. They modernized it by replacing archaic Hebrew forms and constructions with forms and constructions of a later age. They also smoothed out the text by replacing rare constructions with more frequently occurring constructions, and they supplemented and clarified the text by the insertion of additions and the interpolation of glosses from parallel passages. In addition, they substituted euphemisms for vulgarities, altered the names of false gods, removed the phrases that refer to cursing God, and safeguarded the sacred divine name or tetragrammaton (YHWH), occasionally by substituting forms in the consonantal text. … As a result of these intentional changes, along with unintentional changes (errors in the strict sense), varying recensions emerged … recensions and surrecensions[.] … The relationship of text types to actual texts is rarely simple: some books had more than one final form and recensions were followed by surrecensions.[307]
In other words, Christians today do not know who wrote the Biblical books. Maybe it was some secret “J” person, and some guy we call “E,” a “D” person, and an anonymous “P” individual for the Pentateuch. Maybe there were three “Isaiahs.” Moses certainly did not write the Pentateuch under the control of the Holy Spirit after a historical exodus from Egypt. Whoever wrote, or forged, or whatever, these ancient texts, in subsequent times scribes changed the grammar here, the syntax there, took a text with no vowels at all and much ambiguity and then added in letters representing vowels here and there. Then, later, other scribes removed letters representing vowels, and actual vowels were put in. This was added; that was taken away; this other thing was changed; archaic words were removed; other words were added in. Revisions, recensions, revisions of the recensions, and on and on, took place; books not only were written by anonymous people, then re-written by other anonymous people, but also there was more than one final form for various Biblical books. That is the standard modernist line on the Old Testament text, and Dr. Ward says he has a friend who is “evangelical” who thinks this “probably” occurred. Ward himself says he does not know—he will not condemn it as wickedness. Ward will call perfect preservationists “very dangerous.” What about the standard modernist view of the Old Testament? That is fine. No problem.
Note that all this tampering with the Old Testament supposedly went on before we have any Hebrew manuscript evidence. Once we actually have manuscript evidence, lo, the text is preserved. The Dead Sea Scrolls and other ancient Hebrew manuscripts from the Judean desert are amazingly accurate and incredibly close to the printed Hebrew Textus Receptus from which the KJV was translated, and even very close to the text currently used by the United Bible Society. It is interesting that all the tampering with the text supposedly only took place when we have no evidence, and as soon as we have actual manuscript evidence, the text is preserved. And is it not interesting that there is not one word about any of this revising, editing, adding in, taking away, recensions and surrecensions, in any ancient historical source? The Jews traditionally held that the “Masorites” are basically scribes who copied and preserved Scripture from the time of the original inspiration of the books of the Old Testament by their traditional authors, also believing that the Hebrew text is perfectly preserved.[308] Why did Christ and the Apostles never warn about the massive corruption and change that supposedly happened in days of yore to the Hebrew text, but instead taught that it was perfectly preserved to the jot and tittle (Matthew 5:18)? Why is there no reference to this corruption having taken place in Josephus’ Antiquities of the Jews? When Jewish writings from the Mishna to the Talmud discuss all kinds of extremely tiresome minutia at the greatest wearisome length, why do none of the rabbis say a word about all these points that the modernists today say took place? Is it not interesting that the extant manuscripts that we have do not show any of this taking place, but they look like the printed Hebrew Bible one can hold in his hands?
Friends, in Dr. Ward’s zeal to oppose the perfect preservation of Scripture and to oppose the English Bible version that God has blessed more than any other, he is compromising with actual theological liberalism. Not only is he advocating the Nestle-Aland Textus Rejectus in the New Testament—every single editor of which is against the infallible inspiration of Scripture—but he is open to a view of the Old Testament text that allows for massive corruption. Denying perfect preservation compromises perfect inspiration.
Thirty-three minutes in, Dr. Ward argues:
Ross speaks as if good Bible translators are somehow morally “justified” in including obsolete or archaic or obscure words because God did [so]. This is Ross’s argument, right? But aren’t they, in fact, not just justified but morally obligated to do so, given his viewpoint? … Should the KJV translators have avoided such words and gone back into Old English for words their readers didn’t know—in order to accurately reflect the Hebrew? Should the KJV translators have used words from Beowulfon purpose? … No, this would be foolish. I hope this view is self-refuting.
Of course, my video was not about making a new Bible translation. It was about when it is morally necessary to revisean already extant translation. Dr. Ward is making the assertion that it is “a great evil” to use the King James Version as one’s exclusive English Bible translation for pulpit preaching and personal evangelism and discipleship, looking at the original languages if one wants more information instead of possibly being misled by looking at the NIV or the Living Bible. Ward is saying that one is required to revise the KJV and set it aside. He stated: “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.”[309] Bob Jones University, his alma mater, is sinning—they are violating 1 Corinthians 14—when they use the KJV in chapel. Every church that preaches from the KJV is in sin; they are not pleasing God, but are sinning in every single message that they preach from the KJV. Every soulwinner is not pleasing God but sinning when he brings a KJV with him and knocks on a door. Why? Because Paul told people speaking in tongues to enunciate clearly in 1 Corinthians 14. Got it? I responded that the KJV’s English is within the level of difficulty of the Hebrew Old Testament and Greek New Testament. Contemporary Christians are not required to revise the KJV, since its level of linguistic difficulty is within the range established in the Hebrew Old Testament and the Greek New Testament. The KJV has simpler syntax, simpler vocabulary, and far fewer “hard” words than does either the Hebrew or the Greek. Therefore, based on the objective standard revealed in Scripture, we have no basis for saying that we are required to revise the KJV. I was not arguing about what needs to happen if one makes a new translation. Can Christians learn principles from the linguistic level of the Hebrew and Greek text about how they should make new translations? Of course. Was that what I was talking about? No. Do I think something ridiculous like that the KJV translators should have reached back into the radically different Old English of Beowulf and sprinkled some Old English into their translation? No, of course not. What would be an example of principles which can be gleaned from the Hebrew and Greek Scriptures when making a new translation? One principle would be that since God includes quite a few “hard” words in His inspired original language text Tyndale was justified in inventing a small number of words such as atonement and scapegoat in his Bible translation—words nobody at all was using, because they did not exist in the English language and so were hardly the common speech of ordinary people. Tyndale did not sin in creating these neologisms. The pre-KJV Tavener Bible did not sin when it invented the word Passover. The KJV translators did not sin when they retained old ecclesiastical words like propitiation. Translators can employ a small number of difficult words in their translations without sinning.
However, since this study is getting long enough, I am not going to seek to set forth an entire theology of Bible translation. I was making a point about when it is necessary to revise an already extant translation that has served God’s people very well. When is that? When its level of difficulty clearly exceeds that of the Hebrew Old Testament and the Greek New Testament. When is revision not necessary? Before that time. Is the KJV clearly more difficult than the Hebrew of the Old Testament or the Greek of the New? No. Therefore, based on good and necessary consequences of the standards God Himself has set forth in His Word, contemporary Christians need not revise it. Do I favor new and young Christians obtaining a study Bible that has the small number of archaic KJV words defined at the bottom of the page or in the margin? Yes, I think that is a great idea. Should Christian schools make sure that the children of Christian parents are taught archaic KJV words (and all other difficult Bible words), so that they understand what they read in their Bibles? Yes—and this can easily be done, because the few hundred “hard” KJV words are around 6% of the average four-year-old’s vocabulary. Additionally, if someone is reading the KJV on an electronic device and he comes to a word he does not know, he should put his finger over the word, pull up the definition, and find out what it means—just like Dr. Ward thinks a Christian should do if he does not know what gall or propitiation mean in the NASB or what must be done if readers want to understand “Is not Calno as Carchemish? is not Hamath as Arpad? is not Samaria as Damascus?” (Isaiah 10:9). But is Dr. Ward correct when he claims that people who preach from the KJV are sinning, violating 1 Corinthians 14, like someone would be who was miraculously speaking Chinese in a congregation where there were no Chinese speakers and no interpreters? No. That claim is ridiculous.
Thirty-five minutes into his video, Ward compares me to Roman Catholic defenders of the Latin Vulgate. I am compared to people who tortured and murdered Christians, compared to those who burned to death the saints who translated Scripture into the vernacular. Is this fair? Compare 1 Corinthians 15:1-4 in the Latin Vulgate and in the KJV. Which one is harder to understand?
1 Notum autem vobis facio, fratres, Evangelium, quod prædicavi vobis, quod et accepistis, in quo et statis, 2 per quod et salvamini: qua ratione prædicaverim vobis, si tenetis, nisi frustra credidistis. 3 Tradidi enim vobis in primis quod et accepi: quoniam Christus mortuus est pro peccatis nostris secundum Scripturas: 4 et quia sepultus est, et quia resurrexit tertia die secundum Scripturas: (Vulgate)
1 Moreover, brethren, I declare unto you the gospel which I preached unto you, which also ye have received, and wherein ye stand; 2 By which also ye are saved, if ye keep in memory what I preached unto you, unless ye have believed in vain. 3 For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures; 4 And that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures: (KJV)
If contemporary English speakers found both the Latin Vulgate and the KJV equally hard to understand, then Dr. Ward may have a great argument here, especially if he also has evidence that want to establish a state church (in violation of my Baptist convictions) and then burn people at the stake if they use any version other than the KJV. If readers of English did not find the KJV as hard to understand as the Latin, then maybe Dr. Ward needs to drop that argument, just like he needs to drop so many of the other ones that he makes. In fact, perhaps it would be wise to reevaluate his entire book attacking the KJV in light of its many inaccuracies and in light of the fact that Brother Ward did not even think about what we can learn from the level of difficulty found in the Old and New Testament original-language texts before writing a book claiming that the KJV’s English is too difficult.
Summary
What has been learned from this review of Dr. Ward’s book, Authorized: The Use and Misuse of the King James Bible, his survey of King James Only people, and his three videos responding to my Is the King James Version (KJV) Too Hard to Understand? James White / Thomas Ross Debate Review 11? Sadly, Dr. Ward’s book Authorized: The Use and Misuse of the King James Bible is not a work of careful scholarship. The book never establishes, or even attempts to establish, an objective, Biblical, exegetical standard for when vernacular Scripture should be revised, at what level of linguistic difficulty Scripture should be initially translated, or how literally or paraphrastically Scripture should be translated. It contains almost no exposition of Scripture at all. Dr. Ward has admitted that the idea of looking at the linguistic level of the Hebrew and Greek texts God has given His people in order to evaluate what is an appropriate level of difficulty for vernacular Bible translation never even entered his mind before he wrote his book. Ward’s main appeal to Scripture is a painfully out-of-context misuse of the mandate in 1 Corinthians 14 that someone miraculously speaking in a tongue enunciate and articulate clearly; from this command, Dr. Ward makes a massive leap to the conclusion that “[f]or 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.”[310] Brother Ward not only takes Scripture out of context, but also takes extrabiblical sources out of context and makes inaccurate affirmations about the Biblical languages in their historical setting. Advocates of the King James Version do not generally ignore his book because they cannot refute it. They ignore it because it deserves to be ignored.
What about Mark Ward’s survey, produced in conjunction with the “Textual Confidence Collective”? Ward claims his survey is the “last word,” providing definitive proof that even KJV-Only pastors do not understand the Authorized Version. Dr. Ward believes that the vast topic of a pastor’s understanding of that King James Version which he preaches and meditates upon day and night can be accurately assessed through a five-minute survey consisting of a handful of questions about archaic words and a handful more exclusively about second-person personal pronouns. Regrettably, his survey mischaracterizes KJV language as archaic when it is not archaic, misreads Hebrew and Greek lexica and English dictionaries, and calls KJV language archaic when it is identical to language found in commonly used modern versions themselves.
What about Dr. Ward’s three videos responding to my video Is the King James Version (KJV) Too Hard to Understand? James White / Thomas Ross Debate Review 11?[311] Dr. Ward made it difficult for his audience to locate my video, so that they could actually listen first-hand to the argument to which he was offering a response. The crucial question is: Does the level of English in the KJV fit well within the level of difficulty one finds in the Greek and Hebrew texts infallibly dictated by the Holy Ghost? My answer to that question was an unambiguous “yes.” Brother Ward had difficulty giving a clear answer. He said: “I believe that God inspired language that was generally accessible to the original hearers, in both testaments. Not easy as pie, not dummy speak; just generally intelligible.” This statement precisely describes the level of English in the KJV, but it seems that (in Ward’s mind) it does not. He also admitted that the KJV was Modern English, not Old English or Middle English. He said that it “is genuinely valuable to retain the original word order in translation if you can” and then admitted that the KJV did this more often than did versions such as the NIV and NASB. On the other hand, he denied that the KJV intended only to be comprehensible by the common man, instead affirming that the KJV was originally intended to be in the language of the common man. However, Ward admitted that he did not know why archaic verb endings and archaic second person pronouns—which undermined his argument—were retained in the Authorized Version. Brother Mark offered the humorous explanation that the KJV translators did not retain thee, thou, and thy for accuracy, but because they just never had the time to change and update them. He never commented on the extremely long sentences containing complex and beautiful linguistic ornamentation found in some portions of the Hebrew Old Testament, such as Proverbs 2:1-22, which is only one sentence in Hebrew. Nobody commonly spoke to his neighbor in sentences like Proverbs 2 either in 1,000 B. C. or in A. D. 1611, but such sentences were and are comprehensible to the common man. Nor did Dr. Ward dispute the fact that sentences like Ephesians 1:3-14 in Greek were longer than any sentence in the English of the Authorized Version. The fact is that the syntax of the King James Bible is simpler than the syntax of either the Hebrew Old Testament God gave for ancient rural Hebrew farmers to live by or the syntax of the Greek New Testament God gave to the lower-class peasants and slaves that were the majority of the members in first century churches. Dr. Ward never commented on the existence of many more archaisms in the more literary Greek of Luke-Acts, as evidenced in the greater use of the optative and the presence of the future perfect; I have never seen him discuss these facts or consider what principles can be drawn from them about the appropriate time to revise a vernacular translation or the appropriate level at which to make a new vernacular translation. Likewise, Dr. Ward never responded to my point about the KJV being literal “translation English” that is comprehensible but which nobody, whether in A. D. 1611 or in 2024, used as a spoken language. Nor did Dr. Ward explain or refute the fact that the level of literacy is far higher today than it was in Biblical times, and improving one’s reading ability is also much easier today than in Biblical times. Ward never commented upon nor refuted my statement that it is easier today than at any other time in history to find out the meaning of a “hard” word in the KJV; all it takes is the tap of one finger in a Bible app or the flicker of an eye to the margin or bottom of a page in a study Bible. Brother Ward never explained why his concerns about archaic words would not be sufficiently satisfied by new Christians using a study Bible that defines hard words in a marginal note.
Further, Dr. Ward did not dispute the fact that approximately 3,600 hapax legomena populate the Old and New Testaments, while the KJV contains only approximately 300 archaic words. He did not dispute that readers must learn several thousand more total words to read the Bible in Hebrew and Greek than he must learn to read the KJV in English. Nor did he dispute that the average four-year-old knows approximately 5,000 vocabulary words, so that learning the approximately 300 archaic words in the KJV is adding to one’s vocabulary around 6% of what a four-year old child knows.
Dr. Ward’s failure to explain so many crucial facts, combined with his humorous and unserious answers to those he did attempt to explain, provides compelling evidence against his case. However, Ward did attempt to offer certain counter-arguments. He claimed that if I were right, then translators should add in archaic words for no good reason when making new translations; supposedly Christians should be “adding unnecessary difficulties.” However, I never said anything of the kind, nor is such a necessary consequence of my argument, which was not even about making new translations but about the threshold beyond which it is appropriate to revise an already extant translation. Certainly, such Biblical data do justify William Tyndale’s creating words like “atonement” or “scapegoat” for his translation. Brother Ward claimed that I presented only the options of a “high” English and a “low” English; shortly before commenting on my discussion of how language changes over time and the progress from Old to Middle to Modern English, he said that I ignore that language changes over time. Dr. Ward stated that he was not endorsing “slang” Bibles, but failed to explain his warm endorsement of modern Bible versions that sinfully print actual foul language in their text.
Further, Ward made curious claims about the causes for some New Testament books containing harder Greek than other New Testament books. He has never, to my knowledge, provided any substantiation for his claims from Greek grammatical scholarship. He made puzzling and inaccurate assertions about Greek cases, unclear affirmations about Greek participles, and mistranslated the Greek New Testament in Hebrews 11:1 as part of his distorted attack upon literal translation and formal equivalence. In apparent ignorance of this common Greek grammatical category, he attempted to argue that the KJV did not practice literal translation, referencing examples where the KJV literally translates a participle of attendant circumstance. He made statements of highly questionable relevance, such as that “the NT is more like than unlike other Greek literature of the time,” without explaining how any work could be Koine Greek while being more unlike than like contemporary literature. While attempting to respond to my point about the Greek New Testament having more “hard” words than the English KJV, he discussed two examples of hapax legomena. For the first example, he claimed that a word did not appear “in literature from outside … the New Testament” based on “a check of the major lexicons,” when the word actually is found in the LXX and in much Greek literature outside of the New Testament—as a brief glance at major lexica indicates.
Ward proceeded to discuss a word in the model prayer that actually proved that Christ was willing to employ a very rare, “hard” word in the context of teaching simple, poorly-educated people crucial and practical teaching on prayer. This very rare, “hard” word was reproduced by the Holy Spirit in both Matthew’s and Luke’s Gospel. Ward mistranslated this word and also made an inaccurate claim concerning its vernacular use in pre-KJV English Bibles. His chosen word actually strongly undermines his own argument. Dr. Ward declined to answer my question about how many times he has read either the Greek New Testament or the Hebrew Old Testament cover-to-cover, and some of his claims about the original languages make me highly suspect that the answer is “zero.”
Brother Mark also referenced 1 Samuel 9:9, an indication of the existence of development in the Hebrew language that rendered the earlier word seer archaic in later times, but denied that any conclusion should be drawn from the presence of such archaic Hebrew words in the inspired Hebrew text. He claimed that the level of English in the KJV is uniform, a statement that is simply not the case, as a comparison of the first sentence of Luke’s Gospel and John’s Gospel illustrates. In fact, as an excellent and literal translation, the KJV seeks to replicate simpler Greek with simpler English and more complex Greek with more complex English. He confused things that are “hard to be understood” with something that is “impossible” to be understood, and then claimed that I think some of the Hebrew words in the Old Testament were impossible for the original audience to understand. Of course, I never said anything of the kind. Ward needed to explain why we need to get rid of the KJV because of a smaller number of more easilyunderstood “hard” words but retain the larger number of more difficult words in the original language texts. Instead, he begins to discuss words that are allegedly impossible to understand, refuting something I never said, and draws what he thinks is a “profound” argument against King James Onlyism from unidentified original language text words that he claims, without proof, are impossible to understand. He references the Westminster Confession of Faith, which does not support his assertion. Indeed, were Ward’s invalid and unscriptural argument at this point against perfect preservation valid, it would equally undermine perfect inspiration, and, for that matter, undermine his opposition to the KJV. If God can give His church words that are not only difficult, but even impossible to understand, and yet we must receive those Greek and Hebrew words, unrevised, unmodified, until the end of time, how can Ward claim that we need to get rid of the King James Version because of a small number of words—less than 10% of the number of hapax legomena that are found in the original language text—that are far from impossible, but only slightly difficult to understand?
Brother Ward then proceeded to conflate the marginal notes in the 1611 KJV, which were overwhelmingly about literal translation of the Hebrew and Greek text, and none of which undermine Biblical doctrine, with textual notes in modern Bible versions that do attack Biblical doctrine. He then states that we should not wait to revise the KJV until it is as hard to understand as Beowulf—of course, I never said that we should. Then, in order to attack perfect preservation, Ward opens the door to the theologically liberal ideas of Old Testament “updating” that are totally unacceptable to a Christian view of the Bible as the Word of God. Sadly, consistent opposition to perfect preservation leads to a denial of perfect inspiration. Brother Ward concludes by a grossly unfair comparison of my position to that of the Roman Catholic religion, where people were burned people at the stake for reading the Bible in a language other than Latin.
To summarize my summary of Ward’s three videos: I had argued that the level of language difficulty in the KJV fits within the parameters of the difficulty of the Hebrew Old Testament and the Greek New Testament. Revision of the KJV is not necessary, since the English of the KJV is not clearly and substantially more difficult to read than the infallible texts God gave His ancient people, and revision of the KJV will become necessary only if the English language changes to the point where the KJV is clearly more difficult to read than the original language text was for the ancient Hebrews and first-century Christians. Dr. Ward attempted to argue against my claim, but his arguments were very often not against what I had actually said but were against what (I assume) were honest misunderstandings of my affirmations. When he was actually not misunderstanding my argument, what he said never came close to proving that the English of the KJV was substantially more difficult than the Hebrew of the Old Testament or the Greek of the New.
Thus, Mark Ward is wrong. English-speaking Christians should continue to love, read, study, meditate upon, evangelize, and preach from the English KJV.[312]
May the God who revealed His very mind to us in Scripture through His Personal Word and by His eternal Spirit confirm every Christian reader of this work in wholehearted love for and unwavering faith in that ineffably glorious and infallible Word. Amen!
Faithsaves.net
[1] Please note that this response to Mark Ward is a popular-level production, and, as such, employs colloquialisms and a variety of linguistic phenomena amenable to common rather than scholarly discourse.
[2] Mark Ward, Authorized: The Use & Misuse of the King James Bible, ed. Elliot Ritzema, Lynnea Fraser, and Danielle Thevenaz. Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2018.
[3] https://faithsaves.net/james-white-debate-bible-versions-kjv-lsb/; https://rumble.com/v30sdv4-is-the-king-james-version-kjv-too-hard-to-understand-james-white-thomas-ros.html (KJBIBLE1611 Rumble channel); https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9fmV6O75cEA&list=PLo8hPX0f2leb9pIbbGFMtZJ-gZ0Oou37X&index=12 (KJB1611 YouTube channel playlist); https://youtu.be/9fmV6O75cEA (KJB1611 YouTube channel).
[4] Mark Ward, Brand New KJV-Only Arguments (Part 1 of 3), elec. acc. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mBc3cixRUH8. Mark Ward, More New KJV-Only Arguments (Part 2 of 3), elec. acc. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ptCEUdna6I8. Mark Ward, Surprising New KJV-Only Arguments! (Part 3 of 3), elec. acc. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GSWa3Pchgkw.
[5] https://kjbstudyproject.com.
[6] The debate video, along with a preview and review of the debate, is available at https://faithsaves.net/Mark-Ward-Daniel-Haifley/. Some of the material in the debate review video was produced for this more wide-ranging review of Mark Ward’s arguments.
[7] Dr. Brandenburg has a number of blog posts at his What is Truth? blog, https://kentbrandenburg.com, responding to material by Mark Ward.
[8] https://www.youtube.com/@markwardonwords.
[9] https://www.youtube.com/@KJB1611Baptist.
[10] I do have some concern based on the fact that, to my knowledge, despite a great many videos on his YouTube channel and many written resources, Dr. Ward has never described in detail his profession of conversion and new life in Christ (contrast https://faithsaves.net/testimonies/; https://www.lvbaptist.org/changed-lives/).
[11] If Dr. Ward’s material is largely not worth reading, why the lengthy response? Dr. Ward’s popularization of a King James Onlyist who denies the true gospel is what prompted me to spend the time to create the response below. I do not want good, pro-KJV churches moved away from a pure gospel by the false teacher whom Dr. Ward popularized by debate and dialogue. Thus, while concern for the perfectly preserved Word is certainly a factor in my taking the time to respond, my overriding motivation was love and concern for Christ, His gospel, His people, and the needy children of Adam who must repent and believe or be eternally lost. For more on my motivation, see: https://faithsaves.net/Mark-Ward-Daniel-Haifley/.
[12] Mark Ward, “A Year of Silence from my KJV-Only Brothers,” October 17, 2024, elec. acc. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-FZH4Xn72ww.
[13] Mark Ward / Larry Haifley debate, elec. acc. https://faithsaves.net/Mark-Ward-Daniel-Haifley/.
[14] Mark Ward, Authorized: The Use & Misuse of the King James Bible, ed. Elliot Ritzema, Lynnea Fraser, and Danielle Thevenaz (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2018), 43. In a certain sense, Ward is correct—because he employs an idiosyncratic definition of “false friend” and provides no English scholars or linguists who employ the phrase as he does, not only in relation to the KJV, but in relation to any body of English literature, it could indeed easily be possible that nobody would think about “false friends” as Ward defines the term without picking up his book. But would readers have a cornucopia of ways to understand the KJV without his book? Yes.
[15] For the implications of this confession to the question of the inspiration and authority of the Hebrew vowel points, see Thomas Ross, “The Debate over the Inspiration of the Hebrew Vowel Points & “Evidences for the Inspiration of the Hebrew Vowel Points,” and John Gill, “The Antiquity of the Hebrew Language, Letters, Vowels, and Accents,” elec. acc. https://faithsaves.net/Bibliology/.
[16] Paul Ferguson, “Preservation of the Bible: Providential or Miraculous? A Response to Jon Rehurek of the Master’s Seminary,” Paul Ferguson. The Burning Bush 15:2 (July 2009) 73-74, https://faithsaves.net/james-white-debate-bible-versions-kjv-lsb/ & https://faithsaves.net/inspiration-preservation-scripture/.
[17] Dwayne Green, Debate Retrospective with Dr. Mark Ward | Part 2, November 11, 2024. Elec. acc. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MAMuJcQKYOo&. In this same video, Ward also claims that he does not discuss textual criticism with perfect preservationist Christians because he claims that the Received Text cannot really be the issue for them; if it were, they would be fine with contemporary English versions of the TR. Of course, the reality is that those who have reverent care for God’s promises about the preservation of Scripture also care deeply about Scripture’s principles and promises that relate to translation and to the Spirit-led reception of canonical original language and vernacular Scripture by the church, and concern for Scripture’s teaching on those topics leads by good and necessary consequence to the exclusive use of the English KJV instead of inferior TR-based alternatives like the NKJV. It is unfortunate that Dr. Ward can so easily dismiss the fact that KJV-Only Christians regularly state and write that the preserved Textus Receptus, the original language textual basis for translation, is the main issue for them, and, without a shred of written evidence to the contrary, reject what they themselves say for his own speculative conclusion that what they themselves constantly affirm is not truly the case.
[18] καὶ οὐδενὶ οὐδὲν εἶπον, ἐφοβοῦντο γάρ. Note the imperfect of ἐφοβοῦντο and the ungrammatical ending of the entire book with γάρ.
[19] It is difficult to reconcile Dr. Ward’s claims in his videos that my arguments concerning the level of linguistic difficulty in the Authorized Version are new ones that he had never thought of previously and pages 66-68 of his book Authorized, where he makes (inaccurate and dubious) claims about the type of language in the Greek New Testament and Hebrew Old Testament and draws conclusions from them.
[20] Mark Ward, Authorized: The Use & Misuse of the King James Bible, ed. Elliot Ritzema, Lynnea Fraser, and Danielle Thevenaz (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2018), 137. King James Only Christians believe it would be better to look at the original language texts of Scripture for deeper study of God’s Word, instead of looking at a multitude of modern English versions, because: 1.) The vast majority of modern English versions are not even translating the same words as the preserved words in the Received Text. 2.) Very few modern versions are anywhere near as literal as the KJV. 3.) Very few modern translators knew the Biblical languages as well as did the KJV’s translators. 4.) No English vernacular versions have received the same blessing from the Spirit and recognition by the churches in their confessional, liturgical, and devotional life. Thus, while it is not a sin for an English-speaking reader to read something like a translation made by a commentator in an exegetical commentary on a particular Biblical book, one is far more likely to gain deeper understanding, and less likely to be misled, by going ad fontes when engaging in deep study of Scripture, rather than by reading the same verse in a cornucopia of questionably reliable modern English versions. Compare Thomas Ross, “Reasons Christians Should and Can Learn Greek and Hebrew, the Biblical Languages,” elec. acc. https://faithsaves.net/learn-greek-hebrew/.
[21] https://faithsaves.net/Mark-Ward-Daniel-Haifley/. Ward also made some apparently contradictory affirmations that seemed to qualify in imprecise ways his declaration that people who give their children King James Bibles are not pleasing God but are committing sin.
[22] Mark Ward, Authorized: The Use & Misuse of the King James Bible, ed. Elliot Ritzema, Lynnea Fraser, and Danielle Thevenaz (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2018), 65.
[23] Mark Ward, Authorized: The Use & Misuse of the King James Bible, ed. Elliot Ritzema, Lynnea Fraser, and Danielle Thevenaz (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2018), 65.
[24] Mark Ward, Authorized: The Use & Misuse of the King James Bible, ed. Elliot Ritzema, Lynnea Fraser, and Danielle Thevenaz (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2018), 65.
[25] A.T. Robertson, Word Pictures in the New Testament (Nashville, TN: Broadman Press, 1933), 1 Co 14:9.
[26] Walter Grundmann, “Εὔσημος,” ed. Gerhard Kittel, Geoffrey W. Bromiley, and Gerhard Friedrich, Theological Dictionary of the New Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1964–), 770.
[27] “Εὔσημος,” in Franco Montanari, Ivan Garofalo & Daniela Manetti, Brill Dictionary of Ancient Greek, trans. Madeleine Goh & Chad Schroeder (Boston, MA: Brill, 2018), 867
8 Adolf Deissmann and Lionel Richard Mortimer Strachan, Light from the Ancient East: The New Testament Illustrated by Recently Discovered Texts of the Graeco-Roman World (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1910), 29.
[28] Mark Ward, Authorized: The Use & Misuse of the King James Bible, ed. Elliot Ritzema, Lynnea Fraser, and Danielle Thevenaz (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2018), 66.
[29] Daniel B. Wallace, Greek Grammar beyond the Basics: An Exegetical Syntax of the New Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1996), 22–23.
[30] It is possible that Dr. Ward could respond that his claim that the papyri are in “the very same language as these everyday documents” was not a claim that the papyri are at the same literary level as the New Testament, but merely that both the papyri and the New Testament are “in” the same language—Greek. In that case, his claim is rescued from falsehood by becoming trivial and trite; all Koine Greek, from the most difficult to the simplest, is in the same language, Greek.
[31] Mark Ward, Authorized: The Use & Misuse of the King James Bible, ed. Elliot Ritzema, Lynnea Fraser, and Danielle Thevenaz (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2018), 63.
[32] James K. Aitken, ed., The T&T Clark Companion to the Septuagint, Bloomsbury Companions (London; New Delhi; New York; Sydney: Bloomsbury, 2015), 2.
[33] James K. Aitken, ed., The T&T Clark Companion to the Septuagint, Bloomsbury Companions (London: Bloomsbury, 2015), 5.
[34] Note that different styles in the LXX do not prove that portions of the Old Testament were translated into Greek in different centuries or eras. Rather, it would support the idea that the LXX was produced by more than one translator (dare one say, approximately seventy translators?), something also supported by the actually extant historical evidence in the Letter of Aristeas.
[35] I say “allegedly” made, since Ward provides no sources for his claim that KJV advocates state the KJV was purposefully made archaic.
[36] See the discussion in ‘“Is the King James Version (KJV) Too Hard to Understand? James White / Thomas Ross Debate Review 11,” elec. acc. https://faithsaves.net/james-white-debate-bible-versions-kjv-lsb/.
[37] Mark Ward, Authorized: The Use & Misuse of the King James Bible, ed. Elliot Ritzema, Lynnea Fraser, and Danielle Thevenaz (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2018), 31, 34, 49. Italics in original. Dr. Ward also claims that the KJV has “phrases and syntax and punctuation” that readers do not know, but since he did not give even one example of how modern readers are misled and misinterpret Scripture based on KJV syntax, punctuation, or phrases, this claim will be ignored.
[38] John McWhorter, Words on the Move: Why English Won’t—And Can’t—Sit Still (Like, Literally) (New York: Henry Holt, 2016), 87.
[39] Mark Ward, Authorized: The Use & Misuse of the King James Bible, ed. Elliot Ritzema, Lynnea Fraser, and Danielle Thevenaz (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2018), 31.
[40] Dr. Ward offers the mind-boggling advice that both “[r]egular Bible readers” and even “scholars studying the KJV” “should look up the OED for every word” (Mark Ward, Authorized: The Use & Misuse of the King James Bible, ed. Elliot Ritzema, Lynnea Fraser, and Danielle Thevenaz [Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2018], 62), quoting David Clines, who would be highly likely to disagree with the idea that it is necessary for regular readers to look up “the” and “a” and “tree,” whether in Shakespeare or in the KJV. Ward’s claim is outlandish enough that one suspects that he may not really believe it, and almost certainly has not practiced it, but I am unaware of any evidence that he has either renounced or qualified it.
[41] E. g., David Cloud, Believer’s Bible Dictionary (London, Ontario: Way of Life Literature, 2020); Trinitarian Bible Society, “A Bible Word List.” Elec. acc. https://www.tbsbibles.org/page/BibleWordList.
[42] Noah Webster, Noah Webster’s First Edition of An American Dictionary of the English Language. (Anaheim, CA: Foundation for American Christian Education, 2006).
[43] As discussed below, Ward claims that the KJV was already too archaic and (allegedly) in violation of 1 Corinthians 14 in 1828, and thus justifies his dubious claim that Webster’s 1828 Dictionary is insufficient for understanding the KJV by making the even more dubious claim that the KJV was already impossibly archaic in 1828, but nobody noticed for well over a century
[44] Mark Ward, Authorized: The Use & Misuse of the King James Bible, ed. Elliot Ritzema, Lynnea Fraser, and Danielle Thevenaz (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2018), 62.
[45] Mark Ward, Fifty False Friends in the KJV: Series Intro, April 9, 2020. Elec. acc. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y4WnlmubwFs.
[46] William Tyndale, Doctrinal Treatises and Introductions to Different Portions of the Holy Scriptures, ed. Henry Walter, vol. 1, The Works of William Tyndale (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1848), 390–391.
[47] David L. Allen, The Atonement: A Biblical, Theological, and Historical Study of the Cross of Christ (Nashville, TN: B&H Academic, 2019), 15; Stanley Malless & Jeffrey McQuain, Coined by God: Words and Phrases That First Appear In the English Translations of the Bible(New York: Norton, 2003), 18-19, 26-27, 30, 33-34, 65-66, 84-85, 124, 143-144, 146, 156, 173, 175-177, 180. The words cited by Malless and McQuain are “only a fraction of the words, phrases, rhythms, and idioms that have entered the English language as a result of biblical translations” (pg. xiv, ibid).
[48] That is, these words “have no earlier recorded history in written or printed English” (Stanley Malless & Jeffrey McQuain, Coined by God: Words and Phrases That First Appear In the English Translations of the Bible [New York: Norton, 2003], xiv). It is, of course, impossible to prove absolutely that nobody had ever used them orally or in a document which has since perished.
[49] There remaineth therefore a rest to the people of God. ἄρα ἀπολείπεται σαββατισμὸς τῷ λαῷ τοῦ Θεοῦ.
[50] E. g., “Give us this day our daily bread,” τὸν ἄρτον ἡμῶν τὸν ἐπιούσιον δὸς ἡμῖν σήμερον· (Matthew 6:11).
[51] Origen, Origen: Prayer, Exhortation to Martyrdom, ed. Johannes Quasten and Joseph C. Plumpe, trans. John J. O’Meara, vol. 19, Ancient Christian Writers (Mahwah, NJ: Newman Press, 1954), 96–97.
[52] Mark Ward, Authorized: The Use & Misuse of the King James Bible, ed. Elliot Ritzema, Lynnea Fraser, and Danielle Thevenaz (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2018), 31.
9 John McWhorter, Words on the Move: Why English Won’t—And Can’t—Sit Still (Like, Literally) (New York: Henry Holt, 2016), 87.
[53] Mark Ward, Authorized: The Use & Misuse of the King James Bible, ed. Elliot Ritzema, Lynnea Fraser, and Danielle Thevenaz (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2018), 31.
[54] Mark Ward, Authorized: The Use & Misuse of the King James Bible, ed. Elliot Ritzema, Lynnea Fraser, and Danielle Thevenaz (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2018), 31.
[55] https://www.wayoflife.org/.
[56] https://www.tbsbibles.org/.
[57] Compare the discussion in Thomas Ross, Is the King James Version (KJV) Too Hard to Understand? James White / Thomas Ross Debate Review 11. Elec. acc. https://faithsaves.net/james-white-debate-bible-versions-kjv-lsb/.
[58] The Cambridge Paragraph Bible of the Authorized English Version (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1873), cxvii–cxviii. The translators were specifically discussing old ecclesiastical words.
[59] ἐδάκρυσεν ὁ Ἰησοῦς.
[60] Bruce K. Waltke, The Book of Proverbs, Chapters 1–15, The New International Commentary on the Old Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2004), 216–217.
[61] Todd J. Murphy, Pocket Dictionary for the Study of Biblical Hebrew, The IVP Pocket Reference Series (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2003), 81; cf. Mitchell Dahood, “Ebla: Archaeological Discoveries And Biblical Research.” Bible and Spade 9:3–4 (1980): 66, for the figure of 1,700 hapax legomena in the Old Testament.
[62] William D. Mounce, Pastoral Epistles, vol. 46 of Word Biblical Commentary Accordance electronic ed. (Grand Rapids : Zondervan, 2000), cxvi; 1,900 is the figure listed.
[63] The Cambridge Paragraph Bible of the Authorized English Version (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1873), cxvi.
[64] Scholars supply a variety of figures for the total number of KJV archaisms, as the quantity depends somewhat on how such words are defined. The Greek grammarian and textual scholar Dan Wallace, writing for the purpose of convincing people to turn away from the KJV and with no incentive to minimize KJV difficulties or the number of KJV archaisms, writes: “300 words found in the KJV no longer bear the same meaning” (Dan Wallace, “Why I Do Not Think the King James Bible Is the Best Translation Available Today,” elec. acc. https://bible.org/article/why-i-do-not-think-king-james-bible-best-translation-available-today). Three hundred or less is a reasonable approximate total number of KJV archaisms (inclusive of Ward’s category of “false friends”).
[65] Nickee LeonHuld, “How Many Words Does the Average Person Know?” elec. acc. https://wordcounter.io/blog/how-many-words-does-the-average-person-know/.
[66] John Noble Coleman, The Book of Job: Translated from the Hebrew With Notes Explanatory, Illustrative, and Critical (London: James Nisbet and Co., 1869), xi.
[67] James E. Smith, The Old Testament Books Made Simple, The Bible Made Simple (Joplin, MO: College Press Publishing Company, 2009), 122.
[68] J. A. Cook, “Hebrew Language,” ed. Tremper Longman III and Peter Enns, Dictionary of the Old Testament: Wisdom, Poetry & Writings (Downers Grove, IL; IVP Academic, 2008), 261.
[69] James E. Smith, The Wisdom Literature and Psalms, Old Testament Survey Series (Joplin, MO: College Press, 1996), 9.
[70] C. L. Seow, Job 1–21: Interpretation and Commentary, ed. C. L. Seow, Illuminations (Grand Rapids, MI; Eerdmans, 2013), 47.
[71] Shamefully, Dr. Ward signals his openness to this theological liberalism in Mark Ward, More New KJV-Only Arguments (Part 3 of 3),April 25, 2024, elec. acc. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GSWa3Pchgkw&. Please note the review of this video by Dr. Ward below.
[72] Mark Ward, Authorized: The Use & Misuse of the King James Bible, ed. Elliot Ritzema, Lynnea Fraser, and Danielle Thevenaz (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2018), 31, 34, 49. Italics in original. Dr. Ward also claims that the KJV has “phrases and syntax and punctuation” that readers do not know; but since he did not give even one example of how modern readers are misled and misinterpret Scripture based on KJV syntax, punctuation, or phrases, this claim will be ignored.
[73] The statistic on the number of words comes from a search utilizing Accordance Bible Software. Of course, the archaic words may occur in more than one passage, so a comparison of 300 to 790,868 is not entirely apples to apples. On the other hand, the more frequently used an archaic KJV word is, the more easily context and usage demonstrates its meaning.
[74] Mark Ward, Authorized: The Use & Misuse of the King James Bible, ed. Elliot Ritzema, Lynnea Fraser, and Danielle Thevenaz (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2018), 49, 74.
[75] Mark Ward, Brand New KJV-Only Arguments (Part 1 of 3), May 2, 2024. Elec. acc. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mBc3cixRUH8. Note that Dr. Ward will, based on his survey’s scanty and problematic evidence, conclude that his attack on the KJV is “the last word on the matter,” but he is very hostile to the claim that the KJV, or any other English Bible version, or any specific Hebrew or Greek text, is “the last word,” despite the overwhelming evidence for the Hebrew and Greek Received Texts and their vernacular representation in the Authorized Version. For Ward, highly dubious evidence against the KJV is “the last word,” but neither the preserved Hebrew and Greek Textus Receptus nor the KJV itself can by any means be “the last word.”
[76] https://kjbstudyproject.com.
[77] Mark Ward, Brand New KJV-Only Arguments (Part 1 of 3), May 2, 2024. Elec. acc. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mBc3cixRUH8.
[78] Riverside Baptist Church, A Pastor’s Response to Mark Ward’s KJV Readability Survey, October 20, 2024. Elec. acc. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RKo7hViFuEk&.
[79] There is also one Hophal (Genesis 4:26), where the verb means “began.”
[80] II and III חָלַל in BDB and HALOT.
[81] Ludwig Koehler et al., The Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1994–2000) & Francis Brown, Samuel Rolles Driver, and Charles Augustus Briggs, Enhanced Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew and English Lexicon (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1977), 820.
[82] David J. A. Clines, ed., The Dictionary of Classical Hebrew: English–Hebrew Index; Word Frequency Table, vol. IX (Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix Press, 2016), 13.
[83] Anthony Gelston, “Some Difficulties Encountered by Ancient Translators,” in Sôfer Mahîr: Essays in Honour of Adrian Schenker, ed. Yohanan A. P. Goldman, Arie van der Kooij, and Richard D. Weis, VTSup 110 (Boston: Brill, 2006), 47-53, 58.
[84] Friedrich Blass, Albert Debrunner, and Robert Walter Funk, A Greek Grammar of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1961), 71.
[85] Matthew 19:4, 8; 24:8, 21; Mark 1:1; 10:6; 13:8, 19; Luke 1:2; 12:11; 20:20; John 1:1-2; 2:11; 6:64; 8:25, 44; 15:27; 16:4; Acts 10:11; 11:5, 15; 26:4; Romans 8:38; 1 Corinthians 15:24; Ephesians 1:21; 3:10; 6:12; Philippians 4:15; Colossians 1:16, 18; 2:10, 15; 2 Thessalonians 2:13; Titus 3:1; Hebrews 1:10; 2:3; 3:14; 5:12; 6:1; 7:3; 2 Peter 3:4; 1 John 1:1; 2:7, 13-14, 24; 3:8, 11; 2 John 5-6; Jude 6; Revelation 1:8; 3:14; 21:6; 22:13.
[86] Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, et al., A Greek-English Lexicon (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996), 252, ent. “ἀρχή.”
[87] For Christ the archē being the One who begins the creation in Revelation 3:14, see Robert L. Thomas, Revelation 1-7: An Exegetical Commentary (Chicago: Moody Publishers, 1992), 302–304; on the other hand, for archē emphasizing “ruler” in Revelation 3:14 see Leon Morris, Revelation: An Introduction and Commentary, vol. 20, Tyndale New Testament Commentaries (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1987), 84. Compare the NASB and the NIV:
“And to the angel of the church in Laodicea write: The Amen, the faithful and true Witness, the Beginning of the creation of God, says this.” (NASB)
“To the angel of the church in Laodicea write: These are the words of the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the ruler of God’s creation.” (NIV)
[88] While this is not a definitive statement, I believe that one is more likely to run across “false friend” type words in the Hebrew Old Testament than in the Greek New Testament, very possibly because of how Hebrew revolves around trilateral roots.
[89] More than one sentence from the KJV was supplied because the King James Version’s sentences are much shorter and simpler than the initial sentences of the Canterbury Tales and Piers Plowman.
[90] Mark Ward, “Responding to a KJV-Onlyist Who Did His Homework!” November 21, 2024, elec. acc. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jtK5kG7j2Tk. It deserves notice that Ward’s argument appears incoherent. Was the KJV too archaic in the 1770s, or was it only (allegedly) in the late 1800s? Such problems arise in large part because Dr. Ward does not define sufficient intelligibility in terms of the objective standard revealed in language level of the Greek and Hebrew Testaments.
[91] Mark Ward, “Responding to a KJV-Onlyist Who Did His Homework!” November 21, 2024, elec. acc. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jtK5kG7j2Tk. It deserves notice that Ward’s argument appears incoherent. Was the KJV too archaic in the 1770s, or was it only (allegedly) in the late 1800s? Such problems arise in large part because Dr. Ward does not define sufficient intelligibility in terms of the objective standard revealed in language level of the Greek and Hebrew Testaments.
[92] John McWhorter, Words on the Move: Why English Won’t—And Can’t—Sit Still (Like, Literally) (New York: Henry Holt, 2016).
[93] “[C]ompared to Shakespeare’s prodigal 31,000-word vocabulary, the KJB works its magic with a lexicon of just 12,000 words” (James D. G. Dunn, “The KJV New Testament: What Worked for the Translators and What Did Not?” in David G. Burke, John F. Kutso & Philp H. Towner, eds, The King James Version at 400: Assessit its Genius as a Bible Translation and Its Literary Influence [Society of Biblical Literature, 2013] , 254). See also Ward E. Y. Elliott and Robert J. Valenza, “Shakespeare’s Vocabulary: Did it Dwarf All Others?” in Mireille Ravassat and Jonathan Culpeper, Stylistics and Shakespeare’s Language: Transdisciplinary Approaches (New York: Continuum, 2011), 43.
[94] John McWhorter, Words on the Move: Why English Won’t—And Can’t—Sit Still (Like, Literally) (New York: Henry Holt, 2016), 86.
[95] David Crystal, The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language, 3rd ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019)
[96] David Crystal & Ben Crystal, The Oxford Illustrated Shakespeare Dictionary (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015).
[97] David Crystal, “Shakespeare’s false friends,” elec. acc. https://blog.oup.com/2015/04/shakespeares-false-friends/.
[98] John McWhorter, Words on the Move: Why English Won’t—And Can’t—Sit Still (Like, Literally) (New York: Henry Holt, 2016), 87. He also states that some readers “might” not get much more comprehension when reading the passages on a page, that is, those readers who do not employ the “certain effort” he speaks of on the previous page.
[99] John McWhorter, Words on the Move: Why English Won’t—And Can’t—Sit Still (Like, Literally) (New York: Henry Holt, 2016), 91.
[100] John McWhorter, Words on the Move: Why English Won’t—And Can’t—Sit Still (Like, Literally) (New York: Henry Holt, 2016), 92.
[101] John McWhorter, Words on the Move: Why English Won’t—And Can’t—Sit Still (Like, Literally) (New York: Henry Holt, 2016), 86, 92.
[102] John McWhorter, Words on the Move: Why English Won’t—And Can’t—Sit Still (Like, Literally) (New York: Henry Holt, 2016), 93.
[103] John McWhorter, Words on the Move: Why English Won’t—And Can’t—Sit Still (Like, Literally) (New York: Henry Holt, 2016), 93-94. Whether one agrees with Dr. McWhorter that changing Shakespeare would improve the Bard’s oral performance, or whether good acting and good education does not require such an update, is not the point under discussion; the arguments of Mark Ward about the KJV, not of John McWhorter about Shakespeare, are the focus of this study.
[104] Mark Ward, Authorized: The Use & Misuse of the King James Bible, ed. Elliot Ritzema, Lynnea Fraser, and Danielle Thevenaz (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2018), 49.
[105] Mark Ward, Authorized: The Use & Misuse of the King James Bible, ed. Elliot Ritzema, Lynnea Fraser, and Danielle Thevenaz (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2018), 49.
[106] Mark Ward, Authorized: The Use & Misuse of the King James Bible, ed. Elliot Ritzema, Lynnea Fraser, and Danielle Thevenaz (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2018), 49.
[107] Mark Ward, Authorized: The Use & Misuse of the King James Bible, ed. Elliot Ritzema, Lynnea Fraser, and Danielle Thevenaz (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2018), 49.
[108] Mark Ward, Authorized: The Use & Misuse of the King James Bible, ed. Elliot Ritzema, Lynnea Fraser, and Danielle Thevenaz (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2018), 74.
[109] It is not possible to examine the bibliography in Ward’s book Authorized to ascertain what scholars of English he studied before publishing his book, as his book contains no bibliography at all.
[110] Mark Ward, Authorized: The Use & Misuse of the King James Bible, ed. Elliot Ritzema, Lynnea Fraser, and Danielle Thevenaz (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2018), 49.
[111] Perhaps the next designation of English will be Post-Modern English. Whether or not one is speaking or writing Modern English or Post-Modern English will differ from person to person; it will be true for you, but not for me.
[112] While difficult, it is not impossible to convince people that what is intuitively obvious is false. Significant segments of the English-speaking population have been convinced that through mutilating their bodies, males can become females and women can become men, and encouraging people to mutilate their healthy bodily organs and become permanently sterile is kindness that affirms their gender, not cruelty and madness.
[113] Mark Ward, Authorized: The Use & Misuse of the King James Bible, ed. Elliot Ritzema, Lynnea Fraser, and Danielle Thevenaz (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2018), 32–33.
[114] Consider the verse in the Hebrew, LXX, and Vulgate:
וַיִּגַּ֨שׁ אֵלִיָּ֜הוּ אֶל־כָּל־הָעָ֗ם וַיֹּ֙אמֶר֙ עַד־מָתַ֞י אַתֶּ֣ם פֹּסְחִים֮ עַל־שְׁתֵּ֣י הַסְּעִפִּים֒ אִם־יְהוָֹ֤ה הָֽאֱלֹהִים֙ לְכ֣וּ אַחֲרָ֔יו וְאִם־הַבַּ֖עַל לְכ֣וּ אַחֲרָ֑יו וְלֹֽא־עָנ֥וּ הָעָ֛ם אֹת֖וֹ דָּבָֽר׃
καὶ προσήγαγεν Ηλιου πρὸς πάντας, καὶ εἶπεν αὐτοῖς Ηλιου Ἕως πότε ὑμεῖς χωλανεῖτε ἐπ̓ ἀμφοτέραις ταῖς ἰγνύαις; εἰ ἔστιν κύριος ὁ θεός, πορεύεσθε ὀπίσω αὐτοῦ· εἰ δὲ ὁ Βααλ αὐτός, πορεύεσθε ὀπίσω αὐτοῦ. καὶ οὐκ ἀπεκρίθη ὁ λαὸς λόγον.
Accedens autem Elias ad omnem populum, ait: Usquequo claudicatis in duas partes? si Dominus est Deus, sequimini eum: si autem Baal, sequimini illum. Et non respondit ei populus verbum.
[115] Mark Ward, Fifty False Friends in the KJV: Series Intro. April 9, 2020. Elec. acc. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y4WnlmubwFs.
[116] https://kjbstudyproject.com/.
[117] See the results of a survey of 100 individuals who claimed to be KJV-Only at https://kjbstudyproject.com/. The survey’s results have not been verified, reproduced, or determined to be unbiased; they should be viewed as anecdotal, not scientific.
[118] Mark Ward / Daniel Haifley debate transcript, elec. acc. https://faithsaves.net/Mark-Ward-Daniel-Haifley/.
[119] https://kjbstudyproject.com/.
[120] Mark Ward, Authorized: The Use & Misuse of the King James Bible, ed. Elliot Ritzema, Lynnea Fraser, and Danielle Thevenaz (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2018), 23–24. Ward draws sweeping generalizations about “not one” of c. 10,000 people, including many adults and seminary-trained pastors, understanding a particular clause of the KJV (Psalm 37:8c in “Cease from anger, and forsake wrath: fret not thyself in any wise to do evil.”) based upon his affirmation that he “asked around the camp.” Apparently of c. 10,000 people, who were all supposed to memorize Psalm 37:8, the only one who cared if he understood what the verse meant was Mark Ward himself; all the other pastors, Christian adults, and other people neither understood, nor cared if they understood, nor took the time to understand when they realized they did not understand, a verse of Scripture that they were to memorize and meditate upon. How does Mark Ward know that c. 10,000 people all had such a sinful lack of love for God’s Word? He “asked around.” Dr. Ward’s ability to make this kind of sweeping and derogatory generalization about thousands of godly people based on the scantiest of evidence may be illustrative of the type of corroboration he finds sufficient to draw very broad conclusions.
One notes, as well, that Dr. Ward writes: “I hope you’re dying to know: what does ‘fret not thyself in any wise to do evil’ mean? I still can’t tell you; to this day I don’t know what the KJV wording means” (Ibid, pg. 23). It is unfortunate that Dr. Ward can remain ignorant of the meaning of Psalm 37:8c for decades and can claim that thousands and thousands of other people likewise do not know—or even care—what it means, when all he needed to do was look up the word “fret” in Webster’s 1828 dictionary, where he could have read: “To tease; to irritate; to vex; to make angry. Fret not thyself because of evil doers. Ps. 37.” Compare the definition for the Hebrew verb in the Hithpael: “heat oneself in vexation” (BDB) “show oneself angry, be vexed” (DCH). It is unclear if Ward has any basis outside of his imagination for his assumption that not one of the c. 10,000 pastors, adults, and youth whom he claimed were willingly ignorant of the meaning of this phrase took around one minute to look up the word. That Dr. Ward will remain ignorant of what a KJV phrase means after several decades, when its meaning is so easy to discover, may also illustrate that the depth of research in Authorized needs improvement.
[121] https://faithsaves.net/Mark-Ward-Daniel-Haifley/.
[122] Mark Ward, “Fifty False Friends in the KJV: Series Intro,” April 9, 2020. Elec. acc. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y4WnlmubwFs.
[123] Ward / Haifley debate, https://faithsaves.net/Mark-Ward-Daniel-Haifley/.
[124] Mark Ward, Authorized: The Use & Misuse of the King James Bible, ed. Elliot Ritzema, Lynnea Fraser, and Danielle Thevenaz (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2018), 32–33.
[125] For example, Biblegateway.com lists the AMPC, Darby, and JUB versions.
[126] פֹּסְחִים֮.
[127] עַד־מָתַ֞י אַתֶּ֣ם פֹּסְחִים֮ עַל־שְׁתֵּ֣י הַסְּעִפִּים֒.
[128] David J. A. Clines, ed., The Dictionary of Classical Hebrew (Sheffield, England: Sheffield Academic Press; Sheffield Phoenix Press, 1993–2011), 723.
[129] Victor P. Hamilton, “1787 פָּסַח,” ed. R. Laird Harris, Gleason L. Archer Jr., and Bruce K. Waltke, Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament (Chicago: Moody Press, 1999), 729.
[130] Ronald E. Clements, “פִּסֵּחַ,” ed. G. Johannes Botterweck, Helmer Ringgren, and Heinz-Josef Fabry, trans. Douglas W. Stott, Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2003), 26.
[131] χωλαίνω.
[132] χωλαίνω, Johan Lust, Erik Eynikel, and Katrin Hauspie, A Greek-English Lexicon of the Septuagint: Revised Edition (Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft: Stuttgart, 2003).
[133] claudı̆co.
[134] Charlton T. Lewis & Charles Short, Harpers’ Latin Dictionary (New York: Clarendon Press, 1891), 350.
[135] Noah Webster, Noah Webster’s First Edition of An American Dictionary of the English Language. (Anaheim, CA: Foundation for American Christian Education, 2006), “Halt.”
[136] Mark Ward, Authorized: The Use & Misuse of the King James Bible, ed. Elliot Ritzema, Lynnea Fraser, and Danielle Thevenaz (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2018), 49.
[137] פָּסַח.
[138] The complete list of occurrences is: Exodus 12:13, 23, 27; 2 Samuel 4:4; 1 Kings 18:21, 26; Isaiah 31:5.
[139] διατρέχω; lexica give definitions such as “run through” and “run about” (Lust; LSJ: Brill DAG).
[140] The New English Translation of the Septuagint renders the verb as “go limping.” Both the translation of the NETS and of Brenton are acceptable for χωλαίνω.
[141] Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short, Harpers’ Latin Dictionary (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1891), 1891, transı̆lı̆o.
[142] Ward / Haifley debate, https://faithsaves.net/Mark-Ward-Daniel-Haifley/.
[143] J. A. Simpson & E. S. C Weiner, The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993), 1050-1051, specifically The Compact Oxford Engish Dictionary, 2nd ed., the “complete text, reproduced micrographically” of the unabridged OED, reproduced in one large volume by placing nine pages on each page of text in very small print, readable with a magnifying glass.
The OED affirms that the sense of “halt” as a synonym for “stop” developed from a military term for a “temporary stoppage in a march or journey” and from that military sense “sometimes in later use” became “a mere synonym of ‘stop.’” Dr. Ward could perhaps argue that the sense of the word as a synonym for “stop” did not yet exist in 1611 (although he does not provide anything like this level of nuance in his Authorized, nor in his video discussing “halt” as a “false friend,” namely, his Fifty False Friends in the KJV: Series Intro, April 9, 2020, elec. acc. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y4WnlmubwFs, nor in any other source of which I am aware). However, the OED lists four examples of “halt” meaning “stop” from the seventeenth century and never affirms that the earliest listed example, from 1656, is the first usage in English history. Indeed, the OED’s 1656 example listed of “halt” in the sense of “stop” comes from a dictionary by Thomas Blount’s entitled Glossographia, which its title explains covers “words … now used in our refined English tongue.” In 1656 Blount defined “halt” as “to stop, stay, or make a stand or pause” (Thomas Blount, Glossographia: or a Dictionary Interpreting all such Hard Words of Whatever Language now employed in our Refined English Tongue; with Etymologies, Definitions, and Historical Observations on the Same, 2nd ed. [London: Tho. Newcomb, 1661], entry “halt.”). Thus, in 1656 “halt” in the sense of “stop” was already in common enough use to appear in a dictionary; there is every reason to think that the word could be used in the sense of “stop” in 1611. Furthermore, the verb “halt” in the sense of “stop” (OED, pg. 1051) is associated with the word “halt” which developed from a military phrase into general usage for a “temporary stoppage on a march or journey” (pg. 1050). This latter usage “was before 1611 taken into the Romanic lang[uages].” Examples in English are listed from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Thus, the OED lends support, rather than questioning or refuting, the existence of the meaning of the English word “halt” as “stop” at the time of the Authorized, King James Version’s translation. Furthermore, someone who is “walking unsteadily or hesitatingly,” which the OED defines as the sense of “halt” in both the 1382 Wycliffe and the 1611 King James Bibles, is regularly stopping as he shuffles along.
[144] Mark Ward, Fifty False Friends in the KJV: Series Intro, April 9, 2020. Elec. acc. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y4WnlmubwFs.
[145] Mark Ward, Fifty False Friends in the KJV: Series Intro, April 9, 2020. Elec. acc. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y4WnlmubwFs.
[146] Dr. Ward appears to be telling the truth when he says that he “never use[s] the paper editions of the Oxford English Dictionary,” but is using something else, as in his Do We All Get “Mansions” in Heaven? video (elec. acc. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zp2BzZ0PrHY) he posts what he affirms are pictures from the OED starting at 7 minutes into his video. The listed definitions are strikingly different from what one will read in a paper copy of the 1993 unabridged Oxford English Dictionary. The probability that Ward is using something other than a physical OED, while never bothering to check his claims with the physical book, may indicate that he is simply sloppy and unscholarly, not deliberately deceitful.
[147] That is, the unabridged electronic OED supplies definition #3 for halt as: “To walk unsteadily or hesitatingly; to waver, vacillate, oscillate; to remain in doubt. Esp. in the scriptural phrase ‘to halt between two opinions’ … 1382[,] How long halt ȝe into two parties? [1611 How long halt ye between two opinions?] Bible (Wycliffite, early version) 1 Kings xviii. 21” (Oxford English Dictionary, s.v. “halt (v.1), sense 3,” July 2023, https://doi.org/10.1093/OED/1433920434).
[148] Ward / Haifley debate, https://faithsaves.net/Mark-Ward-Daniel-Haifley/.
[149] Ironically, the front cover of the anti-KJV apologist James R. White’s book The Potter’s Freedom (Greenville, SC: Calvary Press, 2000) states that White is rebutting a “theology which halts between two opinions.” It appears that the anti-KJV apologist James White and the anti-KJV apologist Mark Ward failed to compare notes, for what Dr. Ward thinks is a key example of a “false friend” is right on the cover of his anti-KJV brother James White’s book.
[150] https://kjbstudyproject.com/.
[151] https://faithsaves.net/Mark-Ward-Daniel-Haifley/.
[152] Mark Ward, “Study” Doesn’t Mean What You Think It Does, October 25, 2020. Elec. acc. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nzgmi6I2HIE&.
[153] https://kjbstudyproject.com/.
[154] https://kjbstudyproject.com/.
[155] Mark Ward, “Study” Doesn’t Mean What You Think It Does, October 25, 2020. Elec. acc. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nzgmi6I2HIE&.
[156] While misunderstanding any word of Scripture is wrong and something to take seriously, if one of the greatest sadnesses one has in his life or in his work as a minister of Jesus Christ is that people with whom one has interacted misunderstand one archaic word, he has been blessed to enjoy a very, very easy life. Compare the cause for what Dr. Ward calls “horrifying” and “sad” with the experience of the Apostle Paul:
Are they ministers of Christ? … I am more; in labours more abundant, in stripes above measure, in prisons more frequent, in deaths oft. Of the Jews five times received I forty stripes save one. Thrice was I beaten with rods, once was I stoned, thrice I suffered shipwreck, a night and a day I have been in the deep; In journeyings often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils by mine own countrymen, in perils by the heathen, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren; In weariness and painfulness, in watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness” (2 Corinthians 11:23-27).
[157] Mark Ward, “Study” Doesn’t Mean What You Think It Does, October 25, 2020. Elec. acc. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nzgmi6I2HIE&.
[158] Mark Ward, “Study” Doesn’t Mean What You Think It Does, October 25, 2020. Elec. acc. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nzgmi6I2HIE&.
[159] Mark Ward, “Study” Doesn’t Mean What You Think It Does, October 25, 2020. Elec. acc. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nzgmi6I2HIE&.
[160] The definition does appear in the electronic OED as of 12/9/2024. The entry indicates it was revised in 2015.
[161] Henry George Liddell & Robert Scott, rev. Henry Stuart Jones, A Greek-English Lexicon (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996).
[162] Franco Montanari, Ivan Garofalo & Daniela Manetti, Brill Dictionary of Ancient Greek, trans. Madeleine Goh & Chad Schroeder. (Boston, MA: Brill, 2018).
[163] E. A. Sophocles, “Σπουδάζω,” Greek Lexicon of the Roman and Byzantine Periods (From B. C. 146 to A. D. 1100) (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1900), 1005.
[164] G. W. H. Lampe, ed., “Σπουδάζω,” A Patristic Greek Lexicon (Oxford: At The Clarendon Press, 1961), 1250.
[165] Strabo, Geography, 17:3:2. Κυρηναῖος δʼ ἐστὶ καὶ Καλλίμαχος καὶ Ἐρατοσθένης, ἀμφότεροι τετιμημένοι παρὰ τοῖς Αἰγυπτίων βασιλεῦσιν, ὁ μὲν ποιητὴς ἅμα καὶ περὶ γραμματικὴν ἐσπουδακώς, ὁ δὲ καὶ ταῦτα καὶ περὶ φιλοσοφίαν καὶ τὰ μαθήματα εἴ τις ἄλλος διαφέρων. He was a studious (σπουδάζω) man who “occupie[d] himself with literary texts, [a] grammarian” (LSJ, γραμματικός).
[166] Ἐν γὰρ τῷ ὀγδόῳ καὶ τριακοστῷ ἔτει ἐπὶ τοῦ Εὐεργέτου βασιλέως παραγενηθεὶς εἰς Αἴγυπτον καὶ συγχρονίσας εὑρὼν οὐ μικρᾶς παιδείας ἀφόμοιον ἀναγκαιότατον ἐθέμην καὶ αὐτός τινα προσενέγκασθαι σπουδὴν καὶ φιλοπονίαν τοῦ μεθερμηνεῦσαι τήνδε τὴν βίβλον πολλὴν ἀγρυπνίαν καὶ ἐπιστήμην προσενεγκάμενος ἐν τῷ διαστήματι τοῦ χρόνου πρὸς τὸ ἐπὶ πέρας ἀγαγόντα τὸ βιβλίον ἐκδόσθαι καὶ τοῖς ἐν τῇ παροικίᾳ βουλομένοις φιλομαθεῖν. Sirach employs σπουδή, not σπουδάζω, but the words share the same root.
[167] Antiquities 20:263 (20.11.2): ἔχω γὰρ ὁμολογούμενον παρὰ τῶν ὁμοεθνῶν πλεῖστον αὐτῶν κατὰ τὴν ἐπιχώριον παιδείαν διαφέρειν καὶ τῶν Ἑλληνικῶν δὲ γραμμάτων ἐσπούδασα μετασχεῖν τὴν γραμματικὴν ἐμπειρίαν ἀναλαβών, τὴν δὲ περὶ τὴν προφορὰν ἀκρίβειαν πάτριος ἐκώλυσεν συνήθεια.
[168] War 2:136 (2.8.6): σπουδάζουσι δ’ ἐκτόπως περὶ τὰ τῶν παλαιῶν συντάγματα μάλιστα τὰ πρὸς ὠφέλειαν ψυχῆς καὶ σώματος ἐκλέγοντες· ἔνθεν αὐτοῖς πρὸς θεραπείαν παθῶν ῥίζαι τε ἀλεξητήριον καὶ λίθων ἰδιότητες ἀνερευνῶνται.
[169] War 2:3 (2.1.1): οὐδὲ γὰρ ἐν Ἱεριχοῦντι τῆς στρατιᾶς τὸ διάδημα περιαπτούσης αὐτῷ δεδέχθαι· τοῦ μέντοι προθύμου καὶ τῆς εὐνοίας ὥσπερ τοῖς στρατιώταις οὕτω καὶ τῷ δήμῳ πλήρεις ἀποδώσειν τὰς ἀμοιβάς, ὁπόταν. ὑπὸ τῶν κρατούντων βασιλεὺς ἀποδειχθῇ βέβαιος· σπουδάσειν γὰρ ἐν πᾶσιν πρὸς αὐτοὺς φανῆναι τοῦ πατρὸς ἀμείνων.
[170] Antiquities 16:203 (16.7.3): χαριζομένη δ’ ἐκείνη τῇ μητρὶ πολλάκις ἔλεγεν, ὡς μέμνηνται μὲν ἰδιάζοντες ἐκεῖνοι τῆς Μαριάμμης, ἐστυγήκασι δὲ τὸν πατέρα, συνεχὲς δὲ διαπειλοῦσιν, εἰ τύχοιεν αὐτοί ποτε τῆς ἀρχῆς, τοὺς μὲν ἐκ τῶν ἄλλων γυναικῶν παῖδας Ἡρώδῃ γεγενημένους κωμογραμματεῖς καταστήσειν· ἁρμόσειν γὰρ εἰς τοιαύτην χρείαν τὸ νῦν ἐπιμελὲς αὐτῶν καὶ πρὸς παιδείαν ἐσπουδασμένον.
[171] Antiquities 1:10 (P.3): Εὗρον τοίνυν, ὅτι Πτολεμαίων μὲν ὁ δεύτερος μάλιστα δὴ βασιλεὺς περὶ παιδείαν καὶ βιβλίων συναγωγὴν σπουδάσας ἐξαιρέτως ἐφιλοτιμήθη τὸν ἡμέτερον νόμον καὶ τὴν κατ’ αὐτὸν διάταξιν τῆς πολιτείας εἰς τὴν Ἑλλάδα φωνὴν μεταβαλεῖν,
[172] Apion 1:116 (1.18): Ἀλλὰ πρὸς τούτῳ παραθήσομαι καὶ Μένανδρον τὸν Ἐφέσιον. γέγραφεν δὲ οὗτος τὰς ἐφ’ ἑκάστου τῶν βασιλέων πράξεις τὰς παρὰ τοῖς Ἕλλησι καὶ βαρβάροις γενομένας ἐκ τῶν παρ’ ἑκάστοις ἐπιχωρίων γραμμάτων σπουδάσας τὴν ἱστορίαν μαθεῖν. See also Antiquities 12:12 (12.2.1) & Apion 1:24 (1.5).
[173] προϊὼν δὲ ἐς ἡλικίαν, ἐν ᾗ γράμματα, μνήμης τε ἰσχὺν ἐδήλου καὶ μελέτης κράτος, καὶ ἡ γλῶττα Ἀττικῶς εἶχεν, οὐδ᾽ ἀπήχθη τὴν φωνὴν ὑπὸ τοῦ ἔθνους, ὀφθαλμοί τε πάντες ἐς αὐτὸν ἐφέροντο, καὶ γὰρ περίβλεπτος ἦν τὴν ὥραν. γεγονότα δὲ αὐτὸν ἔτη τεσσαρεσκαίδεκα ἄγει ἐς Ταρσοὺς ὁ πατὴρ παρ᾽ Εὐθύδημον τὸν ἐκ Φοινίκης. ὁ δὲ Εὐθύδημος ῥήτωρ τε ἀγαθὸς ἦν καὶ ἐπαίδευε τοῦτον, ὁ δὲ τοῦ μὲν διδασκάλου εἴχετο, τὸ δὲ τῆς πόλεως ἦθος ἄτοπόν τε ἡγεῖτο καὶ οὐ χρηστὸν ἐμφιλοσοφῆσαι, τρυφῆς τε γὰρ οὐδαμοῦ μᾶλλον ἅπτονται σκωπτόλαι τε καὶ ὑβρισταὶ πάντες καὶ δεδώκασι τῇ ὀθόνῃ μᾶλλον ἢ τῇ σοφίᾳ Ἀθηναῖοι, ποταμός τε αὐτοὺς διαρρεῖ Κύδνος, ᾧ παρακάθηνται, καθάπερ τῶν ὀρνίθων οἱ ὑγροί. τό τοι‘ παύσασθε μεθύοντες τῷ ὕδατι’ Ἀπολλωνίῳ πρὸς αὐτοὺς ἐν ἐπιστολῇ εἴρηται. μεθίστησιν οὖν τὸν διδάσκαλον δεηθεὶς τοῦ πατρὸς ἐς Αἰγὰς τὰς πλησίον, ἐν αἷς ἡσυχία τε πρόσφορος τῷ φιλοσοφήσοντι καὶ σπουδαὶ νεανικώτεραι καὶ ἱερὸν Ἀσκληπιοῦ καὶ ὁ Ἀσκληπιὸς αὐτὸς ἐπίδηλος τοῖς ἀνθρώποις. ἐνταῦθα ξυνεφιλοσόφουν μὲν αὐτῷ Πλατώνειοί τε καὶ Χρυσίππειοι καὶ οἱ ἀπὸ τοῦ περιπάτου, διήκουε δὲ καὶ τῶν Ἐπικούρου λόγων, οὐδὲ γὰρ τούτους ἀπεσπούδαζε, τοὺς δέ γε Πυθαγορείους ἀρρήτῳ τινὶ σοφίᾳ ξυνέλαβε: διδάσκαλος μὲν γὰρ ἦν αὐτῷ τῶν Πυθαγόρου λόγων οὐ πάνυ σπουδαῖος, οὐδὲ ἐνεργῷ τῇ φιλοσοφίᾳ χρώμενος, γαστρός τε γὰρ ἥττων ἦν καὶ ἀφροδισίων καὶ κατὰ τὸν Ἐπίκουρον ἐσχημάτιστο:
[174] Eusebius, Ecclesistical History 3:3, trans. in Ecclesiastical History Books 1–5, ed. Roy Joseph Deferrari, trans. Roy Joseph Deferrari, vol. 19, The Fathers of the Church (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 1953), 139. Ὅμως δὲ πολλοῖς χρήσιμος φανεῖσα, μετὰ τῶν ἄλλων ἐσπουδάσθη Γραφῶν.
[175] J. A. Simpson & E. S. C Weiner, The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993), 979-981 (multi vol) 1936 (one vol).
[176] Sirach 0:1-3.
[177] The Cambridge Paragraph Bible: Of the Authorized English Version (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1873), cvii.
[178] “Study,” def. 4a, OED. Note also the sense of “studieth” in the broader sense of “meditation” in Prov. 15:28; 24:2.
[179] J. A. Simpson & E. S. C Weiner, The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993), 980-981 (multi vol) 1936 (one vol).
[180] J. A. Simpson & E. S. C Weiner, The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993), 981 (multi vol) 1936 (one vol).
[181] J. A. Simpson & E. S. C Weiner, The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993), 982 (multi vol) 1936 (one vol).
[182] Oxford English Dictionary, s.v. “study (v.), sense III.12.b,” September 2024, https://doi.org/10.1093/OED/8486707212.
[183] Oxford English Dictionary, s.v. “study (v.), sense III.13.a,” September 2024, https://doi.org/10.1093/OED/1174905927.
[184] Thus, note:
Study to shewe thy selfe laudable unto God a workmā that nedeth not to be a shamed/dividyng the word of the truth justly. (Tyndale)
Study to shewe thy selfe vnto God a laudable workman, that nedeth not to be ashamed, deuydynge the worde of trueth iustly. (Coverdale)
Studie to shewe thy selfe approued vnto God, a workman not to be ashamed, rightlie deuidyng the worde of trueth. (Bishops)
Studie to shewe thy self approved unto God, a workemã that nedeth not to be ashamed, dividing the worde of trueth aright. (Geneva)
[185] Mark Ward, “Study” Doesn’t Mean What You Think It Does, October 25, 2020. Elec. acc. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nzgmi6I2HIE&.
[186] Mark Ward, “Study” Doesn’t Mean What You Think It Does, October 25, 2020. Elec. acc. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nzgmi6I2HIE&.
[187] https://kjbstudyproject.com/.
[188] Mark Ward, “Study” Doesn’t Mean What You Think It Does, October 25, 2020. Elec. acc. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nzgmi6I2HIE&.
[189] https://faithsaves.net/Mark-Ward-Daniel-Haifley/.
[190] Mark Ward, Do We All Get “Mansions” in Heaven? March 24, 2022. Elec. acc. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zp2BzZ0PrHY.
[191] https://faithsaves.net/Mark-Ward-Daniel-Haifley/.
[192] https://faithsaves.net/Mark-Ward-Daniel-Haifley/.
[193] Mark Ward, Do We All Get ‘Mansions’ in Heaven? March 24, 2022. Elec. acc. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zp2BzZ0PrHY. After admitting that it was a “bummer” that God did not, allegedly, promise His people “mansions,” Ward attempted to encourage his audience that things will be great even though they will just have a “room,” because God will be with them. Of course, in the KJV, God is still with His people, and for that very reason He gives them “mansions.”
[194] Pseudo-Clementine Homilies 1:15, translation cited from Pseudo-Clement of Rome, “The Clementine Homilies,” in Fathers of the Third and Fourth Centuries: The Twelve Patriarchs, Excerpts and Epistles, the Clementina, Apocrypha, Decretals, Memoirs of Edessa and Syriac Documents, Remains of the First Ages, ed. Alexander Roberts, James Donaldson, and A. Cleveland Coxe, trans. Thomas Smith, vol. 8, The Ante-Nicene Fathers (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Company, 1886), 227. The Greek text reads:
Ἐπιβάντος δέ μου τῆς γῆς καὶ ξενίαν θηρωμένου, ἔμαθον ὅτι Πέτρος τις λεγόμενος, τοῦ ἐν Ἰουδαίᾳ εἰσφανέντος ἀνδρὸς τοῦ σημεῖα καὶ τέρατα πεποιηκότος ὁ δοκιμώτατος ὑπάρχων μαθητής, αὔριον Σίμωνι τῷ ἀπὸ Γιτθῶν Σαμαρεῖ ζήτησιν ποιεῖται λόγων. Ἐγὼ δὲ ταῦτα ἀκούσας ἐδεήθην τὴν τούτου μοι μηνυθῆναι μονήν· καὶ ὁμῶς ἔμαθον καὶ τῷ πυλῶνι ἐπέστην. Θεασάμενοι δὲ οἱ ἐν τῷ οἴκῳ ἀντέβαλον τίς τε ὢν καὶ πόθεν ἥκω.
[195] ἡ δὲ οἰκία ἡ ἐσωτέρα ἐστὶν ἡ αἰωνία μονή. (Desert 47:16, from APOPHTHEGMATA PATRUM, Patrologiae Graecae, vol. 65, ed. J. P. Migne. English translation in John Behr, ed., Give Me a Word: The Alphabetical Sayings of the Desert Fathers, trans. John Wortley, vol. 52, Popular Patristics Series (Yonkers, NY: St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2014), 135. This testimony is somewhat undercut by the allegorical context and the equation of the μονή not just with an οἰκία but also with an ἐνδότερος κοιτών:
Ἔλεγε δὲ πάλιν τῷ ἀδελφῷ ὁ γέρων περὶ τῆς ψυχῆς τῆς θελούσης μετανοῆσαι· Πόρνη ἦν ὡραῖα ἐν τινὶ πόλει, καὶ πολλοὺς φίλους εἶχεν. Ἐλθὼν δὲ πρὸς αὐτὴν εἷς ἄρχων, εἶπεν αὐτῇ· Σύνθου μοι σωφρονεῖν, κἀγώ σε λαμβάνω εἰς γυναῖκα. Ἡ δὲ συνέθετο αὐτῷ. Καὶ λαβὼν αὐτὴν ἀπήγαγεν εἰς τὸν οἶκον αὐτοῦ. Οἱ δὲ φίλοι αὐτῆς, ζητοῦντες αὐτήν, ἔλεγον· Ὁ δεῖνα ὁ ἄρχων ἔλαβεν αὐτὴν εἰς τὸν οἶκον αὐτοῦ· ἐὰν οὖν ἀπέλθωμεν εἰς τὸν οἶκον αὐτοῦ, καὶ μάθῃ, τιμωρεῖται ἡμᾶς. Ἀλλὰ δεῦτε ὀπίσω τῆς οἰκίας, καὶ συρίσωμεν αὐτῇ· καὶ γνωρίζουσα τὴν φωνὴν τοῦ συριγμοῦ, καταβαίνει πρὸς ἡμᾶς, καὶ ἡμεῖς ἀναίτιοι εὑρισκόμεθα. Ἀκούσασα οὖν τοῦ συριγμοῦ, ἐσφράγισε τὰ ὦτα αὐτῆς, καὶ εἰσεπήδησεν εἰς τὸν ἐνδότερον κοιτῶνα, καὶ ἔκλεισε τὰς θύρας. Ἔλεγε δέ, τὴν πόρνην εἶναι τὴν ψυχήν· οἱ δὲ φίλοι αὐτῆς εἰσι τὰ πάθη καὶ οἱ ἄνθρωποι· ὁ δὲ ἄρχων ἐστὶν ὁ Χριστός· ἡ δὲ οἰκία ἡ ἐσωτέρα ἐστὶν ἡ αἰωνία μονή. Οἱ δὲ συρίζοντες αὐτῇ εἰσιν οἱ πονηροὶ δαίμονες· αὐτὴ δὲ διαπαντὸς φεύγει πρὸς τὸν Κύριον.
[196] Josephus, Antiquities 13:40-42 (13.2.1):
When these were read, these wicked men and deserters, who were in the citadel, were greatly afraid, upon the king’s permission to Jonathan to raise an army, and to receive back the hostages: so he delivered every one of them to his own parents; and thus did Jonathan make his abode at Jerusalem, renewing the city to a better state, and reforming the buildings as he pleased; for he gave orders that the walls of the city should be rebuilt with square stones, that it might be more secure from their enemies; and when those that kept the garrisons that were in Judea saw this, they all left them, and fled to Antioch, excepting those that were in the city Bethsura, and those that were in the citadel of Jerusalem, for the greater part of these was of the wicked Jews and deserters, and on that account these did not deliver up their garrisons.
ἀναγνωσθέντων δὲ τούτων οἱ ἀσεβεῖς καὶ φυγάδες οἱ ἐκ τῆς ἀκροπόλεως λίαν ἔδεισαν ἐπιτετροφότος Ἰωνάθῃ τοῦ βασιλέως στρατιὰν συλλέγειν καὶ τοὺς ὁμήρους ἀπολαβεῖν. ὁ δὲ τοῖς γονεῦσιν ἑκάστῳ τὸν ἴδιον ἀπέδωκεν. καὶ οὕτως μὲν Ἰωνάθης ἐν Ἱεροσολύμοις τὴν μονὴν ἐποιεῖτο καινίζων τὰ κατὰ τὴν πόλιν καὶ πρὸς τὴν αὐτοῦ βούλησιν κατασκευάζων ἕκαστον. ἐκέλευσε γὰρ οἰκοδομηθῆναι καὶ τὰ τείχη τῆς πόλεως ἐκ λίθων τετραγώνων, ὡς ἂν ᾖ καὶ πρὸς τοὺς πολέμους ἀσφαλέστερα. ταῦτα δ’ ὁρῶντες οἱ τῶν φρουρίων τῶν ἐν τῇ Ἰουδαίᾳ φύλακες ἐκλιπόντες αὐτὰ πάντες ἔφυγον εἰς Ἀντιόχειαν πάρεξ τῶν ἐν Βαιθσούρᾳ πόλει καὶ τῶν ἐν τῇ ἄκρᾳ τῶν Ἱεροσολύμων· οὗτοι γὰρ ἡ πλείων μοῖρα τῶν ἀσεβῶν καὶ πεφευγότων Ἰουδαίων ἦσαν καὶ διὰ τοῦτο τὰς φρουρὰς οὐκ ἐγκατέλιπον.
[197] Life of Moses 1:330, English translation from Charles Duke Yonge & Philo of Alexandria, The Works of Philo: Complete and Unabridged (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1995), 490. ἡμεῖς μὲν οὖν καθὰ καὶ πρότερον συνταξάμενοι διαβησόμεθα τὸν Ἰορδάνην ἐν ταῖς παντευχίαις, οὐδενὶ τῶν ὁπλιτῶν πρόφασιν παρασχόντες μονῆς· υἱοὶ δὲ κομιδῇ νήπιοι καὶ θυγατέρες καὶ γυναῖκες καὶ τὸ πλῆθος τῶν βοσκημάτων, ἐὰν ἐπιτρέπῃς, ὑπολελείψονται, παισὶ μὲν καὶ γυναιξὶν οἰκίας ἐπαύλεις δὲ θρέμμασι κατασκευασάντων ἡμῶν, ἵνα μηδὲν ἐξ ἐπιδρομῆς δεινὸν πάθωσιν ἐν ἀτειχίστοις καὶ ἀφρουρήτοις προκαταληφθέντες.”
Compare the use of μοναί for abodes that could host an army in Pausanias 10.31.7: παρὰ δὲ τῷ Μέμνονι καὶ παῖς Αἰθίοψ πεποίηται γυμνός, ὅτι ὁ Μέμνων βασιλεὺς ἦν τοῦ Αἰθιόπων γένους. ἀφίκετο μέντοι ἐς Ἴλιον οὐκ ἀπʼ Αἰθιοπίας ἀλλὰ ἐκ Σούσων τῶν Περσικῶν καὶ ἀπὸ τοῦ Χοάσπου ποταμοῦ, τὰ ἔθνη πάντα ὅσα ᾤκει μεταξὺ ὑποχείρια πεποιημένος· Φρύγες δὲ καὶ τὴν ὁδὸν ἔτι ἀποφαίνουσι διʼ ἧς τὴν στρατιὰν ἤγαγε τὰ ἐπίτομα ἐκλεγόμενος τῆς χώρας· τέτμηται δὲ διὰ τῶν μονῶν ἡ ὁδός (Pausanias, Pausaniae Graeciae Descriptio. 3 vol. Medford, MA: Leipzig, Teubner, 1903). Compare the English translation in Pausanias, trans. W. H. S. Jones & H. A. Ormerod, Pausanias’ Description of Greece with an English Translation, 4 vol. (Medford, MA: Harvard University Press, William Heinemann Ltd., 1918).
[198] Special Laws 3:169, Charles Duke Yonge with Philo of Alexandria, The Works of Philo: Complete and Unabridged (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1995), 611. ἀγοραὶ καὶ βουλευτήρια καὶ δικαστήρια καὶ θίασοι καὶ σύλλογοι πολυανθρώπων ὁμίλων καὶ ὁ ἐν ὑπαίθρῳ βίος διὰ λόγων καὶ πράξεων κατὰ πολέμους καὶ κατ’ εἰρήνην ἀνδράσιν ἐφαρμόζουσι, θηλείαις δὲ οἰκουρία καὶ ἡ ἔνδον μονή, παρθένοις μὲν εἴσω κλισιάδων τὴν μέσαυλον ὅρον πεποιημέναις, τελείαις δὲ ἤδη γυναιξὶ τὴν αὔλειον. The μονή for the full-grown woman is the entire area where οἰκουρία is necessary. Women were not supposed to stay in just one room of a house.
[199] As Irenaeus recounts as a “tradition of the elders” in Against Heresies 5:18:1-2:
And as the presbyters say, Then those who are deemed worthy of an abode in heaven shall go there, others shall enjoy the delights of paradise, and others shall possess the splendour of the city; for everywhere the Saviour shall be seen according as they who see Him shall be worthy. [They say, moreover], that there is this distinction between the habitation of those who produce an hundred-fold, and that of those who produce sixty-fold, and that of those who produce thirty-fold: for the first will be taken up into the heavens, the second will dwell in paradise, the last will inhabit the city; and that it was on this account the Lord declared, “In my Father’s house are many mansions” [John 14:2.] For all things belong to God, who supplies all with a suitable dwelling-place[.] (Irenaeus of Lyons, The Writings of Irenæus, ed. Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson, trans. Alexander Roberts and W. H. Rambaut, vol. 2, Ante-Nicene Christian Library [Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1868–1869], 155–156.)
Καὶ ὡς οἱ πρεσβύτεροι λέγουσι, τότε καὶ οἱ μὲν καταξιωθέντες τῆς ἐν οὐρανῷ διατριβῆς, ἐκεῖσε χωρήσουσιν, οἱ δὲ τῆς τοῦ παραδείσου τρυφῆς ἀπολαύσουσιν, οἱ δὲ τὴν λαμπρότητα τῆς πόλεως καθέξουσιν· πανταχοῦ δὲ ὁ σωτὴρ ὁραθήσεται, καθὼς καὶ ἄξιοι ἔσονται οἱ ὁρῶντες αὐτόν. εἶναι δὲ τὴν διαστολὴν ταύτην τῆς οἰκήσεως τῶν τὰ ἑκατὸν καρποφορούντων καὶ τῶν τὰ ἑξήκοντα καὶ τῶν τὰ τριάκοντα· ὧν οἱ μὲν εἰς τοὺς οὐρανοὺς ἀναληφθήσονται, οἱ δὲ ἐν τῷ παραδείσῳ διατρίψουσιν, οἱ δὲ τὴν πόλιν κατοικήσουσιν· καὶ διὰ τοῦτο εἰρηκέναι τὸν κύριον, ἐν τοῖς τοῦ πατρός μου μονὰς εἶναι πολλάς. τὰ πάντα γὰρ τοῦ θεοῦ, ὃς τοῖς πᾶσι τὴν ἁρμόζουσαν οἴκησιν παρέχει[.]
The whole of the heavens, or the whole of Paradise, or the whole of the New Jerusalem, is viewed as a μονή. Note also the parallel between μονή and οἴκησις.
[200] Gregory Nazianzen, Orations 30:4; translation from Gregory Nazianzen, “Select Orations of Saint Gregory Nazianzen,” in S. Cyril of Jerusalem, S. Gregory Nazianzen, ed. Philip Schaff and Henry Wace, trans. Charles Gordon Browne and James Edward Swallow, vol. 7, A Select Library of the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church, Second Series (New York: Christian Literature Company, 1894), 311. Τί γὰρ δεῖ τὴν ὑποταγὴν ἐνεργεῖν ὑποτεταγμένων; Μεθ’ ἣν ἀνίσταται κρίνων τὴν γῆν, καὶ διαιρῶν τὸ σωζόμενον, καὶ τὸ ἀπολλύμενον· μεθ’ ἣν ἵσταται Θεὸς ἐν μέσῳ θεῶν, τῶν σωζομένων, διακρίνων καὶ διαστέλλων, τίνος ἕκαστος τιμῆς καὶ μονῆςἄξιος.
[201] Mark Ward, Do We All Get ‘Mansions’ in Heaven? March 24, 2022. Elec. acc. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zp2BzZ0PrHY.
[202] Robert L. Thomas, Revelation 8-22: An Exegetical Commentary (Chicago: Moody Publishers, 1995), 466–467.
[203] Andrew of Caesarea, Commentary on the Apocalypse, ed. David G. Hunter, trans. Eugenia Scarvelis Constantinou, vol. 123, The Fathers of the Church (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 2011), 226.
[204] John F. MacArthur Jr., Revelation 12–22, MacArthur New Testament Commentary (Chicago: Moody Press, 2000), 282.
[205] Mark Ward, Do We All Get ‘Mansions’ in Heaven? March 24, 2022. Elec. acc. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zp2BzZ0PrHY.
[206] J. A. Simpson & E. S. C Weiner, The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993), 332-333 (multi vol) / 1032 (one vol). Dr. Ward, 9:06 into his Do We All Get ‘Mansions’ in Heaven? video, quotes from a use of mansion from 1553 for a smaller dwelling. The quotation cited above, where mansion is employed in conjunction with “great dwelling places,” remains off from the screen and invisible to viewers. It is possible that Dr. Ward is not being dishonest, but only careless, since he states that he “never” looks at the physical OED, and if he never bothered to look at the OED 2nd edition’s definition of “mansion” available online (Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., s.v. “mansion (n.), sense 1b,” https://www.oed.com/oedv2/00140163), he may have been unaware of this quotation only two lines above the 1553 quotation he reproduced in his video. If he never bothered to look, his argument, while still misleading the viewers of his video, may perhaps be attributed to careless and superficial research rather than deliberate deceit.
[207] Oxford English Dictionary, s.v. “mansion (n.), sense I.1.a,” December 2024, https://doi.org/10.1093/OED/1820596426. The electronic OED quotes John 14:2 from the 1526 Tyndale Bible underneath a sense of the word “mansion” that includes a 1688 example of a “Castle” that “had in it many Mansions and Apartments … so retired from one another, that it was difficult to come at any time together or to meet.” The editors of the OED, while serious English scholars, are unlikely to be people who even have the Holy Spirit, so their determination of the sense of a passage of Scripture is far from authoritative or binding upon God’s children. Nevertheless, even the definition where the OED editors place John 14:2 does not require that the saints are crammed together in tiny places in heaven; if the castle of an earthly lord can have “many Mansions” spaciously “retired from one another,” believers dwelling forever in an extremely large New Jerusalem can certainly have spacious mansions. One notes as well that the use of “mansion” under which the electronic OED places John 14:2 gives instances of this use in contemporary English; examples given include statements in 1952, 1972, and 1991 (Oxford English Dictionary, s.v. “mansion (n.), sense I.5.a,” December 2024, https://doi.org/10.1093/OED/1310377007).
[208] The author trusts that his readers are theologically astute enough to determine that the “heavenly tour” described above is provided for illustrative and comic purposes, and is not intended to provide theological precision on what will take place in heaven, so that for most, a footnote explicating what is obvious is as important as the countless pages of “fine print” that no one ever reads when opening a new account or performing many other of the activities in life.
[209] Mark Ward, Authorized: The Use & Misuse of the King James Bible, ed. Elliot Ritzema, Lynnea Fraser, and Danielle Thevenaz (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2018), 41.
[210] https://kjbstudyproject.com/.
[211] Donald A. Waite, ed., The Defined King James Bible (Collingswood, NJ: Bible For Today, 2008).
[212] Mark Ward, Authorized: The Use & Misuse of the King James Bible, ed. Elliot Ritzema, Lynnea Fraser, and Danielle Thevenaz (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2018), 74. Note that, according to Ward, there are not a small number of archaisms in the KJV; he claims that there are so many archaic words and “false friends” in the KJV that “tons of footnotes” would be required to deal with this allegedly massive army of archaisms.
The careful reader wonders why, if there are allegedly “tons” of incomprehensible and misleading words in the King James Version, Dr. Ward’s flagship examples of such words are filled with painfully poor scholarship and dubious argumentation. Out of the “tons” of options that Ward (allegedly) has, why has he not picked a handful of far better ones to focus upon? Are there truly “tons” of such archaic and misleading words, or is this yet another one of Mark Ward’s many inaccurate and unfair exaggerations?
[213] https://kjbstudyproject.com/.
[214] Mark Ward here places “remove” under a completely different definition in the OED from the one that he claimed for it in his survey. In his survey attacking the KJV in Proverbs 22:28, he places “remove” under definition 7b in the electronic OED (Oxford English Dictionary, s.v. “remove (v.), sense 7.b,” September 2024, https://doi.org/10.1093/OED/1043393914). In his video attacking the KJV in Proverbs 22:28 (Mark Ward, 10 KJV Words You Don’t Know You Don’t Know! May 2, 2020, elec. acc. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F73QWWQ9ewU.), he cites a 1633 usage of “remove” from definition 1b (Oxford English Dictionary, s.v. “remove (v.), sense 1.b,” September 2024, https://doi.org/10.1093/OED/7812468796), although definition 1b, “to change one’s place of residence or work,” does not fit Proverbs 22:28 in the least, unless Dr. Ward thinks that the landmarks are rocks that have miraculously come to life and are working jobs.
It is hard to avoid the impression that Mark Ward is simply manipulating the OED to tickle the ears of his YouTube audience and to come to pre-determined anti-KJV conclusions, knowing that very few of his followers will verify the accuracy of his citations or the consistency of his arguments.
[215] Mark Ward, 10 KJV Words You Don’t Know You Don’t Know! May 2, 2020, elec. acc. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F73QWWQ9ewU.
[216] Mark Ward, Authorized: The Use & Misuse of the King James Bible, ed. Elliot Ritzema, Lynnea Fraser, and Danielle Thevenaz (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2018), 49.
[217] Willem VanGemeren, ed., New International Dictionary of Old Testament Theology & Exegesis (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 1997), 229.
[218.0] Deuteronomy 19:14; 27:17; 2 Samuel 1:22; Psalm 35:4; 40:15; 44:19; 53:4; 70:3; 78:57; 80:19; 129:5; Proverbs 14:14; 22:28; 23:10; Isaiah 42:17; 50:5; 59:13-14; Jeremiah 38:22; 46:5; Hosea 5:10; Micah 2:6; 6:14; Zephaniah 1:6.
[218.5] Johan Lust, Erik Eynikel, and Katrin Hauspie, A Greek-English Lexicon of the Septuagint : Revised Edition (Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft: Stuttgart, 2003), μεταίρω.
[219] Mark Ward, Authorized: The Use & Misuse of the King James Bible, ed. Elliot Ritzema, Lynnea Fraser, and Danielle Thevenaz (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2018), 41.
[220] J. A. Simpson & E. S. C Weiner, The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993), 601-603 (multi vol) / 1556 (one vol).
[221] J. A. Simpson & E. S. C Weiner, The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993), 601-603 (multi vol) / 1556 (one vol).
[222] Mark Ward, Fifty False Friends in the KJV: Series Intro, April 9, 2020, elec. acc. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y4WnlmubwFs.
[223] https://kjbstudyproject.com/.
[224] Oxford English Dictionary, s.v. “remove (v.), sense 7.b,” September 2024, https://doi.org/10.1093/OED/1043393914.
[225] https://kjbstudyproject.com/.
[226] Oxford English Dictionary, s.v. “remove (v.), sense 1.a,” September 2024, https://doi.org/10.1093/OED/3679729481.
[227] Oxford English Dictionary, s.v. “remove (v.), sense 1.d,” September 2024, https://doi.org/10.1093/OED/8550895878.
[228] Oxford English Dictionary, s.v. “remove (v.), sense 4.a,” September 2024, https://doi.org/10.1093/OED/8208377993.
[229] Oxford English Dictionary, s.v. “remove (v.), sense 4.b,” September 2024, https://doi.org/10.1093/OED/9696584321.
[230] Oxford English Dictionary, s.v. “remove (v.), sense 4.c,” September 2024, https://doi.org/10.1093/OED/7179906807.
[231] Oxford English Dictionary, s.v. “remove (v.), sense 5.a,” September 2024, https://doi.org/10.1093/OED/3999519942.
[232] https://kjbstudyproject.com/.
[233] Oxford English Dictionary, s.v. “remove (v.), sense 6.b,” September 2024, https://doi.org/10.1093/OED/1822269375.
[234] Mark Ward, Authorized: The Use & Misuse of the King James Bible, ed. Elliot Ritzema, Lynnea Fraser, and Danielle Thevenaz (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2018), 41 & Mark Ward, “10 KJV Words You Don’t Know You Don’t Know!” May 2, 2020, elec. acc. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F73QWWQ9ewU.
[235] David Sorenson, Understanding the Bible, vol 4 (Duluth, MN: Northstar Baptist Ministries, 2006), 213. Of course, a verse prohibiting stealing land that has been in one’s family for generations as a heritage from God can properly be applied to preserving truth among God’s people that has been given them by God. There is nothing wrong with making such an application from Proverbs 22:28.
[236] Mark Ward, Authorized: The Use & Misuse of the King James Bible, ed. Elliot Ritzema, Lynnea Fraser, and Danielle Thevenaz (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2018), 23–24.
[237] Mark Ward recognized that his survey / KJV pronoun and “false friends” quiz was “almost completely ignored by KJV-Only leaders, websites, and groups.” He concluded that it had “hit a target precisely because it had been almost completely ignored” (Mark Ward, A Year of Silence from my KJV-Only Brothers, October 17, 2024, elec. acc. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-FZH4Xn72ww). He does not deal with the more probable possibility that his arguments have largely been ignored by advocates of the KJV, not because they are irrefutable and have silenced perfect preservationists with their overwhelming power, but because silly arguments from 1 Corinthians 14 that a plowboy can see right through, a book and a survey with wrong answers, wrong explanations, and wrong citations of sources have not been widely considered to require refutation.
[238] 2nd London Baptist Confession of Faith, Article 1:8, cited in W. J. McGlothlin, Baptist Confessions of Faith (Philadelphia: American Baptist Publication Society, 1911), 230.
[239] 2nd London Baptist Confession of Faith, Article 1:8, cited in W. J. McGlothlin, Baptist Confessions of Faith (Philadelphia: American Baptist Publication Society, 1911), 230.
[240] Richard Muller, Post-Reformation Reformed Dogmatics: The Rise and Development of Reformed Orthodoxy; vol. 2, Holy Scripture: The Cognitive Foundation of Theology, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2003), 269, 326-327, 403, 416, 427-428.
[241] Richard A. Muller, Dictionary of Latin and Greek Theological Terms: Drawn Principally from Protestant Scholastic Theology(Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1985), 19, 51-52, entries “accidens” & “authoritas divina duplex.” That is, “Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me hath everlasting life” (KJV), “Verely verely I saye vnto you he that beleveth on me hath everlastinge lyfe.” (Tyndale) and “Truly, truly, I say to you, He that believes on me has everlasting life” (author’s translation) are accurate renderings of John 6:47’s ἀμὴν ἀμὴν λέγω ὑμῖν, ὁ πιστεύων εἰς ἐμέ, ἔχει ζωὴν αἰώνιον (amēn amēn legō hymin, ho pisteuōn eis eme, echei zōēn aiōnion). Believeth, beleveth, and believes are accurate translations, and, as such, convey the truth and mind of God in English. But woe to the man who changes one letter of the Greek and Hebrew texts dictated by the Holy Spirit (Proverbs 30:5-6; Revelation 22:18-19)!
[242] Chris R. Armstrong, “Old Book in a New World,” Christian History Magazine: Celebrating the 400th Anniversary of the King James Bible (Worcester, PA: Christian History Institute, 2011), 32. One notes that, according to Dr. Ward’s outlandish argument, “every home … every church … every public meeting” has been sinning since the late 1700s when they were using the Authorized Version, as they were (allegedly) violating 1 Corinthians 14, nobody discovering the curious (alleged) connection between handfuls of archaisms in a very big Bible and the Pauline command to enunciate clearly when speaking in tongues until Mark Ward came along.
[243] Article 1:8, in W. J. McGlothlin, Baptist Confessions of Faith (Philadelphia; Boston; Chicago; St. Louis; Toronto: American Baptist Publication Society, 1911), 230.
The Confession did not limit to the KJV the reference to translated Scripture as the Word of God; accurate translation in any language is still God’s Word. However, the vernacular Bible that the churches of the Confession would have had in their pulpits and in their hands when composing this confession of their faith was the Authorized Version, which neither these Baptists, nor any other significant historic Baptist confession, either criticizes or calls for replacing.
[244] It should be noted that not all General Baptists were Arminians; they would simply have rejected the limited (“particular”) atonement position of the Particular Baptists. This General Baptist confession, for example, affirms that “those that are effectually called, according to God’s eternal purpose, being justified by faith do receive such a measure of the holy unction, from the holy spirit, by which they shall certainly persevere unto eternal life.” (Article 36, pg. 324, ibid.).
[245] Article 37. See W. J. McGlothlin, Baptist Confessions of Faith (Philadelphia: American Baptist Publication Society, 1911), 152.
[246] Introduction, W. J. McGlothlin, Baptist Confessions of Faith (Philadelphia: American Baptist Publication Society, 1911), 123.
[247] Article 37. See W. J. McGlothlin, Baptist Confessions of Faith (Philadelphia: American Baptist Publication Society, 1911), 152.
[248] Consider Christ’s statement in Matthew 4:4, “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God”—“proceedeth” (ἐκπορευομένῳ) is a present participle, suggesting continuing action. Inspiration (as product, not process) applies to preserved copies as much as to the autographs, and, in a derivative sense, to accurate translations. Compare Thomas Ross, “Thoughts On the Word Theopneustos, “given by inspiration of God” in 2 Timothy 3:16, and the Question of the Inspiration of the Authorized Version,” elec. acc. https://faithsaves.net/theopneustos/.
[249] Article 37, W. J. McGlothlin, Baptist Confessions of Faith (Philadelphia: American Baptist Publication Society, 1911), 152.
[250] Bart Ehrman, What Kind of a Text is the King James Bible? Manuscripts, Translation, and the Legacy of the KJV, lecture at Loyola Marymount University, 2/7/2013, elec. acc. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ehnEZtqj2Mo.
[251] Leland Ryken, “Ten Fallacies about the King James Version,” Southern Baptist Journal of Theology 15:4 (2011), 5, 11, 13, 15.
[252] Isaac Walton, The Lives of Dr. John Donne, Sir Henry Wotton, Mr. Richard Hooker, Mr. George Herbert, and Dr. Robert Sanderson(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1824), 282-283.
[253] Leland Ryken, “Ten Fallacies about the King James Version,” Southern Baptist Journal of Theology 15:4 (2011), 5, 11, 13, 15.
[254] Mark Ward, Authorized: The Use & Misuse of the King James Bible, ed. Elliot Ritzema, Lynnea Fraser, and Danielle Thevenaz (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2018), 31, 34, 49. Italics in original. Dr. Ward also claims that the KJV has “phrases and syntax and punctuation” that readers do not know, but since he did not give even one example of how modern readers are (allegedly) misled and misinterpret Scripture based on KJV syntax, punctuation, or phrases, this claim will be ignored.
[255] Mark Ward, Authorized: The Use & Misuse of the King James Bible, ed. Elliot Ritzema, Lynnea Fraser, and Danielle Thevenaz (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2018), 23–24.
[256] Please note that the composition below is associated with a transcript of notes for a video response to the videos by Dr. Ward under discussion. For that reason, it contains more colloquial English than some of the written analysis above. Also, as adjusted note transcripts of responses to specific Ward videos, it reiterates some material in the written analysis of Mark Ward’s arguments detailed above.
[257] https://faithsaves.net/james-white-debate-bible-versions-kjv-lsb/; https://rumble.com/v30sdv4-is-the-king-james-version-kjv-too-hard-to-understand-james-white-thomas-ros.html (KJBIBLE1611 Rumble channel); https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9fmV6O75cEA&list=PLo8hPX0f2leb9pIbbGFMtZJ-gZ0Oou37X&index=12 (KJB1611 YouTube channel playlist); https://youtu.be/9fmV6O75cEA (KJB1611 YouTube channel).
[258] Alexander Bergs & Laural J. Brinton, Handbook of English Historical Linguistics vol. 2 (Boston: De Gruyter, 1992), 1239-1240.
[259] Bruce K. Waltke, The Book of Proverbs, Chapters 1–15, The New International Commentary on the Old Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2004), 216–217.
[260] Nickee LeonHuld, “How Many Words Does the Average Person Know?” elec. acc. https://wordcounter.io/blog/how-many-words-does-the-average-person-know/.
[261] https://faithsaves.net/james-white-debate-bible-versions-kjv-lsb/.
[262] See, e. g., the studies of Mrs. Riplinger’s errors at https://wayoflife.org.
[263] https://faithsaves.net/Bible-studies/.
[264] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9fmV6O75cEA.
[265] https://faithsaves.net/Mark-Ward-Daniel-Haifley/.
[266] Mark Ward, Brand New KJV-Only Arguments (Part 1 of 3), May 2, 2024. Elec. acc. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mBc3cixRUH8.
[267] Mark Ward, Brand New KJV-Only Arguments (Part 1 of 3), May 2, 2024. Elec. acc. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mBc3cixRUH8.
[268] See https://faithsaves.net/Mark-Ward-Daniel-Haifley/.
[269] Spirit of Prophecy, Discussion About the KJV & KJV Debate with Mark Ward, November 22, 2024. Elec. acc. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yRwp1tB5tZU.
[270] See, e. g., David Cloud, What About Steven Anderson? Elec. acc. https://www.wayoflife.org/reports/what-about-steven-anderson-1.php.
[271] E. g., https://www.givemelibertybaptist.com/our-beliefs/.
[272] See, e. g., ReDiscover Studies, What has happened to the NIFB? Tommy McMurty & Matt Furse | Episode 19, October 29, 2024, elec. acc. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GlwA96frD-I.
[273] Mark Ward, “Let Me Help You Help Your KJV-Only Friend.” Elec. acc. https://seminary.bju.edu/viewpoint/let-me-help-you-help-your-kjv-only-friend/.
[274] Please see the videos on my KJB1611 YouTube channel or KJBIBLE1611 Rumble channel where, reviewing my debate with James White, I go through the KJV preface with some care: https://faithsaves.net/james-white-debate-bible-versions-kjv-lsb/ or https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLo8hPX0f2leb9pIbbGFMtZJ-gZ0Oou37X or https://rumble.com/playlists/EcDoabqtqAA.
[275] The Cambridge Paragraph Bible: Of the Authorized English Version (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1873), lxiii.
[276] Christopher Wordsworth, Ecclesiastical Biography; or Lives of Eminent Men, Connected with the History of Religion in England; From the Commencement of the Reformation to the Revolution, vol. 5 (London: F. C. and J. Rivington, 1810), 461-462.
[277] https://faithsaves.net/james-white-debate-bible-versions-kjv-lsb/.
[278] Mark Ward, Authorized: The Use & Misuse of the King James Bible, ed. Elliot Ritzema, Lynnea Fraser, and Danielle Thevenaz (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2018), 124.
[279] Mark Ward, Authorized: The Use & Misuse of the King James Bible, ed. Elliot Ritzema, Lynnea Fraser, and Danielle Thevenaz (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2018), 137.
[280] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ptCEUdna6I8&, see 23:00ff.
[281] Biblical Studies Press, The NET Bible First Edition Notes (Biblical Studies Press, 2006), 1 Sa 20:30.
[282] Mark Ward, More New KJV-Only Arguments (Part 2 of 3), May 9, 2024. Elec. acc. https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=ptCEUdna6I8.
[283] https://faithsaves.net/Mark-Ward/ & https://faithsaves.net/Mark-Ward-Daniel-Haifley/.
[284] Daniel B. Wallace, Greek Grammar beyond the Basics: An Exegetical Syntax of the New Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1996), 72.
[285] Wilbur Pickering, The Greek New Testament According to Family 35, 3rd ed. (2020), Luke 19:40.
[286] A. N. Jannaris, An Historical Greek Grammar: Chiefly of the Attic Dialect (London: Macmillan, 1897), 180.
[287] εἰδήσουσί.
[288] Friedrich Blass, Albert Debrunner, and Robert Walter Funk, A Greek Grammar of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1961), 51.
[289] For a discussion of the attendant circumstance participle, see Daniel B. Wallace, Greek Grammar beyond the Basics: An Exegetical Syntax of the New Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1996), 640–645.
[290] Thomas Ross, Acts 5:30: King James Version Mistranslation? James White & TR KJV Only Controversy Debate Review 15, June 15, 2024. Elec acc: https://faithsaves.net/james-white-debate-bible-versions-kjv-lsb/ or https://rumble.com/v51o3v9-acts-530-king-james-version-mistranslation-james-white-and-tr-kjv-only-cont.html or https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QQf1p4M8n1c&list=PLo8hPX0f2leb9pIbbGFMtZJ-gZ0Oou37X&index=17
https://youtu.be/QQf1p4M8n1c.
[291] https://faithsaves.net/Mark-Ward-Daniel-Haifley/.
[292] David Cloud, “Eugene Peterson and The Message.” https://www.wayoflife.org/reports/eugene_peterson_and_the_message.html.
[293] Mark Ward, More New KJV-Only Arguments (Part 3 of 3), May 16, 2024. Elec. acc. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GSWa3Pchgkw&.
[294] Jayoung Peter Kang, A Dictionary of Epigraphic Hebrew (Richmond, VA: Union Theological Seminary and Presbyterian School of Christian Education, 2006; elec. OakTree Software), s.v. “I. SITES WITH HEBREW INSCRIPTIONS,” paragraph 4.
[295] https://faithsaves.net/james-white-debate-bible-versions-kjv-lsb/.
[296] Todd J. Murphy, Pocket Dictionary for the Study of Biblical Hebrew, The IVP Pocket Reference Series (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2003), 81; cf. Mitchell Dahood, “Ebla: Archaeological Discoveries And Biblical Research.” Bible and Spade 9:3–4 (1980): 66, for the figure of 1,700 hapax legomena in the Old Testament.
[297] William D. Mounce, Pastoral Epistles. 46 of Word Biblical Commentary Accordance electronic ed. (Grand Rapids : Zondervan, 2000), cxvi; 1,900 is the figure listed.
[298] Nickee LeonHuld, “How Many Words Does the Average Person Know?” elec. acc. https://wordcounter.io/blog/how-many-words-does-the-average-person-know/.
[299] Origen, Origen: Prayer, Exhortation to Martyrdom, ed. Johannes Quasten and Joseph C. Plumpe, trans. John J. O’Meara, vol. 19, Ancient Christian Writers (Mahwah, NJ: Newman Press, 1954), 96–97.
[300] I wonder if Dr. Ward has used the word illegible by mistake. I am assuming he means impossible to understand, but illegible actually refers to a word that is “unreadable” or “undecipherable.” I have never said that Moses or David or Isaiah had bad handwriting when they were recording the original manuscripts of the Old Testament.
[301] Herman Bavinck, John Bolt, and John Vriend, Reformed Dogmatics: Prolegomena, vol. 1 (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2003), 213; Lewis Berkhof, Introductory Volume to Systematic Theology (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1932), 96–97.
[302] E. g., Westminster Assembly, The Westminster Confession of Faith: Edinburgh Edition (Philadelphia: William S. Young, 1851), 13–21.
[303] https://faithsaves.net/james-white-debate-bible-versions-kjv-lsb/ & https://rumble.com/v3028y6-1611-kjv-marginal-notes-modern-version-textual-footnotes-james-white-thomas.html & https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=980IN69tCSQ&list=PLo8hPX0f2leb9pIbbGFMtZJ-gZ0Oou37X&index=11.
[304] The Cambridge Paragraph Bible of the Authorized English Version (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1873), xxiv.
[305] Nickee LeonHuld, “How Many Words Does the Average Person Know?” elec. acc. https://wordcounter.io/blog/how-many-words-does-the-average-person-know/.
[306] Cynthia L. Miller-Naudé and Ziony Zevit, eds., Diachrony in Biblical Hebrew, Linguistic Studies in Ancient West Semitic. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2012.
[307] Bruce K. Waltke and Michael Patrick O’Connor, An Introduction to Biblical Hebrew Syntax (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1990), 17–20.
[308] For an introduction—not a definitive analysis, just an introduction—to these questions from a perfect preservationist perspective, please read Thomas Ross, “The Debate over the Inspiration of the Hebrew Vowel Points” and “Evidences for the Inspiration of the Hebrew Vowel Points,” elec. acc. https://faithsaves.net/Bibliology/.
[309] Mark Ward, Authorized: The Use & Misuse of the King James Bible, ed. Elliot Ritzema, Lynnea Fraser, and Danielle Thevenaz (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2018), 137.
[310] Mark Ward, Authorized: The Use & Misuse of the King James Bible, ed. Elliot Ritzema, Lynnea Fraser, and Danielle Thevenaz (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2018), 137.
[311] https://faithsaves.net/james-white-debate-bible-versions-kjv-lsb/; https://rumble.com/v30sdv4-is-the-king-james-version-kjv-too-hard-to-understand-james-white-thomas-ros.html (KJBIBLE1611 Rumble channel); https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9fmV6O75cEA&list=PLo8hPX0f2leb9pIbbGFMtZJ-gZ0Oou37X&index=12 (KJB1611 YouTube channel playlist); https://youtu.be/9fmV6O75cEA (KJB1611 YouTube channel).
[312] Mark Ward, on a post by Kent Brandenburg entitled “A Sincere, Accurate Assessment Contrasting Translational Choices Versus Underlying Original Language Text” (elec. acc. https://kentbrandenburg.com/2024/11/19/a-sincere-accurate-assessment-contrasting-translational-choices-versus-underlying-original-language-text/#comment-19126) has clarified that he does not intend to respond to this critique of his work—or even read it carefully. Dr. Ward wrote:
To Thomas, regarding his lengthy document, I’ll make two basic sets of comments.
1) Thomas, you overplayed your hand and committed the classic error of an ideological extremist by refusing to give me a millimeter—and in two ways:
- a) You worked far too hard to deny or obfuscate the false friends you examined, unable to grant that there might be any legitimate reason for any KJV reader to misunderstand any of them whatsoever. That is manifestly unreasonable. I misunderstood most of my false friends myself when I was a KJV-Onlyist, and I was a good and diligent reader who was sincerely trying to understand. I misunderstood because of language change.
- b) You couldn’t bring yourself to acknowledge any of my other specific false friends. Unless I missed something (I got weary of being given no quarter and started to skim, I confess), in 70,000 words I am always and only wrong and inept, never onto something. God knows that it is possible that I am always and only wrong and inept, but I will observe that you have done what extremists do: they see zero truth on the other side. I do not feel that way about you, Thomas. You brought up some powerful and interesting points. In another world where I had reason to believe in your goodwill, I’d enjoy discussing them with you. But we do not live in that world. You don’t trust me either, I gather. God will judge between us at the last day.
On the few false friends you did examine, I’m profoundly unpersuaded, and I do not wish to engage. I’m content for KJV readers to listen to what I’ve said, listen to what you’ve said, and decide which of us appears to want KJV readers to understand what they’re reading. … It seems to me … that you, Thomas, and other KJV-Only extremists have implicitly or explicitly denied … the reality of semantic shifts in specific KJV words … practically anytime I point to an example of it—or at least to an example that isn’t already on the tiny list of those that are already reasonably well known among KJV-Onlyists (“conversation,” “prevent”). … I don’t know what motivates you brothers, Kent and Thomas, to refuse to acknowledge specific examples of misleading semantic shifts in the KJV (“false friends” sure sounds better). You’ve had opportunities. You’ve had years. May God have mercy on you, and I mean that.
To this comment, I responded:
Dear Dr. Ward … Thanks for taking the time to read part of my critique. It is unfortunate that you only took the time to skim the rest.
I do not agree with your definition of “false friend,” as you are misusing Dr. McWhorter.
I confess that I was shocked when I … look[ed] up the alleged “false friends” I took the time to look into–which were not just random ones, but are among the most important ones that you use–and discovered how you would grossly misuse the Oxford English Dictionary and ignore basic Hebrew and Greek lexica. I think it is unfortunate that you are happy to spend hours debating your anti-English of the KJV argument with a kindly elderly man who doesn’t know how to use a Greek lexicon [Daniel Haifley, whom Dr. Ward was willing to debate publicly], how you will be happy to be interviewed by KJV people who deny Biblical repentance and who even believe Christ was tortured in hell after He died on the cross [Tommy McMurty], and give not a word of warning about these corruptions of the gospel, but are unwilling to discuss this issue with someone who took the time to carefully look at the OED and at the Hebrew, Greek, and Latin translations of Scripture to see if you were on to something. You will promote people like that, but I am an “extremist” with whom you will not engage. Could it be that there are actually devastating difficulties in your arguments and you might lose many of your followers if people found out about them? Could it be that serious scholarship would require that your book Authorized be withdrawn from circulation until its very serious errors are fixed?
Could you please look at the PDF of my work and let me know on what page I said something like: “[I am] unable to grant that there might be any legitimate reason for any KJV reader to misunderstand any [KJV archaism] whatsoever”? I am not aware of writing that–or even thinking that. Are you misrepresenting me, the way you misrepresented the OED and Hebrew and Greek lexical sources? Could you please point me to any statement anywhere that I have ever made that says something like, “There are no archaisms in the KJV that people may unintentionally misunderstand?” Thanks.
If you want to know what motivates me, it was actually not the quality of your case against the KJV. I was motivated primarily by a love for Christ and His gospel, not wanting the people who you were perfectly willing to promote, who denied repentance and even teach that Christ had to be tortured in hell due to Andersonite new-IFB influences, getting promoted. If you want to ignore what could well be the most substantive and strongest critique of your writings as unimportant enough to not even be worth reading completely, only skimming, could you at least stop engaging with zero warning with people who deny that the lost must turn from their sins, and stop promoting people who think Christ had to be tortured in hell? Could you please recognize that those are far worse than a small number of archaic KJV words?
Thanks again for stopping by. If you change your mind and decide that a debate [is worthwhile] with someone who knows how to use BDAG instead of someone who doesn’t even know how to use it and who messes up the gospel … my hand is open to you.
Mark Ward never responded. At least as of the time of the publication of this work, Ward has not corrected any of the errors or misrepresentations in his book, nor withdrawn or re-done any of his video resources.
