by James Jacob Prasch

Timothy McVeigh Comes To Church

The Trinitarian Bible Society is an organisation of committed evangelicals holding the view that the underlying original texts of the Authorised King James Version of The Bible, specifically the Hebrew Masoretic text and the Greek Textus Receptus are the best manuscripts. Such people are genuine brethren concerned for biblical truth and seek to represent scholarly and linguistically credible defenses for their position. People of this class are not KING JAMES ONLY but rather Masoretic Text and Textus Receptus Only. We have common ground with such brethren in terms of a shared opposition to ecumenism, inclusive translations, and liberal and higher critical theology Indeed there may be various reasons to question their position.

The fact that the New Testament most often follows the Septuagint and even Targums and not the Masoretic is one issue they have never really comprehensively dealt with.

Another is the fact that there are errors in the Masoretic that the King James actually corrects (such as in Psalm 22). A further problem is that the Textus Receptus is not a asource manuscript, but is comprised of four earlier Byzantine manuscripts fused into a codex for the New Testament translation of Erasmus and these have common sources with the same Westcott and Hort source manuscripts. To have a broadly balanced scope of the various aspects of this issue Moriel additionally recommends 'The KJV Controversy' by the Reformed author James White, 'The Reliability of The New Testament Manuscripts' by the Brethren scholar the late F. F. Bruce.

Although not a very balanced or well written book in its historical material, the first half of William Grady's 'Final Authority' does put across some of the arguments for a KJV Only position more responsibly than Gail Riplinger and Peter Ruckman even though the book degenerates away from manuscript history into the usual personality profiling about the character of Westcott & Hort and defending the character of King James in its second half instead of remaining focused on the objective textual comparison of manuscripts and leaving personalities out of the equation. Still it is more credible than Riplinger and Ruckman. Such issues however are matters for dialogue not contention. They need to be prayerfully discussed by academically qualified scholars groomed in manuscript history and the original languages. These brothers deserve our respect and warrant a fair and serious hearing for their views. They admit that there are errors in the KJV and are not Ruckmanite heretics or from a KJV Only lunatic fringe, half psychotic conspiracy theorists, British Israelites, or white supremacists and like us, accept that it is the original autographs which are infallible.

These brethren with whom we have so much common ground have been done a disservice and an injustice by being wrongly classified with the KJV Only followers of Peter Ruckman and Gail Riplinger. These are not unlearned figures pontificating vigorously about matters well above their heads. They can read Greek and Hebrew and appreciate the differences between the 'Received Text' and 'Majority Text'. These are not the insidious buffoons the Ruckmanites are With these Masoretic and Textus Receptus Only believers we can have a constructive relationship in the spirit of Christian fellowship in which there can be constructive dialogue where fair and important questions can be objectively addressed.

We have no argument with such good and sincere brethren and we are prepared to weigh the merits of their particular point of view without prejudice or animosity where the basis of their convictions can be examined in an open and scholarly fashion. Whether we can agree, disagree, or partially agree with them - these are certainly not the nefarious bigots or hideous ignoramuses the KJV Only clowns appear to be, but these are true Christians holding many of the same kinds of concerns we do. These most unfortunately have been very misunderstood and wrongly categorised with those with whom they intensely disagree; not unlike the way in which Arnold Fruchtenbaum & Ariel and Jacob Prasch & Moriel have been wrongly placed in the same category with hyper messianic extremists (with whom we disagree).

The Real King James?

But what of King James 1, what kind of man was this who authorised the Authorised King James Version? Let us read what Sir Winston Churchill wrote of King James in his classic 'History of the English Speaking People': "James was much addicted to his favourites, and his attention to handsome young men resulted in a noticeable loss of respect for the monarchy". I personally dislike the NIV as it is thought by thought instead of a word by word translation allowing too much possibility for interpretation instead of translation. Oddly however KJV Only advocates will point out that Virginia Mollenkott, whose views on lesbianism were unknown when she was briefly consulted in a minor way not on matters of translation but matters of English style for the NIV, discredits the NIV, when the Dictionary of British History states about their beloved King James that "His History states about their beloved King James that "His linking for attractive young men, notable such court favourites as Robert Carr and George Villiers (Duke of Buckingham) alienated many Englishmen". Some historians conclude that homosexual affections were the reason he issued a royal reprieve for a murderer. Robert Carr, the Earl of Somerset, managed to gain wealth, status, and titles through his position as favourite of King James I, and was promoted to position of King's Secretary - much the same as there were four professing homosexuals in Tony Blair's cabinet - a 17th century Peter Mandelson!

As with Roman Catholicism canonization of warlord popes, we see the same practice in the beatification of King James; moral degenerates venerate other moral degenerates. The renowned Streams of Civilization(Volume ii) reports of King James that his name to be associated with the grandest and most sacred work of English literature a 'blasphemous joke'. The text continues to say that "James was a wicked monarch whose life was full of dark plots and murderous intrigue. He persecuted the devout Born Again separatist Christians (who became Puritans) with a vengeance. He crated censorious 'High Commissions' while himself indulging in drunkenness and homosexuality."

Yet the bible translation of Victoria Dillon, Peter Ruckman, Richard Engstrom, Tom Lamb, Gail Riplinger, Wendy Buester, Barbara Aho, and W.N. Howard is dedicated to 'The most high and mighty prince James by the grace of God King of Great Britain, France, Ireland and Defender of the Faith; King James I; - a drunken sodomite who murdered Born Again Christians. It is little wonder that in their quest to ordain homosexual and lesbian clergy the homosexual community are arguing that "gay people gave you your bible"!

The reasons homosexuals are KING JAMES ONLY are obvious. They are laying historical claim to it as a 'Gay & Lesbian Bible'. However suspect their pro-KJV actions may make them in some people's thinking, we do not suggest any dubious sexual orientation of Buester, Howard, Aho, Ruckman, Texxe Marrs, and Dillen. But why do they join with the homosexual community in this cause of King James Only which in practice effectively becomes a pro-homosexual cause? Many of these aforementioned people believe in guilt by association to a preposterous degree (e.g. if someone outside of your control links to your web site, who is also linked to or is linked to a web site of someone who is ecumenical - in the thinking of some of these people - it makes you ecumenical, even though you publish statements that are anti-ecumenical and have no control of what others may link to!).

Therefore, applying their own standards, some may ask 'if they are not homosexual, bisexual, or lesbian - why is their hero someone who was? Why do Aho, Dillen, Ruckman, Riplinger, Howard, and Buester promote what is increasingly portrayed as a Gay & Lesbian bible?

IN ADDITION TO HOMOSEXUALS AND LESBIANS, WHO ARE THE KJV ONLY FACTIONS AND WHAT ARE THEIR AGENDAS?

The Mormons & Other Cults

The Mormon Cult is strongly KING JAMES ONLY. They are attempting to revamp their image as being mainstream Christian, despite their actual beliefs that Jesus Christ is the half brother of Satan. The Book of Mormon written in KJV style English to make the two appear compatible from a literary view point. In America, daily TV adverts by the Latter Day Saints with a toll free telephone number offer a free KJV bible to all callers. Mormonism is of course not the only cult that is KJV Only.

After the textual corruption of its own New World Translation, the Jehovah's Witnesses prefer the KJV because like the the KJV reduces the Holy Spirit from a person to an 'it', (the KJV translators on this point failed to grasp that gender in Greek does not mean what gender does in English) which the JW cult pint to when they are door knocking to persuade people to reject the Trinity.

David Koresh and his Branch Davidian cult were exclusively KJV Only; it is the preferred translation of demonic cults. Why do these Ruckmanites insist on a bible that calls the Holy Spirit an 'it' and supports Jehovah's Witness beliefs? Like Richard Engstrom's cult, Rastafarians (followers of the late Marcus Garvey who claim the late Ethiopian dictator Hail Selase was Christ) are also KJV Only and likewise defend Christian cannabis smoking; (to them it is the ritual use of 'ganja' as an Afro-Christian sacrament).

It is however the Mormons who are most visibly KJV Only. Unless of course they are secretly Mormons, why do Aho, Dillen, Riplinger, Ruckman, Marrs, Howard, and Buester and the other Ruckmanites promote what is now very strongly represented as a Mormon bible?

The Ecumenical Movement

Because the Roman Catholic Church added the Aprocryphal books to its canon to help construct a basis for its doctrines of Mary, prayers for the dead, salvation by works, and above all purgatory, the issue of the authority of the bible has been a major obstacle to ecumenical reunion with Rome under the pope. Here ecumenism finds what it sees as the solution to its problem in the 1611 edition of the KJV (whose additions Peter Ruckman says are 'further Revelation' and New Zealand's Tom Lamb says: "are better than the originals" ), because the 1611 KJV not only contains the Apocryphal books, but like the Roman Catholic bibles cites them as scripture. In 'From the mind of God to the mind of man' (edited by JB Williams) Mark R. Simmons notes that the 1611 KJV references Genesis 3:6 with the Apocryphal Ecclesiasticus 25:26 "if she goest not as thou wouldest, cut her off from thy flesh, and glue her a bill of divorce, and let her go" - which directly contradicts Jesus teaching on divorce. As Simmons correctly points out "The bible believing church has never accepted the apocrypha as the inspired scriptures and quite honestly, the thought of letting others pollute the Word of God with it is quite distasteful".

The sorry and sad fact of the matter is that, like Rome, the 1611 KJV contained not the 66 books of the bible, but 80 books including the 14 Apocryphal books for the first 274 years of its publication. So influenced by Roman Catholicism is the KJV that it calls the Resurrection Day 'Easter' (following the quadradecimen schism - originally the pagan Sunday feast after the spring equinox and not the Jewish Feast of First Fruits which all four gospels and 1 Corinthians and Jewish history all agree is when the resurrection actually took place).

Given the KJV is the bible of ecumenical unity with which Rome and King James persecuted saved Christians such as the early Puritans, why are Aho, Dillen, Buester, and Howard vociferously committed to this same Ecumenical/Mormon/Gay & Lesbian KJV agenda?

The Identity Movement

The Identity Movement is a white supremacist movement combining the beliefs of Peter Ruckman (now on his third marriage. Ruckman denounces blacks as 'NIGGERS') and British Israelism - the ridiculous belief that the Anglo Saxon and Anglo Celtic nations are the 10 northern tribes of Israel and the British monarchy the 'throne of David'.

This view is held by Elim's James McConnell and by Alan Campbell who recently ran scared from a debate challenge by a distinguished Professor (just as Campbell and McConnell both back down from opportunities to debate Jacob Prasch). British Israelism is better known as 'Armstrongism' after Garner Ted and Herbert W. Armstrong of the World Wide Church of God cult.

Among many British-Israelite cults the purity of the English language in the KJV therefore supersedes the original Hebrew, Aramaic, & Greek )akin to Ruckman and Lamb). The combination of this British Israel/Armstrongism with a White Supremacist/neo-nazi ethos produces a result of conspiracy theorists who, instead of taking a responsible look at global New World Order trends (as defined by President George Bush Sr.) in light of biblical prophecy, go into this paranoid delusional world based on wild conjecture and anti-Semitism that is ideologically aligned with armed militia patriot groups (views similar to Timothy McVeigh).

Often these take the form of cultic survivalist enclaves (Richard Engstrom is a member of such a KJV cult in rural Tennessee which defends 'Christian Pot Smoking'), The difference being that these groups often use KJV Only to make it a religious crusade. In their paranoid world, if someone does not agree with their crazy speculations (or if someone, even without one's approval whom they do not like links to your web site) , it means you are part of some sinister conspiracy to subvert the church and bring the antichrist to power.

Australia has emerged as a second Mecca for such racist groups with the arrival of Pauline Hansen on the political stage (a fish & chips shop owner who wants to solve Australia's budgetary problems by 'printing more money') and USA style gun lobbies. In Australia KJV Only advocates Buester & Howard have been Internet linked to at least one gun lobby group and are listed on an Australian index as a 'hate organisation'.

Howard & Buester operate the KJV Only 'Despatches' web site uniting political conspiracy theories, and anti-Semitism with their Rockmanism. Because such people thrive on conspiracy theories (indeed it often appears that such is the only reason for their morbid existence) rumours of ancient plots by Origen to corrupt all Alexandrian texts fits right into their mindset.

The ultimate danger of conspiracy theorists is that they discredit the valid content of the scenarios they construct (such as the dangers of a New World Order and ecumenism) by combining it with paranoid speculation, anti Semitism, and just pain idiocy. Valid warnings become confused with nonsense and racism.

It is little wonder that biblically grounded Discernment Ministries such as Jon & Trush Tillin's Banner, Al Dagger's Media Spotlight and Andrew Gould's ministry all warn against the folly of such crackpots. Aho attacks genuine Discernment Ministries, including Dave Hunt, the most visible voice for biblical truth and discernment of our time. Her real hostility (which some say can only be described as malice) is reserved for those who are guilty of what they seemingly make out to be a more serious crime, -the crime of being Jewish (such as their attacks on Jewish believers like Dr. Lewis Goldber, and Dr. Arnold Fruchtenbaum).

The mentality of Howard in particular is almost laughable as she protests that 'the KJV is the Reformation Bible', apparently too ignorant to realise that the 1611 KJV was produced one hundred years after the Reformation! Many KJV Only advocates are staunchly reformed and anti-ecumenical, too ignorant to realise not only that the KJV is an ecumenical version due to its apocryphal inclusions, but that the Reformed Christians of the time when the KJV was authorised, such as the Puritan Fathers, were brutally persecuted by King James I and rejected the KJV in favour of the Geneva Bible.

Reformed Christians also generally detest Erases for not supporting the Reformation, yet build their entire case on the Textus Receptus bequeathed us by Erasmus. The acute ignorance of the KJV Only extremists is demonstrated 'not only in the fact that very few of them can even read Greek or Hebrew, Gail Riplinger, whose only qualifications are in home economics not biblical language or manuscript history was debunked as a charlatan and an academic fraud by Christian Research Institute on these grounds. The closest Gail Riplinger ever became to being the ecurator of a scriptorium may have been as the custodian of a collection of essays and lab reports on cost effective laundry detergents.

Howard & Bested falsely accuse Messianic Jews of reverting to the law because they keep Old Testament festivals in a Christ fulfilled way for cultural reasons as a testimony to unsaved Jews and as a way to evangelise them; because they note Paul used the symbolism of the Jewish feasts to explain New Testament truth (eg. 1 Cor 5) to which Howard & Buester appear to object. Yet Messianic Jews do not keep these observances in any legalistic way as liturgically mandatory but simply exercise their New Testament freedom according to Romans 14:4 & Colossians 2:16-18 for cultural and evangelistic reasons and as object lessons illustrating of New Testament doctrine fulfilled in Jesus as their Messiah.

The 1611 KJV has twelve pages outlining for each day of the year the rising and settings of the sun, ritual Psalms prescribed for each specific day, and required scripture readings. This is followed by a calendar of religious hold days that must be observed including the Feast of the Circumcision, The Purification of the Blessed Virgin, The Feasts of St. Peter & St. Paul, of St. James, of St. Bartholomew, of St. Matthew, of Michael The Arch Angel, of St. Luke, of St. Simon and St. Jude, of 'All Saints', of the Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin, of St. Mark, of Philip & James the apostles, of the Ascension, the nativity of John the Baptist, of Thomas the Apostle, of the nativity of our Lord, of St. Stephen the Martyr, of John the Evangelist, of the Holy Innocents, and the Monday and Tuesday of Easter and Whitsunday week! Such legalistic trash merely replaces the Mosaic calendar of Old Testament Judaism with the Hebrew feasts fulfilled in Christ and replaces them with a wholly unbiblical string of Roman Catholic ones. Yet this is the sacrosanct bible of Barbara Aho and the Ruckmanites. How Judaised, legalistic, and above all Roman Catholic and Ecumenical can a version of the bible be?

Kabbalists

Mystical Judaism is call kaballah, from the Hebrew term 'received', its principle work being 'Zohar'. It is in fact gnostic in origin and not Jewish. Among other mystical/gnostic practices, kaballah employs a pagan counterfeit of biblical numerical typology and used of Gematria, and acrostics which evangelical scholars and bible expositors have always agreed is employed by the New Testament writers, with something in which letters are shifted to construct different words and find hidden messages or numerical coeds or letter patterns spelling certain words. In actual fact, Michael Drosnin's 'Bible Codes' hoax is a variation of kabbalistic method.

When Hank Hannegraaff's Christian Research Institute exposed Riplinger as a phoney, it documented Riplinger's uses of the very same kabbalistic gnostic mysticism with which she insists she was divinely guided in her writings about the King James. In fact, the only guiding that comes from kaballah is New Age spirit guids (known in Hebrew from the Torah as 'ovot' best translated "familiar spirits").

Moriel agrees with those evangelical scholars dating back to John Lightfoot and the Puritans and the Early Plymouth Brethren, RN Longenecker, Professor James Chaleston )of The Qumran Research Centre at Princeton University) and others who sensible realise that we study the scriptures in their original languages in their original Jewish and Judeo Christian context in which God inspired them to be written in order to understand them in depth. To understand scripture as the inspired Jewish writing is one thing, gnostic kabbalism however is quite another. Such mysticism constitutes the most dangerous form of judaisation of the church = even more potentially dangerous than the exaltation of talmudic writings for anything more than academic purposes and the dangerous and unsubstantiated presuppositions of the Jerusalem School of Synoptic Research (JSSR).

For purposes of messianic apologetics in Jewish evangelism one can give forum to talmudic advocates in order to debate them, much as Justin Martyr debated the unbelieving Jew Trypho or as the Reformers engaged in Colloquise debates such as Luther vs Eck. So too, for academic purposes one can give forum to JSSR in order to give a scholarly challenge to their view. Indeed by failing to give place for expression to those with wrong beliefs in order to openly challenge them was exactly how conservative evangelicals forfeited control over one theological faculty after another from Tubingen in Germany, to Oxford, and Cambridge in England, to Harvard, Princeton and Yale in the USA after the rise of liberal higher criticism.

Our ministry Moriel is, for purely academic purposes, always pleased to give fair platform to those with whom we disagree for the stated goal of presenting a scholarly response to those wrong views -be it an academic investigation of the claims of Roman Catholicism, Talmudic Judaism, or JSSR. Riplinger's kaballaism upon Aho and her associates base their convictions cannot however be academically presented as a serious scholarly; it is simply the occult. Riplinger, Aho, Howard, Buester, and Dillen are de facto kabbalists.

Inclusivists

Inclusivism is the production of 'Inclusive Bible Versions'. These are redacted paraphrases designed for everything from becoming politically correct at the expense of being theologically correct, to the more noble, yet misguided approach to wanting to contextualise the gospel message for a changing society. There are feminists bibles with God as a 'she'.

There are annotated Roman Catholic bibles to try to explain away why the gospels teach that Mary needed a Saviour and Jesus had siblings. There are paraphrases, urban dialect bibles (eg. 'The Gospel in Scouse' or 'The Gospel in Jive') and some of these actually contain profanity and vulgar language supposedly to make the gospel more socially relevant to those in inner cities. Moriel strongly disagrees with Inclusivism; some of these versions are virtually censored and even blasphemous.

When Wycliffe and Tyndale translated their bibles their aim was that the common person could understand the Word of God instead of the Latin Vulgate in a language only the nobility and more educated clergy could read. Now the KJV has become the very kind of error in theory Coverdale wanted it to correct. The problem of trying to explain the gospel to a not well educated soul in the 'verily, verily' language of 16th century English is self evident, but the terminology of the KJV while not crude in the colloquial English of its day impresses people as profane today. Language such as 'pisseth against the wall' and 'drinking one's own piss' is in modern language vulgar and therefore dishonouring to Christ and belittling of His Word.

I personally enjoy the KJV for its prose and its translation errors notwithstanding. I sometimes read it devotionally along side the original languages because on the whole it remains a valid translation. As long as one treats the KJV as the literary relic it is, such language as 'piss' and 'ass' can be viewed in the context of the old English, but when we try to make it a modern translation we engage in inclusivism and it becomes a vulgar translation and vulgar people like vulgarity.

Theistic Evolutionists

Moriel takes the definition of 'a day' in the creation narrative in Genesis as the original Hebrew text expresses it 'or l'hoshech' meaning 'light to dark'. The length of these days in terms of hours the bible does not say, but the text defines a creation day as 'evening to morning; irrespective of how long the length of time was.

While developmental creation is not necessarily contrary to scripture Moriel rejects Darwinism as scientifically groundless and neither does Moriel accept theistic evolution which seeks to combine Darwinism with biblical creationism. In order to attempt to harmonise Genesis with Darwinism, theistic evolutionists (which the current Vatican has outspokenly gone with under Pope John Paul II, and theistic evolutionists tend to be quite ecumenical) need to alter the meanings of biblical texts concerning 'time' or spiritualise them in some way in the fashion of gnosticism. Reformed Protestantism is very gnostic in its mishandlings of scripture with its gnostic style spiritualisations of time; much as hard core Reformed Calvinism spiritualises away Israel as meaning the church (to the negation of the Jews), they spiritualise the millennium into something symbolic. This easily lends itself to an ecumenical merger with Roman Catholicism following its own sensus plenior gnosticism, but also helps accommodate a merger between the bible and evolution.

This ecumenical/Darwinist cause is further buttressed however, by the dynamic equivalence found in portions of the KJV, where similar to the NIV a thought by thought instead of more formal approach to translation is taken. One example of this is in the KJV mistranslation of the Hebrew work yom meaning 'day' in Amos 4.4 to 'year'. There is a perfectly good Hebrew word for year (Shanna) but the text does not say year. The only place the Old Testament text substitutes year for day is in Daniel 9 where the text syas a week is 7 years in a word play on the Hebrew term of week Shavua also meaning Seven. Day may be used metaphorically or hyperbolically in biblical metonymy or allegory such as in expressions like; 'The Day of the Lord' or by contrast as in 'A Day with the Lord is as a thousand years and a thousand years as a day' but that is all. Day means day, not year. There are no formal grounds for the mistranslation in the KJV, here the KJV is a dynamic translation following exactly the same route and translation philosophy as NIV.

Supported by the KJV Only enthusiasts the ecumenical theistic evolutionists of course love this kind of dynamic mistranslation in the KJV because it serves their interests in making Darwinism appear compatible with the bible. If the KJV says a day doesn't have to mean a day, why would we believe it means a day in the creation narrative in Genesis?

Courtesy of its errors, KJV can be used to support the influx of Darwinism into the church and thus the theistic evolutionist share the KJV only agenda.

The 'Despatches' anti Jewish web site protested that the Reformers were not humanists; too ignorant to know the difference between the Christian humanism of the 16th century and the secular humanism of the modern age. They argue strongly for a 17th century Anglican translation not knowing it was based on the 16th century humanist scholarship of Erasmus who first produced the Received Text. Neither do they realise that the same kinds of ignorant nonsense they espouse against other translations is akin to what the proponents of the Vulgate said about the Textus Receptus which their KJV is translated from, much as Augustine faulted Jerome for not following the Septuagint. We strongly recommend Reformed scholar James White's book 'The King James Only Controversy' (published by Bethany House) to debunk the ignorant ramblings of Howard, Buester, Aho & Dillen. Ignorance is no sin. But pretending to have an expertise in a field where one is ignorant reduces one to the level of a fraud and a charlatan (as Riplinger was so demonstrated by the Christian Research Institute when she was debunked as illiterate in Greek).

For us, the only question is loyalty and accuracy to the majority text manuscripts. We do not criticise the KJV or Received Text for anything other than loyalty and accuracy to the majority of the manuscripts. We do not criticise the KJV or Received Test for anything other than loyalty and accuracy. The first production of the Textus Receptus from where the KJV came however was called 'The New Instrument'. It was dedicated to Pope Leo X, the same pope who excommunicated Luther and tried to stop the Reformation. Again how ecumenical can a bible be? The source of their bible was dedicated to one of the most wicked popes in history. Yet this is the bible of Howard, Buester, Aho, and Dillen. KJV is a valid translation; KJV Only however is a cause of ecumenism and christian Darwinism.

Conclusion

There is nothing wrong with reading the King James Bible, but there was something wrong with King James. The problem is not the King James Version, it is a valid translation. Nor is the problem with the Masoretic & Textus Receptus. Only position (irrespective of whether or not we fully agree with that view -good and responsible people maintain this conviction and it deserves just consideration). The problem is with 'KJV ONLY' and the agendas of those who are obsessed by KJV ONLY. These are more concerned with the bible version one reads more than what the bible, (even more than what the KJV version itself says), and more than what the original autographs say. The KJV ONLY cause is a Mormon cause, it is a Gay & Lesbian cause, it is a racist cause, it is a judaised kabbalistic cause, and it is an Ecumenical cause. It is a cause than the Ruckmanites, Howard, Buester, Riplinger, Dillen, and Aho all share.