Joe Keysor
Puritan Board Freshman
James White\'s King James Only Controversy
I have the following questions about James White's book, which has been praised a number of times on this board.
If someone can give me some answers on these points I will be most interested to read them.
1)He pointed to a major doctrinal mistake in the KJV and said no defenders of the KJV had been able to answer it. This was in Acts 19:2 where Paul asks "Have you received the Holy Spirit since you believed?" He made quite an issue of this, asserting that it was bad translating and bad doctrine - people receive the Holy Spirit the instant they believe, according to him. But what does Paul say in Ephesians? "...in whom also after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that holy Spirit of promise" (1:13). Another mistake in the bible? Also in Acts we read that the people of Samaria believed and were baptized, but received the Holy Spirit later. White's preferred rendering is in my mind definitely related to a false gospel which says "Just agree to some basic doctrines intellectually and you are guaranteed of a place in heaven no matter what you do" - not that White said this himself. As to the grammar, the Greek (in the TR at least) uses the aorist participle (pisteusantes), which refers to actions that were completed prior. His argument that the aorist participle can refer to simultaneous actions was extremely weak and contrary to basic grammar.
2) He criticized a KJV rendering where Jesus said "Let these sayings sink down into your ears," and asked "What father would speak to his child that way?" But what father would say to his child "Elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father through sanctification of the Spirit"? The bible is not a children's book and Jesus was not talking to children.
3)He repeatedly said that the KJV was inaccurate and what the Greek "really" meant was.... In EVERY case but one I looked in my Liddell-Scott Greek Lexicon and found the KJV's rendering included in the possible definitions. It seems that White looked at some bible dictionary and just picked out the very first definition out of many, or the one that he liked, and thought this is what the Greek "really" means. I also think James White and many other critics of the KJV could not read a page of Plato or Xenophon in the original to save their lives, and know much less about Greek than did the men whose work they criticize so freely. This does not apply to the rare occasions where the meaning of a word (such as "lust") has changed over time.
[Edited on 1-6-2005 by Joe Keysor]
I have the following questions about James White's book, which has been praised a number of times on this board.
If someone can give me some answers on these points I will be most interested to read them.
1)He pointed to a major doctrinal mistake in the KJV and said no defenders of the KJV had been able to answer it. This was in Acts 19:2 where Paul asks "Have you received the Holy Spirit since you believed?" He made quite an issue of this, asserting that it was bad translating and bad doctrine - people receive the Holy Spirit the instant they believe, according to him. But what does Paul say in Ephesians? "...in whom also after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that holy Spirit of promise" (1:13). Another mistake in the bible? Also in Acts we read that the people of Samaria believed and were baptized, but received the Holy Spirit later. White's preferred rendering is in my mind definitely related to a false gospel which says "Just agree to some basic doctrines intellectually and you are guaranteed of a place in heaven no matter what you do" - not that White said this himself. As to the grammar, the Greek (in the TR at least) uses the aorist participle (pisteusantes), which refers to actions that were completed prior. His argument that the aorist participle can refer to simultaneous actions was extremely weak and contrary to basic grammar.
2) He criticized a KJV rendering where Jesus said "Let these sayings sink down into your ears," and asked "What father would speak to his child that way?" But what father would say to his child "Elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father through sanctification of the Spirit"? The bible is not a children's book and Jesus was not talking to children.
3)He repeatedly said that the KJV was inaccurate and what the Greek "really" meant was.... In EVERY case but one I looked in my Liddell-Scott Greek Lexicon and found the KJV's rendering included in the possible definitions. It seems that White looked at some bible dictionary and just picked out the very first definition out of many, or the one that he liked, and thought this is what the Greek "really" means. I also think James White and many other critics of the KJV could not read a page of Plato or Xenophon in the original to save their lives, and know much less about Greek than did the men whose work they criticize so freely. This does not apply to the rare occasions where the meaning of a word (such as "lust") has changed over time.
[Edited on 1-6-2005 by Joe Keysor]