(a reply to Dr. Daniel Wallace)
by James Snapp, Jr. – December 2009
As I begin this reply to Dr. Daniel Wallace’s essay, “Why I Do Not Think the King James Bible is the Best Translation Available Today,” I want to affirm that I use and recommend some Bible translations other than the King James Version. I prefer the NKJV over the KJV, and I read the HCSB. Also, I believe that the original Greek text of the New Testament is more authoritative than any translation of it, on the grounds that the Greek text was uniquely produced via the inspiration of God. Translations bear divine authority only to the extent that they convey, or are able to convey to receptive readers, the meaning conveyed by the original text. I measure the quality of Bible translations according to how well they convey the meaning of the original text to receptive readers.
Dr. Wallace’s essay promotes several false impressions. I am concerned that Dr. Wallace’s students and other readers may, as a result of the false impressions elicited by his essay, harbor some unjustified doubts about the adequacy of the King James Version. I am particularly concerned about ten subjects that were presented by Dr. Wallace in a misleading or unbalanced way. I intend to concisely address the following questions:
1. Were the compilers of the Textus Receptus limited to a few late manuscripts?
2. What about the disputed phrase in First John 5:7-8?
3. How extensive are scribal errors in the KJV?
4. Does a manuscript’s age automatically improve its text?
5. Does the Revised Text always follow the oldest readings?
6. Are scribal additions more frequent than scribal omissions?
7. Are the compilers of the Revised Text objectively following the best manuscripts?
8. Do readings in the Revised Text affect doctrine?
9. Is textual stability important?
10. What about obscure terminology?
by James Snapp, Jr. – December 2009
As I begin this reply to Dr. Daniel Wallace’s essay, “Why I Do Not Think the King James Bible is the Best Translation Available Today,” I want to affirm that I use and recommend some Bible translations other than the King James Version. I prefer the NKJV over the KJV, and I read the HCSB. Also, I believe that the original Greek text of the New Testament is more authoritative than any translation of it, on the grounds that the Greek text was uniquely produced via the inspiration of God. Translations bear divine authority only to the extent that they convey, or are able to convey to receptive readers, the meaning conveyed by the original text. I measure the quality of Bible translations according to how well they convey the meaning of the original text to receptive readers.
Dr. Wallace’s essay promotes several false impressions. I am concerned that Dr. Wallace’s students and other readers may, as a result of the false impressions elicited by his essay, harbor some unjustified doubts about the adequacy of the King James Version. I am particularly concerned about ten subjects that were presented by Dr. Wallace in a misleading or unbalanced way. I intend to concisely address the following questions:
1. Were the compilers of the Textus Receptus limited to a few late manuscripts?
2. What about the disputed phrase in First John 5:7-8?
3. How extensive are scribal errors in the KJV?
4. Does a manuscript’s age automatically improve its text?
5. Does the Revised Text always follow the oldest readings?
6. Are scribal additions more frequent than scribal omissions?
7. Are the compilers of the Revised Text objectively following the best manuscripts?
8. Do readings in the Revised Text affect doctrine?
9. Is textual stability important?
10. What about obscure terminology?
I will also cover some miscellaneous points.
1. WERE THE COMPILERS OF THE TEXTUS RECEPTUS IN THE 1500’s LIMITED TO A FEW LATE MANUSCRIPTS?
Dr. Wallace gave readers the impression that the KJV was based directly and exclusively on the Greek text edited by Erasmus in the early 1500’s, and that the first edition of Erasmus’ Greek text was a carelessly printed representation of a carelessly compiled text: “the most poorly edited volume in all of literature.” That is not an accurate description. Instead of taking the time to dissect Dr. Wallace’s assertion, though, I wish to stress that no one should imagine that after Erasmus produced his Greek text in 1516, the next important event happened in 1611 when the KJV-translators finished translating it into English. There are other important links in the chain of events that led to the KJV. The Complutensian Polyglot was published in 1520. Robert Estienne (Stephanus) produced editions of the Greek New Testament in the mid-1500’s. Theodore Beza’s second edition of the Greek New Testament was released in 1582. John Calvin’s Harmony of the Three Evangelists Matthew, Mark, and Luke and his Commentary on John, in both of which Calvin addressed some textual variants, were translated into English in 1584.
It is not difficult to see why Dr. Wallace did not mention the Complutensian Polyglot, or the Greek New Testaments produced by Stephanus and Beza. These works were made more carefully than Erasmus’ first edition. Also, it cannot be truthfully stated that these works were made without consulting early manuscripts. Beza used Codex Bezae, which has been assigned a date of c. 400 by text-critic D. C. Parker. Stephanus made annotations about the readings of Codex Regius (L, 019), a Gospels-MS which was produced in the 700’s, and which is ranked by advocates of the Revised Text as one of the most accurate extant copies of the Gospels. Erasmus used Codex 1, which is related to a Gospels-text used by Origen in the first half of the 200’s. Erasmus also accessed the extensive quotations of the New Testament embedded in many patristic writings, such as “Against Heresies,” by the second-century bishop Irenaeus. And, in 1533, a supervisor of the Vatican Library at Rome provided Erasmus with a list of over 300 readings of Codex Vaticanus, the flagship manuscript of the Revised Text.
It would be hard to tell readers that these ancient sources were known to the scholars who compiled the text-base of the KJV, and then expect readers to believe the claim that the KJV was based on a few late manuscripts. So Dr. Wallace decided not to mention those ancient sources. Instead, he used First John 5:7 as Exhibit A in his case that “Very few of the distinctive King James readings are demonstrably ancient.”
2. WHAT ABOUT THE DISPUTED PHRASE IN FIRST JOHN 5:7-8?
Dr. Wallace has repaired Bruce Metzger’s fictitious tale about a “rash promise” made by Erasmus about the Comma Johanneum (the phrase, “in heaven: the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit, and these three are one. And there are three that bear witness on earth”). However, more needs to be said. The Comma Johanneum (which I’ll call “CJ”) probably began as a loose quotation of a statement by the third-century patristic writer Cyprian which was placed in the margin of a Latin copy of First John, and was subsequently inserted into the text. I do not regard the CJ as part of the original text.
But consider how things stood in the 1500’s and early 1600’s. Most copies of the Vulgate text of First John contained the CJ, and since the Vulgate was regarded as a text from the late 300’s, that was a strong point in its favor. The CJ, or something closely resembling it, is attested in the Liber Apologeticus, which was written in the 380’s: “As John says, ‘and there are three which give testimony on earth, the water, the flesh the blood, and these three are in one, and there are three which give testimony in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Spirit, and these three are one in Christ Jesus.’”
Also, the author of the Prologue to the Canonical (i.e., Catholic) Epistles in the important Latin manuscript Codex Fuldensis (made in 546) mentions the CJ: after referring to the place “where we read the unity of the Trinity laid down in the Epistle of John,” he states, “I found translators (or copyists) widely deviating from the truth; who set down in their own edition the names only of the three witnesses, that is, the Water, Blood, and Spirit; but omit the testimony of the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit; by which, above all places, the Divinity of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit is proved to be one.” The CJ is not in the text of Codex Fuldensis, but clearly this variant was known and confidently advocated by someone in the mid-500’s.
In addition, the Greek text in the Complutensian Polyglot contained the CJ. When one also considers that a statement by Cyprian (which, as I mentioned already, is probably the source of the CJ) and a statement by Claudius Apollinaris of Hierapolis seemed capable of being interpreted as support for the CJ, it is not difficult to see why many individuals in Europe in the 1500’s, who did not have access to an abundance of ancient Greek copies of First John, regarded the CJ as authentic.
(We don’t have access to an abundance of ancient Greek copies of First John today, either. Out of the 660 or so extant continuous-text Greek manuscripts of any part of the Catholic Epistles, only about a dozen Greek copies earlier than the 800’s contain First John. If you have a copy of D.C. Parker’s Introduction to NT MSS and Their Texts, there’s a helpful chart with data to this effect on pages 284-285.)
The CJ is, though, one of the most weakly supported variants in the Textus Receptus. Its low level of support is not typical. However, Dr. Wallace makes it seem as if this is just one of hundreds of meaning-affecting variants in the Textus Receptus that are not supported by ancient evidence. His claim is, “Very few of the distinctive King James readings are demonstrably ancient.” We shall test his claim shortly.
3. IS THE KJV FILLED WITH SCRIBAL ERRORS?
Dr. Wallace claimed, “The King James Bible is filled with readings which have been created by overly zealous scribes!” Later in the very same essay, Dr. Wallace says, “Over 98% of the time, the Textus Receptus and the standard critical editions agree.” How is it that a text agrees with the Revised Text over 98% of the time and is filled with scribal errors? It looks like Dr. Wallace has used the phrase “filled with” as a synonym for “less than 2% of the time.”
4. DOES THE AGE OF A MANUSCRIPT AUTOMATICALLY IMPROVE ITS TEXT?
Dr. Wallace wrote, “Most textual critics just happen to embrace the reasonable proposition that the most ancient MSS tend to be more reliable since they stand closer to the date of the autographs.” That is a carefully worded statement. I hope that all readers will read it carefully, so that the words “tend to be” will not be misinterpreted as “are.” Unfortunately footnotes in modern translations of the Revised Text fail to express that important distinction.
The age of a manuscript is just one factor to consider when evaluating the quality of its text. The oldest extant manuscripts are, by definition, those that have survived the longest. They have survived the longest because of the conditions in which they were preserved. Early copies of New Testament books were written on papyrus, and the climate of Egypt is particularly favorable to the preservation of papyrus. That is why our oldest manuscripts are found in Egypt. Does that mean that Egyptian copies are more likely to resemble the autographs than younger copies from, say, Antioch or Constantinople? It all depends on how faithfully the text was copied in Egypt, in Antioch, and in Constantinople. And that’s the point: it all depends on how well the copyists preserved the text, not on how well the climate preserved the material upon which the text was written.
5. THE REVISED TEXT VERSUS THE OLDEST READINGS: SOME EXAMPLES
But consider how things stood in the 1500’s and early 1600’s. Most copies of the Vulgate text of First John contained the CJ, and since the Vulgate was regarded as a text from the late 300’s, that was a strong point in its favor. The CJ, or something closely resembling it, is attested in the Liber Apologeticus, which was written in the 380’s: “As John says, ‘and there are three which give testimony on earth, the water, the flesh the blood, and these three are in one, and there are three which give testimony in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Spirit, and these three are one in Christ Jesus.’”
Also, the author of the Prologue to the Canonical (i.e., Catholic) Epistles in the important Latin manuscript Codex Fuldensis (made in 546) mentions the CJ: after referring to the place “where we read the unity of the Trinity laid down in the Epistle of John,” he states, “I found translators (or copyists) widely deviating from the truth; who set down in their own edition the names only of the three witnesses, that is, the Water, Blood, and Spirit; but omit the testimony of the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit; by which, above all places, the Divinity of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit is proved to be one.” The CJ is not in the text of Codex Fuldensis, but clearly this variant was known and confidently advocated by someone in the mid-500’s.
In addition, the Greek text in the Complutensian Polyglot contained the CJ. When one also considers that a statement by Cyprian (which, as I mentioned already, is probably the source of the CJ) and a statement by Claudius Apollinaris of Hierapolis seemed capable of being interpreted as support for the CJ, it is not difficult to see why many individuals in Europe in the 1500’s, who did not have access to an abundance of ancient Greek copies of First John, regarded the CJ as authentic.
(We don’t have access to an abundance of ancient Greek copies of First John today, either. Out of the 660 or so extant continuous-text Greek manuscripts of any part of the Catholic Epistles, only about a dozen Greek copies earlier than the 800’s contain First John. If you have a copy of D.C. Parker’s Introduction to NT MSS and Their Texts, there’s a helpful chart with data to this effect on pages 284-285.)
The CJ is, though, one of the most weakly supported variants in the Textus Receptus. Its low level of support is not typical. However, Dr. Wallace makes it seem as if this is just one of hundreds of meaning-affecting variants in the Textus Receptus that are not supported by ancient evidence. His claim is, “Very few of the distinctive King James readings are demonstrably ancient.” We shall test his claim shortly.
3. IS THE KJV FILLED WITH SCRIBAL ERRORS?
Dr. Wallace claimed, “The King James Bible is filled with readings which have been created by overly zealous scribes!” Later in the very same essay, Dr. Wallace says, “Over 98% of the time, the Textus Receptus and the standard critical editions agree.” How is it that a text agrees with the Revised Text over 98% of the time and is filled with scribal errors? It looks like Dr. Wallace has used the phrase “filled with” as a synonym for “less than 2% of the time.”
4. DOES THE AGE OF A MANUSCRIPT AUTOMATICALLY IMPROVE ITS TEXT?
Dr. Wallace wrote, “Most textual critics just happen to embrace the reasonable proposition that the most ancient MSS tend to be more reliable since they stand closer to the date of the autographs.” That is a carefully worded statement. I hope that all readers will read it carefully, so that the words “tend to be” will not be misinterpreted as “are.” Unfortunately footnotes in modern translations of the Revised Text fail to express that important distinction.
The age of a manuscript is just one factor to consider when evaluating the quality of its text. The oldest extant manuscripts are, by definition, those that have survived the longest. They have survived the longest because of the conditions in which they were preserved. Early copies of New Testament books were written on papyrus, and the climate of Egypt is particularly favorable to the preservation of papyrus. That is why our oldest manuscripts are found in Egypt. Does that mean that Egyptian copies are more likely to resemble the autographs than younger copies from, say, Antioch or Constantinople? It all depends on how faithfully the text was copied in Egypt, in Antioch, and in Constantinople. And that’s the point: it all depends on how well the copyists preserved the text, not on how well the climate preserved the material upon which the text was written.
5. THE REVISED TEXT VERSUS THE OLDEST READINGS: SOME EXAMPLES
Dr. Wallace gave his readers the impression that the Revised Text is superior to the Byzantine Text because the Revised Text contains the oldest readings. However, when we take the time to wade through the earliest readings and compare them to the Revised Text, it becomes clear that the compilers of the Revised Text have frequently rejected the oldest readings. Let’s consider some of the readings in the oldest manuscripts of Mark chapter 7.
Mark 7:4a: Vaticanus and Sinaiticus both read the Greek equivalent of “pour upon themselves,” but this is not adopted in the 27th edition of the Nestle-Aland text.
Mark 7:4b: Vaticanus and Sinaiticus do not contain the phrase kai klinwn (“and couches”), but the phrase is in NA-27, bracketed.
Mark 7:6a: Papyrus 45, produced in about 225, has apokritheis. The Byzantine Text (and the Textus Receptus) also has apokritheis. NA-27’s text, however, does not have it.
Mark 7:6b: P45 (and the Byzantine Text) has oti, but this is not adopted in NA-27.
Mark 7:12a: P45 (and the Byzantine Text) has kai, but this is not adopted in NA-27.
Mark 7:30: P45 (and the Byzantine Text) has the words in a different order than what is found in NA-27.
Mark 7:31: P45 (and the Byzantine Text) has kai Sidwnos hlqen, but this is not adopted in NA-27.
Mark 7:32: P45 (and the Byzantine Text) does not have kai before mogilalon, but it is in NA-27.
Mark 7:35: P45 (and the Byzantine Text) has dihnoicthhsan, but this is not adopted in NA-27.
Mark 7:36: P45 (and the Byzantine Text) has autos, but this is not adopted in NA-27.
Mark 7:37b: Vaticanus and Sinaiticus do not have the last occurrence of tous, but it is included in NA-27 in brackets.
Nobody should be surprised if I question the honesty of anyone who spreads the claim that “Very few of the distinctive King James readings are demonstrably ancient” in light of data like this list. This list shows that in a single chapter of Mark, eight readings in the KJV’s base-text are supported by the oldest known manuscript of a passage, and three more readings in the KJV’s base-text are preferred by the NA-compilers themselves over the readings in the oldest known manuscript of a passage.
6. OMISSIONS ARE MORE FREQUENT THAN ADDITIONS
Dr. Wallace wrote, "The textual evidence shows me both that scribes had a strong tendency to add, rather than subtract.” He should reconsider the textual evidence and withdraw this frequently repeated falsehood which is entrenched in the approach of the compilers of the Revised Text. The research of J. R. Royse in his dissertation “Scribal Habits in Early NT Papyri” shows that early copyists made omissions more often than they made additions. If Dr. Wallace really thought that this “strong tendency” that he imagines is truly decisive, he would adopt the Byzantine Text in the 650 or so places where, as he mentioned, it is shorter than the Alexandrian Text.
7. ARE THE COMPILERS OF THE REVISED TEXT OBJECTIVELY FOLLOWING THE BEST MANUSCRIPTS?
Dr. Wallace wrote, “Those scholars who seem to be excising many of your favorite passages from the New Testament are not doing so out of spite, but because such passages are not found in the better and more ancient MSS.” Perhaps he refers to scholars such as Bart Ehrman, and to passages such as Mark 1:41 and Luke 22:43-44. I am not so naïve as to imagine that Dr. Ehrman, a committed agnostic, is entirely agenda-free in his efforts to promote the ideas that Mark depicted Jesus as easily angered while Luke depicted Jesus as an unfailingly calm super-Stoic. In addition, Dr. Wallace’s claim about “better and more ancient MSS” is false where some variants are concerned. I Cor. 14:34-35 is attested in all Greek manuscripts of the book, but Gordon Fee and others who believe that all church offices should be open to women consider it an interpolation. Luke 22:43-44 is attested by Justin Martyr and other writers in the 100’s, but this early testimony is dismissed on highly speculative grounds. And in Second Peter 3:10, no Greek manuscript reads ouc eurethhsetai (“will not be found”), but this will probably be in the 28th edition of the Nestle-Aland Revised Text.
8. DO VARIANTS IN THE REVISED TEXT AFFECT DOCTRINE?
Dr. Wallace wrote, “In fact, it has been repeatedly affirmed that no doctrine of Scripture has been affected by these textual differences.” Elsewhere he has adjusted this claim by referring to “cardinal” doctrine and “plausible” variants. I wonder if Dr. Wallace included the doctrine of inerrancy among the doctrines to which he refers. Probably not. In the same manuscripts that he considers the most reliable (Codex Vaticanus and Codex Sinaiticus), the text of Matthew 27:49 says that Jesus was speared before He died. This textual variant introduces a contradiction with the timing presented in John 19:33-34, where Jesus is speared after His death. I welcome Dr. Wallace to explain how this variant in the “best” manuscripts – a variant which Hort (the most influential compiler of the Revised Text in the 1800’s) regarded as plausibly original – can be embraced without abandoning the doctrine of inerrancy.
9. IS TEXTUAL STABILITY IMPORTANT?
6. OMISSIONS ARE MORE FREQUENT THAN ADDITIONS
Dr. Wallace wrote, "The textual evidence shows me both that scribes had a strong tendency to add, rather than subtract.” He should reconsider the textual evidence and withdraw this frequently repeated falsehood which is entrenched in the approach of the compilers of the Revised Text. The research of J. R. Royse in his dissertation “Scribal Habits in Early NT Papyri” shows that early copyists made omissions more often than they made additions. If Dr. Wallace really thought that this “strong tendency” that he imagines is truly decisive, he would adopt the Byzantine Text in the 650 or so places where, as he mentioned, it is shorter than the Alexandrian Text.
7. ARE THE COMPILERS OF THE REVISED TEXT OBJECTIVELY FOLLOWING THE BEST MANUSCRIPTS?
Dr. Wallace wrote, “Those scholars who seem to be excising many of your favorite passages from the New Testament are not doing so out of spite, but because such passages are not found in the better and more ancient MSS.” Perhaps he refers to scholars such as Bart Ehrman, and to passages such as Mark 1:41 and Luke 22:43-44. I am not so naïve as to imagine that Dr. Ehrman, a committed agnostic, is entirely agenda-free in his efforts to promote the ideas that Mark depicted Jesus as easily angered while Luke depicted Jesus as an unfailingly calm super-Stoic. In addition, Dr. Wallace’s claim about “better and more ancient MSS” is false where some variants are concerned. I Cor. 14:34-35 is attested in all Greek manuscripts of the book, but Gordon Fee and others who believe that all church offices should be open to women consider it an interpolation. Luke 22:43-44 is attested by Justin Martyr and other writers in the 100’s, but this early testimony is dismissed on highly speculative grounds. And in Second Peter 3:10, no Greek manuscript reads ouc eurethhsetai (“will not be found”), but this will probably be in the 28th edition of the Nestle-Aland Revised Text.
8. DO VARIANTS IN THE REVISED TEXT AFFECT DOCTRINE?
Dr. Wallace wrote, “In fact, it has been repeatedly affirmed that no doctrine of Scripture has been affected by these textual differences.” Elsewhere he has adjusted this claim by referring to “cardinal” doctrine and “plausible” variants. I wonder if Dr. Wallace included the doctrine of inerrancy among the doctrines to which he refers. Probably not. In the same manuscripts that he considers the most reliable (Codex Vaticanus and Codex Sinaiticus), the text of Matthew 27:49 says that Jesus was speared before He died. This textual variant introduces a contradiction with the timing presented in John 19:33-34, where Jesus is speared after His death. I welcome Dr. Wallace to explain how this variant in the “best” manuscripts – a variant which Hort (the most influential compiler of the Revised Text in the 1800’s) regarded as plausibly original – can be embraced without abandoning the doctrine of inerrancy.
9. IS TEXTUAL STABILITY IMPORTANT?
Dr. Wallace claimed that the KJV has undergone three revisions, “incorporating more than 100,000 changes.” That is extremely misleading. The KJV’s text was converted from one typeface to another, and printing-errors in the 1611 edition were corrected, and there have been orthographic changes, such as the change from “citie” to “city.” The number of actual sense-affecting alterations, however, is nowhere near 100,000. It’s less than 1,000. Meanwhile, how many changes in the Revised Text will be encountered in its 28th edition? (In the Gospels alone, there were over 750 changes from the 25th edition to the 27th edition of the Nestle-Aland text.) How many changes will occur in the next revision of the NIV? Will the next edition of Dr. Wallace’s NET contain Mark 16:9-20? We will have to wait and see.
10. WHAT ABOUT OBSCURE TERMINOLOGY?
Dr. Wallace criticized the KJV because it contains 300 words that no longer mean what they meant in 1611. His first example is the word “Suffer,” as it is used in Matthew 19:14 – “Suffer little children…to come unto me.” In 1611, “suffer” could mean “permit” or “allow” – like it did when it was prominently used in the movie, The Return of the King. His second example was the word “Study” as it is used in II Timothy 2:15. However, contrary to the impression given by Dr. Wallace, you don’t need a large unabridged dictionary to ascertain the “archaic” definition of these words. My Merriam-Webster’s Vest Pocket Dictionary includes “permit” as a definition of “suffer,” and its last definition for “study” is “apply the attention and mind to a subject.” But perhaps other terms should be used, lest we run the risk of improving the reader’s vocabulary.
Dr. Wallace asked, “Should we really embrace a Bible as the best translation when it uses language that not only is not clearly understood any more, but in fact has been at times perverted and twisted?” However, no Bible translation is impervious to misinterpretation and abuse, and all Bible translations can be supplemented with explanatory notes and glossaries. Also, the New Testament itself affirms (in II Peter 3:16) that it contains some things that are hard to understand, so it is rather problematic to insist, as Dr. Wallace does, that something is flawed simply because it is hard to understand. A translation does not become bad by requiring the readers to do a bit of research to gain a better understanding of the text.
What about modern translations of the New Testament? Do they convey the meaning of the original text significantly more clearly than the KJV? The KJV is clearer in one respect: it differentiates between singular and plural subjects via the use of “thee” (singular) and “ye” (plural). The KJV-reader also has the advantage of being able to easily discern, by noticing italicization, where the English text does not strictly correspond to the underlying Greek text. Also, when people approach the KJV with the knowledge that it is 400 years old, they tend to expect antiquated language, and they prepare for it, just as they do when reading Shakespeare, or Chaucer.
It is amazing that Dr. Wallace vocally objects to archaic but accurate terms in the KJV while tolerating paraphrases such as The Message. Here are some terms and phrases from The Message New Testament: “pet canary,” “house of cards,” “casseroles,” “black magic,” “defecated,” “put the screws to the man,” “helter-skelter,” “caught red-handed in the act of adultery,” “spotlight,” “the town was buzzing,” “potentates meet for summit talks,” “his underdog brother,” “corkscrew,” “English,” “a real bad apple,” “torpor,” “paraphernalia,” “Band-Aid,” “telescope,” “microscope,” “broccoli,” “reminiscent of angels,” “addendum,” “sitting ducks,” “millennia,” “iron out their differences,” “the Anarchist,” “dog-eat-dog,” “adrenaline,” and “galaxies.”
As Eugene H. Peterson puts a spotlight, a telescope, and a microscope in the New Testament, Dr. Wallace is worried about the KJV’s phrase “strain at a gnat” in Matthew 23:24??? I agree that the phrase “strain out a gnat” is preferable (and that is how the Geneva Bible rendered the Greek word diulizontes there). But that is a gnat compared to the anachronistic camels in The Message (which, in its 2003 remix, says, “This delights the Master no end” in Colossians 3:20 – a similar and similarly trivial error). I cannot believe Dr. Wallace’s claim that the KJV “has far more drastically altered the scriptures than have modern translations,” because I believe my eyes as I read the multitude of mistranslations, omissions, and bizarre insertions in The Message.
MISCELLANEOUS POINTS
● I concur with Dr. Wallace’s opposition to the idea that the KJV is as divinely inspired as the original text. At this point, though, he has completely left the KJV as a subject, and is writing about something else.
● Dr. Wallace contended that most evangelicals “prefer a different translation and textual basis than that found in the KJV.” This is an observation about opinions and the effects of intense marketing; it is not a comment about the KJV itself.
● Dr. Wallace claimed that the sole basis for the theory that heretics are responsible for the Alexandrian Text is “that certain readings in these MSS are disagreeable to them!” That is not the case. If it would not divert from the present subject, several patristic claims that heretics altered the text of New Testament books could be presented. But, again, Dr. Wallace has shifted his focus away from the KJV.
● Dr. Wallace wrote, “Those who vilify the modern translations and the Greek texts behind them have evidently never really investigated the data. Their appeals are based largely on emotion, not evidence.” Again, Dr. Wallace has shifted his focus away from the KJV! Nevertheless I will briefly engage this claim. Dr. Wallace is partly right: some vocal opponents of the Revised Text and translations based upon it are severely uninformed and misinformed. Some of them make emotion-based appeals. However, Dr. Wallace’s claim is a blanket statement and it does not accurately describe everyone who sees the Revised Text as an unstable test-tube text. Nor does it accurately describe everyone who opposes loose paraphrases and gender-modified mistranslations. Someone could just as easily say, “Those who promote modern translations and the Greek texts behind them are evidently motivated by a desire to make money by creating and perpetuating a novelty-Bible market. Their efforts are fueled by a desire for monetary profit, not by a desire to spread the pure Word of God.” That would not be a fair statement, even though it might fit some individuals accurately. Similarly, Dr. Wallace’s claim is unfair.
● As Dr. Wallace described the work of Erasmus, he wrote that Erasmus’ Latin translation “was meant to improve upon Jerome’s Latin Vulgate — a translation which the Catholic church had declared to be inspired.” However, the Roman Catholic Church did not officially decree that the Vulgate must be considered authentic and authoritative until 1546, thirty years after Erasmus’ first Greek NT was published.
● Dr. Wallace claimed that the KJV’s rendering of Hebrews 4:8 involves a mistake, where it says, “For if Jesus had given them rest, then would he not afterward have spoken of another day.” However, this is not a mistake. Hebrews 4:8 contains one of two New Testament references to the Old Testament individual known as Joshua (Acts 7:45 is the other one), whose name in Greek is identical to the Greek name of Jesus (Ihsous).” Although, as Dr. Wallace affirms, a KJV-reader could momentarily imagine that the subject is Jesus Christ, a reader of the Greek text could momentarily imagine the same thing (which a reasonable consideration of the context will quickly resolve), because the same phenomenon exists in the Greek text itself.
● Dr. Wallace concluded by saying, “I trust that this brief survey of reasons I have for thinking that the King James Bible is not the best available translation will not be discarded quickly.” He is correct; it has not been discarded quickly. I hope that this candid assessment of his misleading claims will keep his readers from quickly discarding a Bible translation which, despite many minor shortcomings, accurately communicates the essential message of the original text, and is a sufficiently sharp, strong, and powerful sword.
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Quotations from Dr. Wallace are from his essay found in December 2009 at
http://bible.org/article/why-i-do-not-think-king-james-bible-best-translation-available-today . Dr. Wallace made some of the same statements in another essay at http://bible.org/article/why-so-many-versions , in which he affirmed that it would be helpful for Christians to possess a King James Bible.
