24. King James Onlyism Part 3

This is the For Freedom Podcast. This podcast exists to bring to light the legalism and abuse in the independent fundamental Baptist movement and to encourage believers to grow in grace through the scriptures. Now, here's your host, John Hollifield. Welcome to the For Freedom Podcast. I really need to change that intro. Well, you know. I need to get a new intro there. That's what happens when you procrastinate too much, John. I know. It's no longer just me. We got another host here, James. We do. We do. James Seyfried. The one and only. We are in the studio. This is awesome. I'm going to start traveling to North Carolina just to do the episode. Every Tuesday, baby. Every Tuesday, going to North Carolina. Draw six hours to do it in the studio. James got a studio set up here at his church. Sounds amazing. Well, it's all right. It sounds amazing in our ears. We're going to record it. It's going to be like, yeah, that's subpar, guys. Subpar. Okay. I hope everybody's doing great out there. This is the For Freedom Podcast where we tackle the theology, the legalism, and the independent fundamental Baptist movement and try to meet that with a biblical answer with grace while relying on the sufficiency of scriptures. And we also look at, on occasion, look at abuse within the church as well. And so we have actually been going through and doing a multiple-part series on the King James only-ism that is very prevalent within the independent fundamental Baptist movement. And so we're going to be jumping back into that, but we want to do our segment this week, Roundup. And so, James, how was your week? What did you get into this week? Well, it was good. We, this past week was, I preached this past Sunday, which was exciting. And we are, you know, really, when this comes out, it'll be Thursday. And so all the eyes will be on the inauguration and what's going on there with Joe Biden. And so I know that that'll be on the topic of everyone's mind. But this past week has been pretty fun. You know, you've been in town and the kids have been able to hang out. And so we've had a really good time. Yeah. I had my grandma passed away. And so I came down Monday morning for a funeral. And then James was about an hour away from where the funeral was being held. So we spent the night at his place. And, you know, I feel like I finally understand what Cinderella felt like. You get banished to the room with no air conditioning. James was like, come on, man. I got a bed. And then, like, it's like 40 degrees up there. And we're huddled up. And no, but thank you, man, for letting us stay true. Just threw you under the bus. We don't really like much heat in our house anyways. Like, you have been banished to the upstairs. You will have no heat. If you complain, you will have no food. And he didn't get food this morning because I complained. Just so everybody knows. I did not feed him breakfast. He promised me biscuits and gravy and said, oh, no, I don't have anything for biscuits. Sorry. I don't eat gravy. I know I'm going to get emails for that. I don't do gravy. I'm just not a gravy person. You can't tell it, but I don't do gravy. Did come across something. I'm not a little slow on the uptake for Will Hess's podcast, The Church Split. But he was advertising that they interviewed Nathan Rager. Rage and Rager. Nathan R. Rager. Nathan R. Rager. The most. The number one hated preacher in America right now. In America. The number one most hated preacher. He has taken the title, baby. Who did he take it from? I don't know who it was, but he took the title and he's running with it. He said in the podcast, you can listen to it. He said, you can look it up. Look up the number one most hated preacher in America. And it's going to be Nathan R. Rager. That's who it is. I'm Googling it. And so he was very, very fond of that. John texted me and said, listen to this. And I was actually heading to a funeral on Saturday in Kannapolis, which is about an hour and a half away. And so it's like a two hour podcast or something like that. It's crazy long. And so I thought, you know, I'm going to listen to the whole thing on this drive. And I called John about halfway through and I said, John, I'm beating my head against the window right now because it's driving me insane. I don't know how I'm able to listen to this, but it was it was very interesting. If you haven't listened to it, they do a really good job of, I believe, pointing him into a corner and making him really try to address his stand that he wasn't able to really defend himself. Maybe he's listened to this. He's probably not. But he did a really poor job of trying to defend himself. What he did was he kept calling names. I don't know if a name calling is a defense or not. It's called ad hominem. And it's basically used by people that don't have a defense. So because they can't defend their position, they just go out straight in attacking the person. Yeah, it was it was very, very bad. But listen to it. No, no, no. It was bad because of rager. Yeah. I have to say, I thought Will and his co-host. Yeah, I know Will. I know Will has, you know, I've talked to him a couple of times, but his co-host is he just got a co-host. I just got to go host. Well, but someone someone called me Jeff, I think, on Twitter this week. Josh. I'm a Josh. Josh, which is cool. You know, it's OK. I'm not Josh. I'm James. You actually have a brother named Josh. I do have a brother named Josh, but it's not him. But I thought they did a fantastic job. Yeah. That's just I couldn't do that. I just don't have the disposition to be able to do that. My Mike. It would be tough. Blood pressure. OK, so I Googled this. Google fact check, everybody. If you trust that. Google fact check. There is actually not a category for the number one most hated preacher in America. So what he did was he made up his own statistic there. Yeah. But the BBC did do a thing on America's hate preachers. And their number one guy was actually not. It was Stephen Anderson. Hey, Stephen. Stephen Anderson. He does refer to Stephen Anderson in that clip, though. He says his good buddy Stephen. He sent him some some copies of manuscripts or something to have his his people look over and they can it was it was a bunch of junk. But, yeah, it was good. Wow. But anyways, I doing good. I thought they they did a fantastic job of exposing ragers positions and just pointing out very well done how they have no just a poor biblical exposition, biblical exegesis, biblical handling of text to turn around and make it say what you want to say. And they did a good job of exposing that with. Well, and one thing that I really I thought was I don't know if it was just bad or not cordial, but he kept referring to Brian Edwards on the RFP as a guy that was, you know, on the phone and email. Man, we're best friends. And and, you know, he he he was real cordial. And he said, you know, he agreed with me on a lot of issues. And then the next sentence out of his mouth was talking about how they're heretics, how they're they're just wicked. And they're allowing their wives to wear skinny jeans. And it was just one side was man. We're best friends. And the next side was just horrible. Yeah. Next thing. How about the playoffs? Well, Tom Brady, he's cheating his way. Tom Brady's the goat. He's cheating his greatest of all time. He's getting there by cheating, baby. Tell me how he cheated this week. Well, this week he decided to go to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers where there was going to be a home game for the playoffs. Not a home game for playoffs, home game for the Super Bowl. And he knew, you know what, if I go there, I'm going to get a home Super Bowl game. And so he came in and and is cheating his way to the top like always. So. Oh, my goodness. Oh, my goodness. Well, I went for no this week. All of my picks went through to the next round. I picked the Bucs over the Saints. Thought that wasn't going to happen. But thank you, Drew Brees, for choking as normal. Well. And all shots fired. And and then also the Packers. My Super Bowl prediction has been Packers Chiefs, a rematch of Super Bowl one where the Packers won. And if my home stays healthy, I have Chiefs winning it all. I think the same thing. I think it's going to be Packers Chiefs, but I'm picking the Packers. So this week's picks for you is going to be Packers over Bucs, Chiefs over Bills. Yes. And then Packers take the Super Bowl and Aaron Rodgers wins the Super Bowl and retires. No, he don't retire. I don't think he retires. He goes out on top. He's 37. These other guys are playing till they're 42, 43. Aaron Rodgers still wants that money. I don't know. I don't know. I know that Drew Brees is pretty much done. I think he's going to retire this year. And I see, what's the other quarterback? Phillip Rivers. I see him retiring this year as well. Yeah, Phillip Rivers. I think both of them are done. I believe this was Drew Brees' last stint. And that was his last game this last week. I may be wrong, but that's what I see happening. Other thing that happened this week, big Marvel fan, big nerd. WandaVision. WandaVision. It came out. Yes. Did you watch it? I watched part of the first episode. I loved it. I started watching it with my wife and kids. And my son, Brody, he goes, Dad, is this all going to be in black and gray? Black and gray? He said, where's the color at, Dad? And I said, I don't think it's going to all be in black and gray. Black and white, Brody? I said, but eventually we'll get there. And then we watched like 10 minutes of it. And they turned it off and watched something else. So I will watch it myself, but I haven't watched all of it. I loved it. I loved it. I like where it's going. I think this is going to be a huge thing. I'm an MCU fan. So this is going to be a huge thing that's sort of like catalysts, like rocking the MCU world. I'm familiar with the House of M comics. So I'm just, if you're getting lost, if you're a Marvel fan, but you just don't understand this and you're getting lost, I just encourage you, hang on. Because it's going to get insane. If my thinking is going in the right direction that I think they're going in, it's going to get crazy. But really enjoyed that. And then one last thing to cover on this week's roundup was Eric Skorzynski put out an episode, the IFB Theology Part 2. And this is his second interview with Mike Hutchison from the True Presbyterian podcast. And I've only got, I'll say this, we won't talk much about it because I haven't finished it. I haven't started it. Yeah, James hasn't even started it. So I'm like 37 minutes into it. But so far, I can say, like, if the rest of it goes off the rails, which I don't think it will, the first 37 minutes are worth your time because it was fantastic. Mike's assessment of the preaching within the IFB, the predominant topical type preaching, is one of the best critiques and best just, like, takedowns of what those guys champion that I've ever heard. I mean, he does it with eloquence, he does it with precision, and it was really, really good. So I think the rest of it's going to be good. So I highly recommend that, listening to that. And it is something that we're going to get to eventually. I think I feel like I say that all the time. We're going to get to this, we're going to get to this, we're going to get to this. And it took me 23 episodes to get to King James only-ism. But we will. Hey, but we've got a plan now. We've got things written down. Yes. We have an idea of where we're going. Yes. We're going to do the standards. We're going to do the legalism. We're going to do an episode on dress. We're going to do music. We're going to do easy-believe-ism. The Anchor Show, we're going to talk about a little bit today, the Anchor Bridge Show. Yeah, we're going to cover that famous King James only debate. Speaking of King James only, we spent, what was that? Well. Man. It's these mics. It's the mics. We've got a bass singer in the studio, Tim Riley. He wishes. Tim Riley wishes. Yeah, well, you know. Well. We're digressing. Yeah, people are going to tune us out now. They're not even going to go any further. They're done. 12, 13 minutes in and they're done. Oh, my goodness. All right. All right. King James only-ism. That the King James Bible is the inspired, infallible, and errant word of God for us today in the English language. Not a new King James. Not a revised King James. But a King James Bible. That it is the inspired, infallible, and errant word of God for us today in the English language. And it has no mistakes in it. And it doesn't need correcting. Right. Are we good? Okay. That's the second doctrine. We have finished two episodes on the history of the English Bible. So we sort of got that. Now, I just want to say this. I think I forgot to say this as we were going. That really was not a refutation of King James only-ism. I know I threw things in there to sort of talk about their holes in the belief system. But that was mainly just to get an understanding, build a foundation of where the English Bible came from. So now we're going to get into understanding this whole thing of King James only-ism. And then we're actually going to get to the argument and refute the argument point by point. But where I want to go to now is sort of the genesis of where King James only-ism came from. Where did King James only-ism begin? And this is interesting. It's an interesting subject. And we're going to talk about a little bit of the characters that push this. And so King James Version was released in 1611 and went through many different editions and revisions. Yeah. Perfect seven. Perfect seven. Come on now. And then in 1769, went through the 1769 Blaney Revision. And I guess you could say, were people- let me ask you this. Were people King James only up until the 1800s when they started- or the late 1800s, early 1900s when they started putting out- you know, Westcott and Horton did their work and they started putting out modern- what's considered modern translations? No. No. There were no standard. There was no- Well, there wasn't even- now the King James- let me say this. The King James translation was the predominant English translation because it was the easiest to get your hands on. Mm-hmm. But even when the pilgrims sailed over, you know what their preferred Bible was? I think I know this, but I can't remember off the top of my head. It was the Gutenberg, right? Or no? You're still- correct letter, G, the Geneva Bible. The Geneva, yes. They did not like- in fact, now a King James Version came over with them later because they wanted the Bible over there. But their preferred Bible was the Geneva Bible because they rejected the King James Bible because it was put out by the government. Yeah, by the- it was a government endorsed. They didn't want anything with the government. Right. They didn't want- that was the whole reason for the freedom of America was to get rid of the oppression of the state-ran religion. And the King James was that state-ran Bible. It was a representation of that for them. Yeah. So, yeah. And so the King James did become the predominant translation because it's easy access to get it. And not a whole lot of work done towards the area of translation up until about the late 1800s. So where did King James Onlyism begin? Well, King James Onlyism begins whenever- about 1930. The first talkings of someone saying the King James Version is the only one you should be using begins in 1930. And it was by Baptists, right, John? Oh, here we go. Here we go. This is going to be interesting. The guy's name was Benjamin G. Wilkinson. Every Baptist pastor talks about him. They're the forefather of the IFB. Wait, now, I've never heard of the guy named Wilkinson until- No, you haven't. Yeah, no. No, you haven't. Benjamin Wilkinson released a book in 1930 called Our Authorized Bible Vindicated. This is the first time any type of published work that presented this type of point of view was ever put out there. Now, was he a Baptist? No. No, he was what you'd call a Mormon, a Seventh-day Adventist. No, not a Mormon. Not a Mormon, my bad. Yeah, he's a Seventh-day Adventist. Seventh-day Adventist. Not a Latin. He was a Seventh-day Adventist missionary, theology professor, and a college president. Okay. This book had several hundred pages that attached almost no attention in its day. Nobody really jumped on this. He asserted that some of the new versions of the Bible coming out came from manuscripts with corruptions. So he just came up with this idea of corruptions. No really proof to base it off of. The corruptions introduced into the Septuagint by origin and manuscripts with deletions and changes from corrupted Alexandrian texts. He criticized the Westcott and Hort, believing they intentionally rejected the use of the Textus Receptus, and they made changes to the text that used the translation using their revised Greek text based mainly on Codex Vaticanus and Codex Sinaiticus. He was the first person also to produce the Psalm 12, 6, and 7 argument and come up with that. But here is an interesting—I don't know if I have it in my notes here. Okay. Oh, yeah. It's in the second one. So the interesting thing is what was Wilkinson's main problem with the American Standard Version, which I think was one of the first translations that came out in the early 1900s, that changed a little bit of the way it was in the King James. His main issue was that in the English Revised Version of the New Testament published in 1881, he had a particular objection to it because it robbed Seventh-day Adventism of two favorite proof texts teaching Gentile Sabbath keeping from Acts 13.42 and others misused by the Adventists to teach soul sleep from Hebrews 9.27. Yeah. Yeah. So his main issue with not going away from the King James-onlyism is because his misuse of King James Version text that supported Aaronius' teachings for the Seventh-day Adventist. Yeah. And one thing I want to point out, you mentioned it, and you mentioned it in passing, but we're going to get to this later because the prominent guy right now is Sam Gipp, who is the King James-only guy. And he uses this same argument, the corrupted Alexandrian text. That's where they go from. They bring this Alexandrian text, which was corrupt, and that's where they're starting to get these modern translations from and revisions. And it wasn't the pure line of text. And so this is where it started right here. This is where they get this argument. This is where they get a lot of this foothold on a lot of things. Well, and the irony here is because many of these defenders of King James-onlyism like to really attack, and they come up with any attack that they can for anybody that's for another version or a modern version or a new translation because of attacks, because of associations, and different things like that. But yet they deny—we talked about this in the history—they deny the fact about Catholics having a part in the Greek New Testament. They won't talk about that. But yet that's a problem with modern versions. Yeah. They won't talk about the guys translating to King James, baptized babies. And they'll say that the new versions, they omit words or change words to prove their line of thought when the King James did the same thing. We talked about it last week. And so their argument is a circular argument because you can take that same argument and apply it to the King James. Well, it's not even a good argument, so we wouldn't even use their— No. —their argumentation, but it's— You can disprove that. Yeah. It's—what's the word? Double standard. It's such a double standard in argumentation. Mm-hmm. And here it is again because the guy who started their argument that they still use to this day, as you pointed out, was a Seventh-day Adventist, which they would deem a cult. Yes, they would. But they won't talk about that. They won't talk about where they first got their original information from. This past week, I preached, and I gave a quote about Clay Maynard, and I said I was going to. I gave his name. I gave the podcast. I was talking about some of the thoughts that I was given, how I heard it when I was in college, and I'm sort of just preaching to myself. I gave those credits to where credits do. Why would they not give credit to the Seventh-day Adventist guy? Well, that actually gets a little bit more interesting because the next person to write on this subject— and I actually have this book. I don't have it with me. I didn't bring it to North Carolina with me, but I have it in my bookshelf— is a book written in 1955 by a guy named J.J. Ray or James Jasper Ray, and the book is titled God Wrote Only One Bible. Bible. And he was not even a preacher. He was a business manager, a Bible teacher at his church. He wrote a similar booklet and then turned it into a book of about— the book I think I have is about 95 pages. Wilkinson's book basically—now, this is interesting. Wilkinson's book, The Authorized Bible, Vindicated, basically was left unused. Nobody picked it up. Unknown until about 1955. Then Ray, who is self-described as a business manager, missionary, Bible teacher, published his little volume, God Wrote Only One Bible, in his book. Ray, and this is some work done by—research done by Doug Kudelik, heavily plagiarized without note or acknowledgement Wilkinson's book, repeating and propagating wholesale Wilkinson's errors and mistreatments—or misstatements. So this guy comes onto the scene, and he likes what the Seventh-day Adventist says, but we can't acknowledge that the Seventh-day Adventist says this. So he basically just steals the whole—like the manuscript almost. I mean, he plagiarizes most of his book, puts it in a Baptist form, and then, hey, we've just made it holy. Yep. Well, and you've got to think of it like this as well. This book has sit dormant for 25 years. Man, what a better way to go ahead and steal some ideas. And who knows when Mr. Ray started reading that book. He was born in 94, and the book came out. He was only born a couple years, 20 years after Mr. Wilkinson. And so there's no telling how long they had saw this or seen this, and he had been stewing on it and how to rework this. And so all of a sudden he does this. And Ray's book went through numerous printings. Total numerous copies could be tens of thousands. The particular interest is that Ray acknowledges that there are some erroneous translations in the King James itself which do demand revisions, a position today that King James only would consider heresy. Oh, yeah, you can't say that. No, no, you can't say that there's any revisions that need to be done to it. But this is the book, this lineage of they're going from Wilkinson to Ray, and now people are grabbing onto Ray's arguments, which were Wilkinson's arguments, but yet in his own book they pick and choose what they want to say. Okay. So we're trying to trace where this stuff begins. So the first ideas of it come from the Seventh-day Adventist in the 30s when this book is released, but nobody really grabs it. So now we're in the 50s. The 50s we have a guy take it, and now in 55 this guy Jasper Ray puts his thing out and is still not mainstream. No. Independent Baptist churches did not hold to this in the 50s. No, they did not. Okay. Which is why you have John R. Rice who was on the committee for the New American Standard. Jack Owls was too. What? Did I say that out loud? Yeah. Some people might not want to use the American Standard after that. Anyways, Edward F. Hills is the next guy. Now, if there's anybody that has purported this argument that could be considered close to a scholar's caliber, this is the only guy, Edward F. Hills. And in 1956, he released the King James Version Defended, A Christian View of New Testament Manuscripts. And this is sort of like a collection of different essays on different topics. He died in 81. And he has commonly cited, his works and his writings have been commonly cited to give support to the King James Version-only position. Although Hills personally never supported, actually, the staunch, strict King James-only positions. Yeah. And he wrote a chapter on Dean Bergun, which that's something I want to debunk later, this idea of Dean Bergun being a scholar from the 1800s that come up with this argument. We'll deal with that later because that's a big thing that they like to use. And Edward, or David Otis Fuller's Witch Bible. Now, Hills would have also acknowledged that there are some errors in translation in the King James Version. He rests his hat on where the manuscripts come. And would have said, and I think did say, that there could be better translation work as long as it relies on these manuscripts. Yeah, they wanted to make sure it went back to the Texas Receptives or the specific manuscript that they were wanting to defend. And then the revisions could happen, only if they came from those manuscripts. He did not advocate the inerrancy of the King James Version. Nor did he advocate that Origen, the Church Father Origen, had anything to do with the Septuagint. But may be viewed as a secondary tributary whose works are commonly cited wherever his words can be made to support a writer's point. On the whole, Hills' writings are much better informed and more accurate than nearly all of King James Version-only literature. That's James Price wrote that in an essay that he did on Edward Hills. Hills' argument focuses on the logic of faith. Now, here's an interesting thing. All right, so this is the idea of this. Basically, and I've actually heard William Grady, Bill Grady, we'll talk about him, say this. That you cannot actually logically prove the King James-only position. Okay. But you accept it by faith. That's right. You just got to have faith, baby. Yeah, when it comes down to it, there's not enough evidence to prove it. Yeah. And so, therefore, they encourage people to believe it by faith. And so, when I was going through this and saw that, I started making the decision. All right, so this is just where I'm at. Should I believe this by faith? Or should I listen to what these other guys are doing and then go become a liberal? That's right. Become a liberal, baby. That's the part that we struggle with so much. I even talked about this past week in my message. And I talked about the false demands that the church has put on people. And I talked about for 25 years how we grew up and guys weren't allowed to go to the – or no one was allowed to go to the movie theaters. And women couldn't wear pants and we couldn't do these things because these things represented holiness. And we have to – we begin to think and we begin to process these thoughts. And it's so hard because we're ingrained in this demand that is in our life. And so, while thinking through that, we get this point of where is this faith going to be at? Yeah, I'm actually going to be preaching on this this Sunday. And I'm going to be talking about the conscience. Yeah, and I meant to bring that up in my message and I forgot of how the pastor becomes the Holy Spirit in so many ways. And that's where this comes from. Well, just accept it by faith. It'll be okay. Salvation is by faith. So, why can't we trust in the Word of God as the King James by faith as well? Because there's no evidence for it. And so, we get this whole – this mindset that's so indoctrinated into this when someone just says, well, just accept it by faith, well, we just – okay, well, I've accepted salvation by faith. So, I can accept this by faith too. And so, they don't want us to study it out. They don't want us to look into it. And it's so hard to break that. I told our church this past week, that's the area in my life that I struggle with the most because I am so enamored with my exterior appearance. Because that's what I've been taught and trained and just ingrained in our life is this exterior demands when God himself says, clean up the inside and the outside will take care of itself. And in Jesus, so many times he demands and he says, these people that are Pharisees and Sadducees and all these people that are criticizing are whitewashed tombs. They're great on the outside, but inside they're just dead men's bones. And he goes through these demands and it disproves the same thought. It says that they are wanting to fix the outside but not caring about the inside, not caring about what actually matters in life. And that's the problem with this argument. That's a great point because what happens is, is the more that they get staunch about the King James Version, it becomes more of an idol. Now, think about that. You have turned God's holy word into an idol itself. To where they're more concerned about defending the translation than knowing what the truth on the inside does for transforming lives. Yeah. And so that is where you have a major, major problem. So for me, it came down to, as the more and more I studied it, the argument was not valid enough for me to put my faith into. Yeah. And how many times were we growing up, we went in a camp meeting or we went to a service where it was the blessed old Bible I hold in my hand, the King James Bible I hold in my hand. And it was, that's all they were doing was holding it in their hand. They weren't studying it. They weren't preaching it. They were just holding it in their hand. Oh, absolutely. And that's all it was. Oh, I got the old black book I can smack around. But all of a sudden, it's just a book to them. It's just like another book on their bookshelf because they're not reading it. They're not studying it. They're not preaching the actual truths of God's word. And so that's really the frustrating part of it. Yeah. The interesting thing is, is, is Hills. So this stuff is catching wind with, with people in the 50s. So Hills, Edward F. Hills writes his book, but he's trying to take a more moderate position. You know, hey, accept it by faith, but this stuff is not perfect. This, the King James Version is not inerrant. We could probably have a better translation one day. And so Hills' flaw, I think James White says this, Edward F. Hills' flaw is when he hangs to the argument of certainty. Quote, in short, unless we follow the logic of faith, we can be certain of nothing concerning the Bible and its text. For example, if we make the Bodmer and Chester Beatty Papyri our chief reliance, how do we know that even the older New Testament papyri of an entirely different character have not been destroyed by the recent damning of the Nile and the consequent flooding of the Egyptian sands? End quote. And James White says, Dr. Hill's argument itself is self-refuting. If we accept his constant use of the providence of God, we cannot help but point out that if other New Testament manuscript were destroyed by the flooding of the Nile, was this not as well under the guiding hand of the providence of God? Such arguments cut in both directions. And here it is. The argument is, unless we embrace the King James Version as our final authority, we have no final authority at all. And it's all the subjectivity and uncertainty. And I think that's what you're talking about, James. They said that so much. And they wrap you in that bubble so much that they're like, you're hit over the head and you hear it so much that you're scared to death to go out. And so I think a lot of people stay under that and feel such conviction in their conscience of leaving that idea of, if I don't have the King James Version, I don't have God's Word and I want God's Word. And so in sincerity, in their heart, they want God's Word, which is a good thing. But they think because they're scared to death that it is only found in one translation because of terrible, terrible arguments. And that's how insecure they can be in their faith, is that we can't even read. We can't even be a part of it. I was just the other day, I was talking with a lady at our church and she said her nephew, niece, someone was a Jehovah's Witness. And how they could not even go to their own mother's funeral because it was at a Baptist church. What? They could not step foot in the Baptist church because they were Jehovah's Witness. And the church member of mine looked at this, it would have been her cousin, her first cousin, or her aunt, one of the two, I think it was her aunt. And she said, how shallow is your faith? She said, your church won't even allow you to go into another church because they're afraid you're going to get converted? She said, my faith is pretty strong. I can go into a Catholic church, I'm not going to get converted. That's great. And she's talking to me about this and she's like, I can't believe they won't even let her go to her own mother's funeral because it's in a Baptist church and not at a, and she said, I even went and talked to the elders and they told me I couldn't go because it was at a Baptist church. She said, so your elders aren't strong enough in their faith to allow you to even go somewhere. Well, we just, we just don't think it's right to go in there. She said, because you think you're going to get converted or what? I mean, what's the, what's the big deal at your mom's funeral? Now, does that ideology seem so foreign to you based on what you've heard things in the IFB? No, it'd be the same thing. Don't, Hey, don't go over to that church because they're not, you can't go and listen to a concert in that church or go listen to a revival of that church because that church doesn't use the King James. Now the preacher may be using the King James, but the church as a whole doesn't. So you can't. Yeah, so I was talking to my former pastor and, and he was telling the story about when he was working on staff at an IFB church. He told the story in church one time and he said that the pastor, they had a traveling evangelist. I'm not going to mention the guy's name. So I know who it is. And I think some of our listeners would know who it is too. But this guy comes and he preaches and he rips and snorts on like Tuesday night, right? About how TVs are evil and you shouldn't have a TV. And he said, I travel in this trailer and bless God, I don't have a TV in this trailer and I'll never have a TV in my trailer. Service is over, right? Everybody's shaking hands. The pastor comes to my pastor, my former pastor who was on staff at that time, comes to him and says, hey, I want you to go get the TV hooked up in your office, get some chairs set up, maybe get some sodas and get the World Series game turned on for him. And he's like, what? And he said, yeah, the pastor Kansas City is in the World Series or something like that. And that's where he's from. And he really wants to watch the ball game. But he can't watch it in the trailer. He said, well, why don't I just go put the TV in his trailer? He said, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. He can't have it in his trailer. But he can watch it in your office. Yes, it's so good. And then he said this. He said, no, we don't tell anybody about this. That's right. That's right. It's our little secret. Hey, you know, and the greatest thing that I, and I know we've talked about where we grew up and where we went to college at. But one of the greatest things, my senior year, my junior year of college, I can't remember which one it was, but I was in a class with the pastor. It was started in New Testament church. And one of the assignments that he made us do, and I thought it really helped me out so much, was we had to go as an assignment to a church of a different denomination, two of them in that semester, and do a report on those churches, on what they did, what they used, how they did their church services, different than ours. And so I went to one, it was called River of Life Church in the village. And then I went to a very, what I thought was just over the edge, liberal, smoke and light church. It was Life Point there in Hot Springs. And I went to both these churches, and I walked away, and I thought, man, those messages were spot on. They were so good. The music was different, but I had... Not your style. It wasn't my style, but I went in as a report, as basically a reporter going in, taking notes, writing stuff down. And I walked away with two great outlines, two great messages, two great things. And I thought, as I was doing this report, and I think I even put it in the report, the messages weren't much different than what I get on a normal Sunday morning. It was just the appearance, it was the smoke and lights, it was the different aesthetics that was different. And all of a sudden, that's when, even at that moment, I began, okay, what is so different? They used a different Bible, but they preached a great message, a fantastic message. Yeah. And then you begin to ask, is there something unbiblical about this? Because we go back to this. Well, how can they preach that message when they don't have the final authority? They don't have the King James, but yet they're preaching power, they're preaching transformation. We're seeing souls changed, but yet they didn't use the King James. But here's an argument that I, and this is actually used in the Anchorburg debate, but it's always just dismissed out of hand and moved on. If the King James is our final authority, did they not have a final authority before 1611? Come on. And it's always asked, that is the most common objection that comes up, but it's never dealt with. Yeah. And they even say, well, you know, because Sam Gipp says it, and we'll play this clip later when we get to this point, but he says very clearly that someone who is at a different dialect. Russia. Russia. They should learn English so they can learn the King James so they can get saved. Yeah. Instead of translating it to their language, they should learn the English. They should learn the King James. Yeah. All right. Let's get back on the topic. We got the notes. We've covered the first guy, the Seventh Day of Venice, Benjamin Wilkinson. Then in the 50s, you have James Jasper Ray puts out his book. Edward F. Hills in 55 puts out his book. And so the next guy to publish something is a guy by the name of David Otis Fuller. David Otis Fuller in 1961 puts out Valiant for the Truth, A Treasury of Evangelical Writings and puts his stake in the ground as a King James onlyist. Now, there's another guy. We're going to get to Ruckman in a little bit. Ruckman puts his first book out in the 60s. Now, Fuller continues to put out works. He puts out which Bible in 1972 and True or False, the Westcott Hort textual theory examined in 73 and then Counterfeit or Genuine in 78. And a couple of those are really not David Otis Fuller's writings. He may write like one chapter and the rest of it are a bunch of chapters written by other guys. Or I think in one book he just rips some of Edward F. Hills' stuff. But, I mean, he credits him. He's like, here's a chapter from Edward F. Hills' book and puts it in his book. Yeah, which is fun. And releases it. But David Otis Fuller was a regular Baptist pastor. And he added a book entitled Which Bible in the 70s? And it was an anthology by authors such as Robert Dick Wilson, St. Hodges, and others. And almost half the book is dedicated to the 10 out of 16 chapters from Wilkinson's Our Authorized Bible Vindicated. So there you got Wilkinson's again. Bringing it back up, baby. Bring the Seventh-day Adventist back in there. Can't get past it. Because they can't do better. They can't improve upon that argument. Yeah. That came up by Seventh-day Adventist, which is sad because it's a terrible argument. We'll get to that. I know it's like, keep teasing us, John. We're going to get to that. Patience. Here's a clip of David Otis Fuller. Now, today, there are multitudes of Simon Peter. Multitudes of them. They don't know what they're doing. But they're doing it anyway. They're rebuking the Holy Spirit. Holy Spirit, you were wrong. You should have been guilty of a very grave error. You should have left out the last 12 verses of Mark. You should have omitted John 8, 1 to 11. 1 John 5, 7. Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Now, do you know what that is? Can anyone tell me? Get it. Get it. Get it. Get it. That is next door to the unpardonable sin. Who cares? Average fundamentalist today? Who cares? By the way, what's the hottest television show tonight on? Tell me, will you please? For the next three hours. I won't ask you to do it, but I dare you to. You won't do it. I'll ask a lot of people to do this. Take a piece of paper, will you? This way. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven. Every day. Over on this side. The time you spend with God and reading the Bible. On this side. The time you watch and garble down the garbage of the television set. Come on, I dare you to. You'd be afraid to. I'm not condemning you for having television sets in every room in the house. I can still be your good friend. I'll tell you this. I agree with a minister friend of mine who said he'd rather see a coiled rattlesnake in the front parlor of his home than a television set. You won't like that. I don't care whether you like it or not. I came to not tell you what you'd like to know. You want me to tell you the truth? We're a bunch of ham fats. That's all trouble with us. Now, if you really believe, I wonder if all of you here have convictions. You just don't have a preference. No, no. You have a conviction. A conviction that's deeply rooted in your heart. Put them by the Holy Spirit. That you have now. Not only reads the manuscripts, which is the biggest cop-out anybody could ever have. Whoever invented that was a braying jackass. You'll pardon the expression, but that's the way I feel. And what good is it to do now, anyway? And as you can see, he was not, just from that audio clip, prone to, I mean, just seem like an angry guy, I guess. Yeah. That's just sort of what I get out. I listened to the whole, it was like 25, 30-minute sermon. Yeah. Well, you know, and a lot of that camp meeting style preaching is just feels like it's just anger and hatred and, you know, that same feel to it. Yeah. So are you ready for this next one? The man, the myth, and the legend. Oh, my goodness. His name is Mr. Peter Ruckman. Peter Ruckman. Sturgis, by the way, is his middle name if you didn't know. Sturgis. Mr. Peter. Sturgis Ruckman, PSR. Now, who are these people that got in here and said they found mistakes and that after trying 100 years to correct them 150 times, couldn't correct them? Would you pay a sucker like that to do a job for you on your car? You see, you see what's wrong with some of you Christian people? You know, you've got good sense when it comes to cars and lands and houses and Medicare and Social Security and insurance and health foods. When it comes to spiritual things, you're just as blind as a bat backing in backwards. If you would take any man on this earth, I wouldn't care if he was a pope or a Billy Graham or Bob Jones III or Jack Hiles or John MacArthur or Chuck Swindle or Stanley. Anyway, if you took any man on this earth seriously who professed a thing like that, you ought to be locked up in the nuthouse. The very idea is saying you can find mistakes in there and after 150 tries through 100 years, you haven't got them cleaned up yet. You're wasting my time, kid. But more than that, you're wasting my money. You're selling books. And he puts out several books here. The first one is called The Bible Babble. 1964 enters the fray. And then in 1970 and 1988, he puts out the two books that would be the most prominently used books in the IFB movement and are still used and still published today. One is called The Christian Handbook of Manuscript Evidence. And the second one is called The Christian Handbook for Biblical Scholarship. I'll say this, though. I think that Ruckman's book, The Christian Handbook for Manuscript Evidence, started the trend. But I don't think it became the most popular. In fact, Ruckman has followers, but Ruckman real quickly alienated himself from the rest of the IFB world by just going after everybody there is. Sort of like what we were talking about, Rager. I mean, he doesn't get past a sentence without criticizing, ridiculing, or making fun of somebody. Real quick, John, your estimation. How soon, five years, three years, two years, does Rager put out a book? Rager and book doesn't seem like it goes together. It doesn't. But how soon? I mean, same thing here. He calls out people, he gets that attention, and then he starts putting out books. I don't think Rager puts out a book, honestly. Steven Anderson hasn't put out a book, has he? Five years, Rager puts out a book. Has Steven Anderson done a book? Probably. I don't know. I know he's done documentaries. I say five years, and Rager puts out a book, because it's that point of he's educated. He's a pretty educated man. I mean, he was put through a lot of things, and so I think eventually he's going to put a book out there just to start his own little niche of followers. But, you know, Mr. Ruckman, he puts out a series of these commentaries of various Bible books, topics, Bible-related subjects that begin these translation issues. I remember the first time, John, I was really introduced to Ruckman. I had heard the name in Bible college. I'd heard the Ruckmanites and how crazy they were and how out there they were. But then I went to Idaho, and as far away as you can get from anybody, really, and I went to a church down the road, a huge church, Treasure Valley Baptist Church. And I'm doing a tour of the facility, and I go to this upstairs room, and I see these paintings on the wall, these maps and posters. And I look at the bottom, and I see the name Peter Ruckman on the bottom corner of these maps and these translations and how the 1611 and these world maps. And I began asking the guy. I said, you guys got some Ruckman stuff up here? Oh, yeah, Ruckman. He's the man. We love Ruckman around here. And I realized for the first time that I was in a Ruckman church. They were a Baptist church. They were doing well. And so I went to their website, and I began looking at their former people that have come in and preached because they only have Ruckmanites come in and preach. And one of our favorite Bible professors was one of their preachers there. That's funny. And he came in, and I'm thinking, man, I can see the resemblance now of he was teaching these classes, and yet he's teaching these same things. So he goes through a lot of stuff here. Yeah. Ruckman even actually made enemies on the other side of the King James-only argument. So a lot of it said, like, there's a guy that enters the frame. I don't know if we talk about him, but his name's D.A. Waite. Yeah, we do. Ruckman and D.A. Waite did not get along. They really did not like each other at all. And Ruckman's followers would spend a lot of their time actually, like, going after D.A. Waite as much as they would guys that believed in modern translations. And D.A. Waite was a big King James-only guy. Ruckman really needs his own—we're going to do a thing on Ruckmanism. But, see, Ruckman had a lot of crazy things. And I will unashamedly say here openly, publicly, that I believe Peter Ruckman and his following is cult. Yeah. Straight-up cult. And so Ruckman—but the thing he was most known for and his followers most known for is the King James-only position and acting as if they are the ones who have the best argument and they have explored it out to the nth degree. And Ruckman's position that the King James Version Bible is superior to existing Hebrew and Greek manuscripts and criticized—his other supporters of the King James-only movement criticized Ruckman because his writings are so offensive and mean-spirited that the entire movement has become identified with this kind of confrontational attitude. All of his writings are characterized by the most vehement vilification and denunciation of everyone and anyone, lumping together great defenders of the faith such as B.B. Warfield, A.T. Robertson, and C.H. Spurgeon, when he's not falsely claiming Spurgeon's supporter for his own views with the likes of Wellhausen, Adolf Hitler, and Harry Emerson Fosdick. Yeah. Far worse is the torrent of errors that flood each work and virtually each page of Ruckman's every published work. He single-handedly has injected more misinformation into the controversy than all other writers combined. And he has a four-part series on YouTube. I don't know if it's still there, but I remember recording it and listening to it when I was doing this several years ago. And I've always sort of had, if I ever had the time, to go through Ruckman's stuff and edit out every time he goes and starts criticizing people and see how long his teaching actually is when you remove him just making fun of people, criticizing people, and being degrading. And it goes back to my point. When you listen to Nathan Rager's interview on the church split, how much of his interview is what that is? Yeah. Every defensive position, he's like, well, a bunch of... A bunch of heretics teaching that. A bunch of blasphemers. A bunch of... Yeah. Skinny jean-wearing woman. That's... His argument goes back to this point. And you go... I'm telling you, when you listen to the guys that we respected and loved in Bible college, the Tony Hudsons, and if you took out their pink-wearing, lace-driven underwear, all of a sudden you take that out, how much theology is left in their message? Nothing. And that's where they get this point from. They may not say they're a Ruckman, but they take his style of preaching and they drive it home, and that's what is so hard for us to get by. Yeah. And I'm going to play a couple of clips of Ruckman. And one of the things is he starts off his whole talk by saying, you know, you can't get this anywhere else in the world. And I'm sitting there thinking, of course you can't, because nobody else is teaching that idiocy. Yeah. And then he just sits there. He said, you can't handle this. You can't handle this. Here's my Ruckman impersonation. You can't handle this. All right. Why don't you go on there and get you a Coke? Sit down there. Why don't you... Woman, wife, why don't you leave your husband alone right now? Go wash the dishes. Now, ladies and gentlemen, what you're about to see tonight and listen to, you'll not be able to obtain on any television channel in the world before the Lord comes back or after. What you're getting ready to see tonight, if you'll give it your attention, will be something that you cannot get in any Christian school in this country. There's one major recognized, fundamental, conservative, evangelical Christian school in this country that's going to give you the information you're going to get here tonight. The last church is a lukewarm church that God says he's going to spit out of his mouth. It has the latest translations. Now, go to the refrigerator and get you a snack, okay? Get you a Coke or something. Pop open a can, you know, and get you some fizz water and settle down now. See, you're not going to be able to last. It's too straight. See? You understand that. If you understand anything, you understand that. The question is what you're going to do about it. Better rest a while. Get yourself together before we continue here. This is not even the introduction yet. Third basic false premise. It's a fact, they say, that rotten fruit cannot be connected with these new translations. But rotten fruit just happens to have come along at the same time. That is, when these new translations popped up, what popped up with them? Abortion, white slavery, homosexuality, worldwide terrorism, two world wars, women's lib, a debt of $3 trillion, international bankruptcy, and a dearth of biblical knowledge that would only compare with the Dark Ages. I mean, he says stupid stuff like that the whole time. Pretty good in tortillas there, John. Oh, wow. I like it. I always wanted to be a cartoon voiceover. But you know what? I think we're going to stop there for today. Okay. And we're going to pick back up because I think that we're a little bit late in the podcast to be jumping in because Ruttman, we got a lot on Ruttman and his position. And we really just scratched the surface because now it's starting to pick up. And I'll say this, too. Even with Ruttman, even with Ruttman, it's still not mainstream IFB. I mean, we've got— You're in the 60s now, and it's still not—this is not mainstream IFB ideology. You've got five, six, seven, eight, nine more guys we're going to talk about from the 60s on. Yeah. Yeah. And we've only talked about, what, four? Four so far? Yeah. Four, and we've got nine more. Yeah. And again, this is not mainstream ideology in the IFB so far in the 60s. Yeah. It's not. I mean, a couple isolated groups, it's growing traction, but it's still not. Most independent fundamental Baptist churches in the 60s did not believe in this. But we'll stop there, and we'll pick up on Peter Ruttman next week. We appreciate you guys coming. We appreciate all of the faithful listeners, followers, and some of the new listeners coming on and listening to this. And we appreciate some of the shout-outs we've been getting on Twitter. We're a little trending there on Twitter. Us and Katy Perry. Well, you know, we're up there. Yeah, that's great. That's great. And I appreciate a lot of the – you know what I like? I like the material that's being put out by a lot of different guys. You know, whether it's Will at the Church Split, the Young Baptist Guys, the RFP. Yeah. You know, people are getting help. Yeah, which is what it is. And that's why in this podcast we're trying to give that freedom, that avenue of freedom, because a lot of times we feel like we're thinking these things in a bubble. When I went through this in my own study, I felt that it was just me. And I had John to talk to, but it was this thought of, man, I'm the only one thinking this way. I'm the only – I'm a heretic. I'm going to hell now. I've lost my salvation. But then as I came through this, all of a sudden I began seeing other guys I went to college with going through the same thing that I was going through. And so it was this community of, hey, you're not alone. There's other people that are going through this discovering process. I think it's really a process that we have to understand and grow through and understand as we study and figure out the history of it. Yeah, it is. And it takes the research. And I know a lot of people don't have the time or even the resources to be able to dig into this. Like I was able to do a few years back and you've been able to do. They don't have the – they don't even know where to shop for what books they need to be getting. And so being able to have some of those that have walked through that process on the other end of that journey and we can give them that material in bite-sized form in these podcasts. And, you know, I don't believe that you should trust the word of somebody. You know, research it yourself. But I understand not everybody has that availability to be able to do that. And so that's what we are trying to do with that and hopefully, you know, help somebody. Fun story goes back. I was looking at going down to a conference. This was – that was my first year of ministry in Idaho. And I called John and I said, John, I'm thinking about going down and hearing – it was maybe a G3 conference or some type of conference that was way out there from where we were at. And John's advice to me was this, James, don't go. They don't use the King James. They don't believe like we do. Don't go. And so I went anyways and it was a fantastic conference. I said that. You said that when I was a first year in ministry. Throw me under the roof. But it just goes to show that was 10 years ago. Yeah. And now 10 years later we're sitting here talking about what he told me was heresy and what I shouldn't go and do. You've been waiting 10 years to get me on a podcast. I have. I've been praying about it. Let me have it. I've been praying about it. God just hadn't led that point yet. That's why you made me sleep in the freezing cold last night in your attic. Yeah, because you gave me that advice years ago. But it just goes to show how we can understand that we weren't taught. We were just indoctrinated and we're coming through this and we're understanding more of where we're at. That's a great way to put it. We were not taught. We were indoctrinated. I do say some good things every once in a while, John. Oh, man. That's gold, Jerry. Gold. Put that at the opening clip there. Yeah. I hate to admit this openly. I don't know how to do those types of things. Oh, that's fun stuff, John. I'm learning as I go here. Yeah, well, good, good. All right, guys. Thank you so much for listening today. And make sure to like us and rate us on social media and on Apple Podcasts. And share it if you enjoyed the episode. If you have somebody that you think that would benefit from it, pass it along. And we appreciate all of the love and the support and everything for the podcast. And we pray that this has been helpful to you and helps you grow closer to Christ. And until next time, to God. Not the pastor's wife. Ooh. Be the glory. Sorry, sorry, sorry. Sorry, sorry. Bye.

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