27. King James Onlyism Part 6: Refuting KJV Only Arguments Part 2 w/ Bryan Townsend

And here we go. 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 Holyfield. And welcome, everybody, back to the For Freedom Podcast. I am your host, John, and I'm here with James. How we doing? Doing great. And we are back today, and this is going to be part two of our refutation of the I Believe the Book Podcast. We ended on sort of a cliffhanger note there with one of the clips. And so we're going to pick up on that. And joining us back with this is Pastor Dr. Reverend Brian Townsend. Brian, welcome back. Well, thank you for having me. And just for the record, I am not a real doctor. Are you an honorary doctor? I don't even have an honorary doctorate. We'll give you one. I am 22 hours away from my MA. So there you go. Come on. We were handing out doctorates the other day, so it's just only right that you should get one. We can give you one. I need one. Y'all go ahead. Bring it up. Well, I'll do it. I love the North Worth Seminary that hands out doctorates on Twitter all the time. That's pretty good. Yeah, it's pretty great. All right. So we are going back at the King James Only-ism. And I believe the book podcast, just as a refresher, they did a podcast on believing the book. And the premise of the podcast is about how people are leaving church, leaving the faith. Young people are doing this. And therefore, the premise was that they wanted to do a podcast that addressed some of these big topic issues and questions to try to show people that there's reasons to believe the book. And so we're in the middle of doing King James Only-ism, and then they released an episode, which I don't think they even knew existed. So I'm not trying to say that it was in response to us. But they released an episode on believing the book, believing the King James Version as the only book. And so we spent the last episode going through many things that was said by the host and the guest and covering that. But we didn't get through all of it. So we're going to pick up today. And James, would you play that first clip so we can get back at what we left off with? Right. So then the next step for them would be to go to the original autographs. Well, the original autographs. And for those who may not know, that's where the authors took pen and put pen to paper. Yeah. Okay. The original autographs. And they would say, well, inspiration is there. Well, if we have a promise of preservation, which even they agreed with on some level, the original autographs are non-existent now. The promise has failed. The closest that we can get to them in any manuscript, good or bad, is right in the 300s, 300s A.D. Right. Okay. So that's as close as we can get to the originals. Okay. There you have it. The closest we can get. This is one of the big errors that we sort of ended with last time was that they claimed that the closest that we can get to the original autographs is 300s, around the 300s. Brian, what say you? Well, that is completely inaccurate. And I will say that the – I don't believe this is done out of malice on their part. I think just maybe mistaken. The earliest manuscript we have, not a complete manuscript, but certainly one of the manuscripts we have. If you will Google P as in Pony 52, P52, you'll see what's called the Rylands Library paper, excuse me, 52. It's a fragment that was found, and it is dated to the early to mid-2nd century, 125 to 150 A.D., which doesn't really affect the argument. But factually, we did have manuscripts several, several before the 300s, not complete manuscripts as in like Alexandrinus or Sinaiticus by any stretch. But we did, in fact, have manuscripts from the 2nd and 3rd century, well before the 300s. Yeah, and even when you think of that, though, when we find manuscripts that are 300, 200 A.D., whatever it is, it goes to validate the value of Scripture and how our translations now line up so clearly with even those early manuscripts. Yeah. I actually just thought about this, and I wonder if – and I can't get into his head, and I'm not trying to – but I'm just speculating here. But I almost wonder if when he's referring to that the earliest manuscript we have is in the 300s, if he's referring only to recognizing the Byzantine line as the acceptable manuscripts being the closest to the original. Now, to my knowledge, and again, that's imperfect, the oldest manuscript in the Byzantine text-type tradition that we have is around 390 to 400 A.D., and there's no manuscript that dates before that. So maybe he's thinking along that line. Maybe he's referring to it's the Byzantine line. But like Brian said, we have actually quite a few manuscripts that actually end up being part of the Alexandrian text-type that date earlier than 400 A.D. and 300 A.D., and it goes back to about 130 is the closest we have, which is technically only about 35 to 40 years after the time of the last author, the last human writer of Scripture, the Apostle John. Yeah. John, when you say Byzantine, you're actually referring to the perfect Antioch text. Is that correct? They refer to it as the Antiochian, the Antiochian. Okay, so when you hear that, that's what you're thinking. Okay. All right, James, why don't you go ahead and play the next clip for us there? Well, who are not King James only, do they believe, didn't you tell me recently you even watched a podcast or listened to a podcast where they say, yes, they do believe in the promise of preservation. Is that correct? Sure. Now, they reject it in Psalm 12, 6, where you and I would probably go. Would start. Yeah, we would start there because there is a promise of preservation. Sure. And the context is words. Yeah. If you read down through that, it's constantly speaking about words. All right, so here he is speaking of the Psalm 12, 6, and 7 argument. This is one we wanted to address. Before we get into it, we actually have another clip of someone speaking about this. This stuff is more spread out. There's more people that believe in this. Here's another clip of someone speaking of the Psalm 12, 6, and 7 argument. Scripture says in Psalm 12, the words of the Lord are pure words. Pure means without any admixture of error or corruption. If that bottle says 100% pure water and you put one drop of poison in it, it's no longer pure water. Okay? Okay? So the words of the Lord are pure words. As silver tried in the furnace of earth, purified seven times, thou shalt keep them, O Lord. Thou shalt preserve them from this generation forever. Now, the Bible colleges almost universally, the seminaries almost universally believe that God once upon a time gave his pure word, but it got lost. Once upon a time God gave his pure word, but man corrupted it and couldn't keep it. We believe that the Lord who gave his word in purity kept and preserved his word in purity. We believe that. Luke chapter 21 and verse 33 says this. Luke 21 verse 33. Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my, not word, words, every last single one of them shall not pass away. When that sun no longer shines, when that moon is turned to blood, when God dissolves this earth and melts the element with a firm heat, every word that God authored and put in this book will survive. When God creates a new heavens and a new earth where it indwelleth righteousness, he will not write a new book. He'll still go by this one. So we believe the Bible to be the perfect inerrant word of God. Now, when I say that, you say, which one? Well, it couldn't be the NIV. The people that wrote it said it's not perfect. It's not inerrant. The New American Standard doesn't claim to be perfect in an era. The ERV doesn't claim to be perfect. That clip just kept going and going and going. You made it, Bill. I know. Okay. All right. So we sort of dealt last time with the idea of the words or idea, thought, argument. But I want to go back to the Psalm 12, 6, and 7. And the words of the Lord are pure words, like silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times. You shall keep them, O Lord. You shall preserve them from this generation forever. And this is a passage that is brought out to rest the King James-only position on a, as they would say, biblical position. Why? I'm going to ask you guys this. I'm going to turn it over to you guys first. Why is this such a bad and terrible argument? Well, I would begin by saying I believe that Jesus said, my heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away. I believe that we have the word of God preserved to us. But to claim, okay, so what gives this man the unilateral authority to say that the King James is the sole place God preserved his work? You know, the Catholics can say the Vulgate is where it was preserved. You know, the Greeks can say, I mean, like all of us have, I don't understand what is the authority or the source behind saying this is the only one. I mean, like, and you know, this is a little bit elementary to me, but the word King James are not found anywhere in scripture. So I don't know how you can say that that particular one is it. We're building a doctrine. I mean, that's extra biblical doctrine to say this is one. You will not find the King James version. King James, you won't even find King James in scripture. How can you build an argument on that alone? It's not in scripture. That's a very simple elementary way of putting it, but it's just, you can believe in biblical inerrancy and you can believe in preservation without making a dogmatic claim that this one throughout the history of church, church history for two millennia is this one's it. Yeah. Yeah. And when they, when they use the argument, the, the NIV, the ESV, the A NASB, whatever, don't claim they're perfect. I don't remember reading when I read through the King James preface, any of them in there said that it was a perfect translation. What I read and what we talked about last time was that they all said, Hey, let's keep improving on this. Yeah. Let's keep making it better. Let's keep continuing the process. That's why for seven other revisions, they continued the process. So to say that this is the, and, and that argument, I hate that argument by saying, if God, you're basically saying God is so small that he couldn't preserve his word. He couldn't keep his word. I don't remember ever in Bible unless he did it, unless he did it in this untainted, perfect English translation that we chose. Yeah. I don't remember any in college ever. I remember a teacher saying that, you know, they taught that whatever, however he said it, that all the, the manuscripts were lost and man just sort of created their own. I don't, that's the first I've ever heard that. And he said universally among almost every seminary, that's what's taught. Maybe it's different for Brian. Brian, he's a little more educated than me, but I don't remember that being taught. John, walk us through Psalm 12. Walk us through that. Yeah. See, one of the, I want to go back to one of the things that, that the gentleman said, the first one said something about the context in Psalm 12 and 6, 12, Psalms 12, 6 and 7 is words. And I have to fundamentally disagree with him on that. I don't believe the context of that passage is referring to the words being preserved. I am going to read in a new King James because that's what I have handy. It says, help Lord for the godly man ceases for the faithful disappear from among the sons of men. All right. Talking about people, talking about men. They speak idly, everyone with his neighbor, with flattering lips and a double heart. They speak. Verse three, may the Lord cut off all flattering lips and the tongues that speaks proud things. Verse four, who have said with the tongue, we will prevail with our lips are our own. Who is Lord over us? Still, the object is people. For the oppression of the poor. Verse five, here's the key. For the oppression of the poor, for the sighing of the needy. Now I will arise, says the Lord. I will set him in safety for which he yearns. Now, what do you have the dynamic happening in verse five? You have the oppression of the poor, the sighing of the needy. That's your object. And then you have the Lord speaking. And this is what he says. These are his words in this context. I will set him in the safety for which he yearns. Verse six refers to those words that he just said, saying you can trust this. The oppression of the poor, the sighing of the needy. The poor and the needy can trust when he said that he will set them in safety because the words of the Lord are pure words like silver tried in the furnace of earth. Now, verse seven, staying with the context of the oppression of the poor and needy. You shall keep them, guard them, protect them. Oh, Lord, you shall preserve them from this generation forever. The wicked prowl on every side when vileness is exalted among the sons of men. The context is not the preservation of the words of the Lord. I believe it's the preservation of that in verse five, the poor and the needy. The interesting thing that in Matthew Henry's concise commentary, he says God will work deliverance for his oppressed people. His help is given in the fittest time. Though men are false, God is faithful, though they are not to be trusted. God is the preciousness of God's word is compared to silver refined to the highest degree. How many proofs have been given of its power and truth? God will secure his chosen remnant, however bad the times are. And he goes on to say, unlike the worthless words of the deceivers, the word of the Lord is like precious silver that is heated seven times in a crucible before it is poured out into the mold. His word is flawless and can be trusted. His word is precious and must be valued. God is able. This is his comment on verse seven. God is able to protect his godly people from the lies of the enemy. And to we get in here. One of the directions we want to go eventually in the podcast is the idea of interpretation and hermeneutics. And this term comes up called between exegesis and eisegesis. Exegesis is bringing out what's there. Eisegesis is taking something you have and reading it into scripture. And I've got to say, using Psalm 12, 6, and 7 as the linchpin for your King James only argument is probably one of the most gross offenses of eisegesis I've ever seen. Because you have just read an English translation that was produced over 2,000 years after these words were written and said it as if this passage is speaking of it. And just like Brian just said, where in Psalm 12 does the words of the Lord refer to the King James Version of the Bible? John, I'd like to throw in, even if the context, which I don't believe it is, if the context were the words of the Lord. Say it were, just say the other, I'm playing devil's advocate, doing the other side here. If it were referencing the words of God, even to say then that that word of God exclusively means King James. I mean, that, even making that application is a reach and a very far stretch. But I don't believe that is the context. It does another thing. It does another thing. It makes Psalm 12, 6, and 7 pointless for generations of Christians for over 2,000 years. Yeah. All scripture is profitable. Yeah. And the ESV actually, and I know this just drives them absolutely crazy because they deny, you know, they discount the ESV. But the ESV, I believe, gets it right. This is how the ESV translates Psalm 12, 6, and 7. The words of the Lord are, you got it? Go ahead and read it, James. It says, the words of the Lord are pure words like silver refined in a furnace on the ground, purified seven times. You, O Lord, will keep them. You will guard us from this generation forever. I do like how John MacArthur says that, he sort of summarizes this. He says that God's word heals people and man's word hurts people. And as he looked through this and as he studied that, and that's so true. I mean, how many of us can affirm that man has hurt us with their words? Oh, yeah. And yet God's words here are purifying words that heal us and make us complete. Sure. All right. Anything? I think that covers the Psalm 12, 6, and 7. All right. James, go ahead and do this. Brian had talked to me off air about some of these issues concerning this Matthew and Hebrews thing. So I'm excited about this clip. So go ahead and play this next one. So the third argument is that scripture cannot exist in all the copies of the original languages due to the fact that there's strong historical evidence that at least two New Testament books were written in Hebrew and then translated into Greek soon after. So the original language is historically from Matthew and Hebrews would be Hebrew. And you do not find a Hebrew copy of either one of those books that wasn't later translated or made from a copy. So again, you can't have it. It's not here. You cannot have it. Brian, I'm going to let you go first. Yeah. So we covered Papias last week talking about how Papias was referenced in the mid-second century, mid to late-second century, saying that Matthew wrote his gospel to the Hebrews in Hebrew, and then everyone translated into Greek as they were able, I think is the quote, very similar. Here's the issue with referencing Papias. We have no firsthand account of Papias' life, his own writings. We have no original sources of Papias. The reason that we even have the quote that we do about how Matthew wrote his gospel in Hebrews, and then it was translated to Greek as everyone were able, was by a fourth-century church historian named Eusebius, who Eusebius was a church historian that wrote much, much, much of the chronicles of the church. And in the days of, he was actually great friends with Constantine. You know, Constantine lifted the veil and turned everything on its head towards Christianity, with that being. Well, Eusebius is the reason that we have those words of Papias. These are not Papias sitting, writing down everything that he believed, not what he heard. This is a, you know, Eusebius lives in the fourth century, three, I forget when the exact volume of his work was, but in the 300s. Well, Papias, this quote was somewhere 150 to 175, so it's 150 years. Eusebius is recording the words of Papias after the fact. We have no way of putting Papias' words in context with what he meant by that. And I said last week, it means something, but there's no way to definitively tell what it means. And just another thing, I talked to my school's chief academic officer, PhD, and he's really brilliant. And his words exactly were that people use Papias' words to prove their own argument more often than not. He said, because there's no way for us to say definitively what Papias meant, because we just don't have the firsthand account of it. We don't have his own writings. That most of the time, people that use Papias are ones that are coming to the arena. And he doesn't know what we're talking about. He just told me this. He said that people that use Papias are ones who are trying to prove a point, and they're not using Papias' words to figure out what truth was. They're doing it vice versa from a predetermined course of events to determine what they're trying to say. And people do that both ways all the time. I will not accuse the folks on the I Believe the Book podcast of such. But my point is, we don't have his firsthand accounts. The reason we even have this quote is because Eusebius, 175 years later, wrote these words down. There's no way for us to put them in context. And it means something that Eusebius wrote these words of Papias. But to say that definitively, absolutely yes, and dogmatically, that Matthew's gospel was first in Hebrew and translated into Greek, there's no way to even put those words in context as to what Papias meant by that. You told me that, and I thought, man, that was such a, to me, just a nail in the coffin. I mean, I just don't see that that's a good, a wise use of argumentation there with bringing out that point of, oh, Matthew and Hebrews were written in Hebrew and translated into Greek. Like, there's, there's not very much proof to either one. And the, the sources that could be cited for that are extremely lacking with even credibility. So, it's not really an argument to, to hang your hat on at all. No. All right, let's move to this next one. And I'll explain a little bit. I think we got two clips for this one, but I'm going to explain one in between the clip, to explain what we're going to talk about in between the clips. Go ahead, James. So, the fourth thing is, as for the rest of the New Testament, excluding Matthew and Hebrews, if we are trusting the Alexandrian line of manuscripts for our scripture, well, just in the gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, there are 3,000 plus what we call textual variants or differences, just in those four books alone, where they can't even agree. Where they disagree. Right. Yeah, just those two manuscripts. So, we couldn't say that scripture. Which one of those is scripture? Exactly. If they disagree with one another, how do you decide which one of them is scripture? Okay, so I know last time we talked about the, we spent a lot of time talking about the difference between Byzantine, Alexandrian manuscripts. So, there is one element of that argument that we did not cover, and that is the reason that is used for why Alexandrian manuscripts are bad. Now, to explain that, James is going to play this next clip here. And when I say there's two Bibles, you go into a bookstore, I know, and you see a, Thank you. Oh, thank you very much. And you see a bunch of them on a shelf, and you go, Well, no, there's got to be more than two. But the fact is that every Bible that you can buy today comes from only one of two locations. There's a line of manuscripts that come from Antioch and Syria. There's another line of manuscripts that come from Alexandria and Egypt. Now, what do you know about from the Bible? What do you know about Antioch and Syria? I think it was the place where the disciples were first called Christians. Absolutely. We got our, our name Christian comes from Antioch. It was also the head of the New Testament church. When the Apostle Paul, when he went out on a missionary journey, he left from Antioch. When he came back, he came back to Antioch. That was the center of New Testament Christianity. In fact, many of the originals that we have today may have been penned there. All right, today in existence on this planet are 5,909 Greek manuscripts of the New Testament. Some entire, some entire books, some, some pieces of manuscript the size of this sugar pack. The vast majority read with what is known as the Texas Receptus. That is the Greek that comes out of Antioch. So it comes from Antioch through the Texas Receptus into the King James Bible right here on this desk. It'd be like this coffee, okay? This is the line of manuscripts, the vast, bigger than this one. Because most of them come out of Antioch. The other line of manuscripts, which officially is known as the critical text, which if you think about that, just the fact that it's critical should tell you there's a problem. They went down to Alexandria, Egypt. Now, what do you know about Egypt from the Bible? Not a lot of good. It kind of represented the world. Israelites were in slavery. Absolutely. In fact, when God wanted to use a bad example in the book of Revelation, he wants to say something bad about Jerusalem. He compares it to Sodom and Egypt. So the only good thing about Egypt is it can be used as a bad example. So good manuscripts went to Alexandria. Okay, so here it is. This is the reason put forth that the reason we, the main reason. We talked about some of these fallacies that Alexandrian manuscripts are corrupt. But the main reason why we don't trust Alexandrian manuscripts or even the tradition, the Alexandrian text type, is because Egypt is a type of the world, and therefore incoming Egypt is corrupt. Now, I'm going to start off this time. I have a quote from James White I want to read, and then a quote from Bob Ross I want to read, and then I'll turn it over to you guys. James White said, actually, the Bible making Egypt a type of the world, which, by the way, is not explicitly stated in the Bible, only implied, does not mean it teaches that all other regions of the planet are untainted by sin. In fact, it implies the very opposite. If the Bible teaches that Egypt is a type of the world, then it does logically follow that the whole world is typified by Egypt, which, in the case of the King James onlyism, onlyist, would make no region of the entire planet safe for preserving Bible manuscripts. So it's sort of a house of cards argument falling upon itself. Here, Bob Ross says this, We should also remember the wonderful providence of the Lord in regard to Moses, Joseph, and the Israelites in Egypt, as well as how the infant Jesus was taken in Egypt as a means of escaping death in Israel during the time of Herod's campaign of infanticide. The Lord is sovereign in Egypt as well as in Antioch, Jerusalem, and Rome. He works His wonders all over. In fact, if you had to have the right place in which the Lord could do His work, it would have to be a wrong place, as the whole world is defiled by sin. Yeah, you know, for me, I think by us having two lines of transcripts, two lines of manuscripts, it's a greater view of preservation. The words of God went to two different regions at about the same time, and yet they were preserved at two different regions, and that's where we get our variants. That's where, and we'll talk about it later, those textual variants, we get it because of the different areas they're at. And so if someone were to write a name, it's going to be spelled just a little bit different. But I think it's a greater argument. But I know Brian is getting pretty fired up over here. So, Brian, go ahead and let her rip. Tater chip, let us know how it's going to go here. Okay. I have many things to say here. This first clip that you played about, and with one of the fellows that said, that in the Alexandrian, the four gospels disagree with themselves over 3,000 times. Okay. Well, again, we're talking about, when he says disagree, I assume he's talking about textual variants. And again, a textual variant can be one of you spelling Jesus, J-E-S-U-S, and another one misspelling it J-E-S-U-S-S. That is a textual variant, which I assume, and that's just an example that he's counting one of these disagreements, and I'm using air quotes when I think he's talking about textual variants. Well, the reason that there are so many textual variants, or what he wants to say disagreements, in the gospels, when we talk about the amount of manuscripts that we have, predominantly they are gospels. The early churches, many of them, their Bible was Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. So more gospels, more problems, so to speak. We have so many copies of the gospels. They're a larger percentage of what we have. Therefore, there are more variants in them, or as he called them, disagreements, which is, if you're going to say a misspelling is a disagreement, then we have bigger issues. But so then we go from there to how there's 3,000 disagreements. There are variants. Those are not, you know, that is not saying that the Alexandrian manuscripts say that Jesus was man, but not fully God. That's inaccurate. That's completely inaccurate. A variant can be as simple as something, as sentence structure. It is a variant. It is just that. They moderately say something differently, or a phrase differently. It's not a disagreement in the context that the Alexandrian is saying that Jesus was not born of a virgin. It's not saying that Jesus was not born the Son of God. It is sometimes often a misspelling, and that most of our variants are very easily reconciled, and it's not a disagreement, so to speak. It's human error in that we copy, we speak, we're writing by hand, and sometimes we mistranscribe or things like that. So there's that. Then Sam Gipps said, the fact that it's called a critical text, that should even tell us something. Okay. How many of you, do you guys know critical thinking is a good thing? It is, yeah. So critical thinking, learning to think for yourself and not accept everything as it is handed to you, is a wonderful skill. It has helped me determine that I am no longer a certain kind of fundamentalist. Critical thinking has helped me think for myself and not be spoon-fed every lie and every miss. That's, oh, so critical thinking. Textual criticism is a wonderful thing. It helps us put the words of Scripture where they need to be. And, you know, I want to say something, but I'm going to leave that alone. Textual criticism, when you're coming from the viewpoint of, we're trying to understand what the most original source of what Mark was saying here, or Matthew was saying here, textual criticism is not a great thing when you're coming from it from the presupposition that you're trying to discredit the Bible. That's not good. But textual criticism, when you're coming from it with a pure motive of trying to understand what, in origin, what they were saying is fantastic. And the fact that we, I guess he's saying by the critical text should tell us something, that it's critical of the King. Again, we're back to this dogma and the preconceived. We're trying to drive home that the King James is the only version. So he's saying the critical text, which is critical of the King James text, he's saying that's a bad thing because we're being critical of the King James. Again, we're talking about stepping over the line. And the reason he thinks critical text is a bad thing or criticism is because it is shedding light that the argument is far bigger than that. Okay. Double down on this. So we talk about the streams of Alexandrian manuscripts and Byzantine manuscripts. And for him to say that all modern Bibles are translated from one of two places, it's the Alexandrian or it's the Byzantine. Well, that's just not true. You know, there's an eclectic model where we look at, you know, all of the text and come together with one apparatus. The new King James is not from an Alexandrian manuscript. It is from the same TR that they're from. And they say there are differences with that. Any, oh, nevertheless. So I'm going to double down on that. Yeah. I want to talk about the primary Bible that I use right now. The MEV is a direct derivative of the King James. Yeah. Using the text receptive. And they're not going to tell you that. No, no. They're not going to tell you that. So we talk about how, and even when I was an undergraduate, they said these same things that Alexandria was the place of heresy. It's the world. Byzantine. Alexandria is where the Antioch is where the apostles were. So they go there. Now I want to talk about this. So, so let me go here. Alexandria is in Egypt. It's the type of the world. Okay. If you will go to the Council of Nicaea 325. The Council of Nicaea was called because Constantine was about to march and set up his kingdom over the Roman Empire, the sole role, the sole ruler of the Roman Empire. And he called the Council of Nicaea to get everyone on the same page on the doctrine of the Trinity. The reason this controversy was necessary was a man named Arian who founded a doctrine called Arianism, which is a heretical view of the Trinity. And Arianism was, was, you had some conservatives over here that were saying, no, we believe in the Orthodox definition of the Trinity. Father, Son, Spirit, equally God, equally together. Well, Arianism called everything about the Trinity into question. So we come to this Council of Nicaea 325. It's a town in modern-day Turkey, Nicaea, I believe if I'm saying that right. All the bishops come together. Arianism has spread, and a lot of pastors are coming to this false definition of the Trinity until a man named Athanasius comes on to the court, defeats Arianism, not permanently, but the official council of Nicaea declared an orthodox view of the Trinity that the church had always held to and combated Arianism as heresy. Do you know where Athanasius was from? Alexandria. Alexandria. So for us to say that, again, that all heretics are from Alexandria, and that all great theologians are from Antioch, it's just false. You know, you go through other church fathers. We have Clement of Alexandria. We have Origen. All of these people from Egypt and the Alexandrian line where we come to grips with this, and we come to say that all of these manuscripts are bad. All modern Bibles are derivatives of modern. Am I talking too long, y'all? No. No. That all of these come from there. Egypt is bad. Antioch is good. Like you said, John, the whole world is corrupted by sin. And the whole, oh, hmm, I'm about to preach here. Come on. The Holy Spirit is not limited to Antioch. The Holy Spirit does not have handcuffs on him in Alexandria. The Holy Spirit can blow, spirit blow, where he wants to. The Spirit blows where it desires. You know, the wind blows where it lives compared to the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit's wind, and you're not going to box him in your little Antioch argument and debase him in the Alexandrian argument. There's no such thing as a set of handcuffs that we put on him. And let's go further back here and look at Egypt being a type of the world. Where did Joseph and Mary go to protect Jesus when Herod was killing babies? Well, come on. Went to Egypt. And they told to. But who told them to go there? Who told them to go there? Yes, I was about to say the same thing. It was prophesied about in the Old Testament. Out of Egypt have I called my son. Why would God send his own son to somewhere that's so wicked and vile and so evil and just so corrupted? I mean, why would God put him in there? And so we come out of that. And Jesus was called out of Egypt. I believe they were in Alexandria. There's a large Jewish population. That's impossible to prove long ways away. Origen, Clement of Alexandria, Athanasius of Alexandria, and many other great men of God that were used were from Alexandria. You cannot say that everybody from Egypt is bad and everybody from Antioch is good. God, it just aggravates me because these guys that say God can't be put in a box are doing just that by saying that Alexandria is evil. Antioch is good. And I think I've harped long enough about all of that. Let me make sure. Well, did you mention the fact of where the Arian controversy originated? Well, Arian himself, I believe, was from Egypt. But the argument of stick-gathered steam, certainly in the area of Byzantine, or Byzantium, excuse me. Yeah. But again, connecting those two are... I don't want to ever do gymnastics to make a difference. Right. It's a fallacy that falls on top of his head. Right. Another interesting thing about Athanasius from Alexandria, too, is he's one of the best apologists during that time that did work on the canon of Scripture. Yeah. And one of the final ones that put together the 27 New Testament books of the canon of the New Testament. And here's... This brought out... When I learned that, this brought out a very... Yeah. Does the King James use Athanasius' canon? Absolutely. Where's he from? Alexander. Alexander, Egypt. Oh, they're using that... They're using that Egyptian model for the New Testament. Well, that's one of the things that really brought to my attention when I learned that about Athanasius, and that is this, that, you know, in all of my time, and this is what you never hear talked about, is any King James only, or even in fundamentalism, you never hear really much discussion at all about canonization. Yeah. Or canonicity. I mean, it's just not a topic that's ever dealt with in any type of Bible college setting at all, because one falls on top of the other. You've got to start speaking honestly about canon and where that came from. If it... Then it just collapses on the whole premise of your King James only-ism. So we don't use manuscripts that are from Alexandria, but we'll use their canon. Yes. Is that right? Yeah. And I want to circle back here. All right. Come on, Jim. Yeah. Jim Passick over here. I want to say something about the comments that you made about the criticism. So one of the errors that is made with the animosity towards textual criticism is the... And James White says this often, that fundamentalists have trouble or struggle identifying categories. And they don't understand that there are different forms of criticism. There is higher criticism and there is lower criticism. Higher criticism is the criticism that they lump textual criticism all in one bowl. And that's not the fact. That's not the case. In fact, the intellectually dishonest things that they do when they do that is deny the fact that the very King James translators themselves practiced textual criticism in order to put together the King James version. So I don't know. I think we've spoken about... James, you got any... The only thing I want to circle back to, John, since we're using that terminology today every day in the press secretary office, is just that thought of how much we limit God in some of these arguments. How we're putting God in such a small box that he could only perform if the location's right, if the people are right, if everything is perfect, then that's when God can perform. And he can't use a wicked person. He could never use a wicked king in the Old Testament. I think he did. But he has. You know, even looking at Samson, you know, a wicked judge who'd done terrible things. God still used him. And yet we're saying that God can only use good people. David, who committed adultery, God couldn't use him, but he was a man after God's own heart. And that's the problem that I see so many times is we think that we have to put this perfect situation to prove that God can do something. When God says, I'm going to do things, whether you like it or not. That's actually a very excellent point, James, because the whole Alexandrian type of the world thing just falls apart when you look at how God actually does work throughout Scripture. And, you know, my grandpa always used to say this. And I know he didn't. This didn't originate with him. But my grandpa used to say that God can drive a crooked nail. Yeah. You know what I mean? And so to say that we could only have the Bible and that it could not have come through this because this is a corrupt area of the world, which I know all three of us just like lamb blasted that whole idea. It's just it's just missus completely misunderstanding how even the God of the Bible works. Yeah, exactly. John, before we move on, can I give your listeners something neat to chew on? Absolutely. What I'm about to say does not add to or take away from the validity of the Bible, and it is even impossible to prove. It is a theory and a possibility. We'll never know. But listen to this. So Constantine becomes the sole master of the Roman Empire in the 300s, first part of the 300s, 330, 25, 30, in that range, 23. Well, Constantine, with the Edict of Milan, granted Christians tolerance for the first time ever and, you know, really promoted Christianity. Well, Eusebius, as we have said, the church historian, there's a legend that Constantine, the emperor, gave Eusebius a charge to print, or not print, but to have 50 Bibles commissioned. And we have to understand that in the 300s, to produce one entire Bible from Genesis to Revelation was an expensive work that would require great wealth to put one together. Are y'all with me? Mm-hmm. Again, whole churches in the fourth century didn't even have copies of the Scripture. I mean, the canon wasn't even fully established until 370s, 380s, 360s, in that range. But so anyhow, in the fourth century, Constantine, we have the legend, issued Eusebius to have 50 Bibles printed. And again, it was very expensive. So fast forward to the 1800s, a man named Tischendorf finds in a monastery in the foot of Mount Sinai, or the traditional site of Mount Sinai, and they find the Bible from Genesis to Revelation. And some of it was missing in the Old Testament, but the new was not. And it dates to the fourth century. It is possible that Codex Sinaiticus, the copy that we have that was found in the 1800s, is one of those Bibles that Constantine issued Eusebius to copy out. And just food for thought. It doesn't add anything to the argument or take anything away. But just neat to, and it's, Constantine had them ordered in the fourth century, the legend says, and the Sinaiticus dates from the fourth century. Again, we cannot say definitively. It's just food for thought. It's impossible to say for sure, but just food for thought. It's another way of showing that God does preserve his word. Yeah. He uses people. Constantine was not a great ruler, but he uses people to preserve his word in all generations. And so let's go to this last clip, and then we'll finish up the episode for today. And then the last thing I would say is that those who are anti-King James only-ism says that they believe God preserved his word, but none of them can tell you where it is. Right. And that's the problem. You know, if God preserved his word, then where is it? Where can I go to find what God says? We believe we have the word of God. Sure. We believe that God has perfectly preserved his word for us in this King James Bible, not that it contains the concepts, but that it is the words of God. And that wraps up sort of what they were talking about in that, and we're going to bring this to a close with this. Where is God's word? And this is the accusation. And I don't know what the term for this is. I think it's – is it a straw man? This is a straw man sort of statement that they throw out there of saying none of us can tell you where God's word is. And that is patently untrue. All three of us can tell you where God's word is. Just our answer is not where they want their answer to be. So it's in the framework of what they think that it should be. And so in a way, coming to the end of this, and then I'll let you guys add your comments, but it is sort of sad. It's sad because at the same time, there are things – there's growth, there's understanding of truth, there's exegesis that is just not happening whenever you are locked in to this type of argumentation. And I do believe that. James, I'll let you go, and then I'm going to make some closing remarks. Yeah, you know, to say that there's no word of God anywhere, it's disturbing. It's harding to say that, to think that, because to understand – and we said this at our last podcast – to understand preservation and inspiration and not combine the two. When you combine the two, you are taking two big totally – not opposite, but totally things that aren't the same, and you're putting them together. And you're saying if it's not inspired, it's not preserved. And it gets that whole point. Yes, I believe that God's word is preserved, but I don't believe that any of the translations are inspired. And that's where we've got to get to that point of understanding, yes, God has preserved the word that we hold in our hands. The book that I hold in my hands is preserved from generation to generation. And God's words are not going to pass away just as they quoted Jesus. It's not going to. But we've got to get to the point where we understand there is a difference between preservation and inspiration, and they're not the same thing. I would close with this, and if you're listening to this, you have heard three guys who all used to be King James only. You've heard, and there is – and you all that are listening, you don't know always the hearts of the men you're listening to on podcast. And we have all presented an academic case, but let me flip my pastor heart into the discussion here for those of you that are listening. We, too, at one point, we're all King James only. I don't know that any of us are anti-King James. It's a great translation. It reads beautiful. If that's what you use, that's wonderful. But I do ask that you please listen to what we've said today. And maybe some of you are not King James only, but you have friends that are. You have family that are. And maybe you're going to recommend them listen to this. I would ask you, however you're listening to this, right now if you've listened to these things with an open heart, your world might be a little shaken. And you might think, well, if the King James isn't the word, what is? And I've heard all my life that those Bibles are fake. And it's a hard bridge to come to if you have had this taught to you for most of your life. But John is not doing this podcast for academic information. He's doing it for spiritual transformation. And we're not angry, bitter ex-fundies that just got together today to make a podcast so that people would see it and get angry. No, that's not our heart. Our heart is for you to let the Spirit of God speak to you about any issue, even if it's about the King James. Man, if you knew the heart of the guys that are doing this podcast, that love their people, and they're not angry, and they're not proud academics that are here to just make a point. All of us love people. The people we pastor, the people we don't. God gives a pastor a heart that he can never shut off. And as we dismiss today, I hope that you will at least let the Holy Spirit have room to work in your heart and in your life. And let God transform you spiritually through this conversation. If there's anything we can do for you, reach out to us. I'm not a podcast host. You can find me on Twitter, Brian A. Townsend. You can find me on Instagram under that same handle, Facebook. All these guys, we'd love to help you in any way possible. No matter when you're hearing this, when you're listening to this, we just hope God blesses you. And your walk with God becomes transformed. Brian, thanks for those last closing words there. I want to ask if you wouldn't mind praying for us, praying for our listeners. You know, this is a tough topic. It took me, you know, three, four years to come through and to be where I'm at now. And it's not an overnight transformation. It's just like I tell people when we go to funerals. Just because you bury someone doesn't mean the grieving process is over. You know, and when we hear those things, it still brings up those memories and those maybe hurt or pain or whatever it may be. And so I just pray for our listeners. Pray for guidance as we continue on the show. And thank you for coming on and being a guest today. Thank you. Let's pray. Lord, we love you. And God, we are grateful today to know that we can stand with validity on truth. Lord, Jesus in John 14, 15, taught that when he, the Spirit, has come, that he would guide us into all truth. And Lord, I pray through this conversation that as you've guided people into truth, Lord, that you would open their eyes and their hearts and show them that you love them and show them that you are kind and loving and that you are crazy about us and that, Lord, sometimes we read and listen to other people speak, Lord, and they don't always have integrity when they do it. And Lord, I pray for those that have been, not from a King James only standpoint, abused, but spiritually abused and spiritually beaten and those that have been mistreated as the sheep and the bride of Christ. Lord, I pray that in this work, you would speak truth to them and that that truth would reveal more about Christ. And in this conversation, Lord, we'd be honest and have more room to become like Christ today. We love you, Father. And thank you for everything you've said and done. In Jesus' name, amen. Amen. Thank you, Brian. I'm going to pull back the curtain and go behind the scenes a little bit. I like those behind the scenes features with DVDs and stuff like that and give you guys sort of a glimpse of what... I appreciate Brian coming on and doing what he did today and last week. We actually tried to get this all done in one episode, one mega episode, and then we were an hour in and my Zoom thing completely shut down last week. And then it popped back up and I had no idea what I had recorded or not. And whenever we finished up, I had the first part recorded, but the second part not. And so Brian was gracious to just say, let's just do it again next week. And so he came on again and basically all of this stuff we just redid. And so I really appreciate him taking his time to do that. And there is one last thing that I do want you to redo. And that is our lightning round questions that we didn't get to do with you the first time you were on. And so here's seven questions so they can know a little bit more about Brian Townsend. And are you ready? Yes, I am CT's little brother. Yes, go ahead. Come on. A little name dropping there. That's what you call clickbait. I'm not name dropping it. It's been a curse to me all my life. I've been the celebrity's little brother. Clickbait. Clickbait. I'm hearing it. Okay. All right. Number one, Brian, what's your favorite food? Steak. Medium rare. No. Medium rare. Yes. Medium rare. Medium rare. Yes. He likes it bloody. All right. Number two, what's your favorite snack? Cole Ranch Doritos, sir. That's a good one. That's a good one. Bad breath, but that's a good one. That's terrible breath, but yes, it's worth it. I'm not married. I don't have a wife to kiss. Come on. All right. Number three, favorite book of the Bible? Second Hesitations. No, I kid. The Gospel of, probably the Gospel of Luke. The Gospel of Luke. Nice. All right. Number four, favorite movie? Fast and the Furious, the whole series. All of them are fantastic. All of them. Okay. Well, do you have a favorite in the series? Like, the one I think in Seven, when Paul Walker had died, and him and Vin Diesel go on separate roads, and they're playing It's a Long Road, I'll See You, My Friend. And I can't watch it without crying. It just gets me, man. Yeah. I think I like the one where the Fast Five. I like the one in Brazil. Yeah, they steal the bank vault out of the police station. Right. That one's good. Okay. But I have to ask you this question. The first one's still the best. I'm a movie buff. So, I have to ask you this question. Are you on the Justice for Han bandwagon? Define Justice for Han. Jason Statham getting his? Is that what you mean? Yeah. I mean, I don't think he's going to get his because they're all working together now. And he's actually transformed into a guy that you like. But I am very pro-Han, and I'm not happy about him dying like he did. Yeah. All right. More serious, more righteous things. Favorite Bible story? Probably the gospel is the story of Christ. I know that's a cheap answer as far as, you know, it's easy. Not cheap, but it's an easy answer. So, Jesus' life isn't cheap. Edit that out. The life of Jesus is my favorite Bible story. All right. I don't know if you're going to be able to remember this from last week because you had it right in front of you last week. Last book you finished. Okay. It was your New Testament survey. It was a great textbook from last week called The New Testament in Antiquity. Just because I'm curious, how thick was that book? Let's just say that it would be thicker than a large print King James-sized family Bible you put on your grandmama's table. I am. That's just a perfect answer. That's a perfect answer. All right. And then we know that your family is your energetic daughter, Ellie. And so this last question is, what's your favorite activity to do with your daughter? Well, I antagonize her a good bit, but that's probably not wholesome. We love to go pre-COVID. We love to go in Chick-fil-A and she would play. We love to go to – she loves to go to Hobby Lobby. I don't understand. She loves to go to Hobby Lobby for the toys, not the crafts, the little toy aisle they have there. She loves to go to Hobby Lobby, so that's stuff like that. We just have a good time no matter what we're doing. Wonderful. Wonderful. Thank you again, Brian, for being on and just – we have fun. You guys don't get to see the stuff before and after, but we have a good time. And me and James are going to have to make an effort to go down to Georgia and hang out with you. You have to show us the – You want me to tell you something down here? The devil's so bad down here they had to write a song about him. I'm on. Old Charlie Daniels for you. I was down there last week and Brian didn't even want to see me, guys. I'm still a little hurt. Yeah, I hear you. Guys are killing me. All right. Thank you guys so much for listening to the podcast. And make sure to like and subscribe and share the podcast on your favorite social media platform. We appreciate all the support and love that you've given us and listening. And until next time, to God, not – Brian Townsend. Be the glory. We'll be right back. We'll be right back.

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