Michael Brown and the Elephant in the Room

[Note for newcomers:  I am most definitely NOT a KJV-Onlyist.]

  

            Recently, Dr. Michael Brown, on The Line of Fire radio show, made an episode which, at first, targeted King-James-Onlyism, but which quickly shifted so as to target the King James Version itself.  His primary objection against the KJV was that its language is unfamiliar to people nowadays.  He stated, “What may have been an accurate translation then will not convey the same thing today.”  Of course that is true, where archaic terms and obsolete grammar is concerned – but that is an effect of the natural development of the English language in the past 400 years; it does not reflect upon the quality of the translation itself. 

            To illustrate:  if someone were to read about dissolving political bands in the Declaration of Independence and conclude that U2 was breaking up, the Declaration of Independence would not be to blame.  When readers approach a 400-year old text, it is their responsibility to take its age into consideration when interpreting it.  The chronological distance between 1611 and 2017 makes the King James Version more difficult to understand, but it does not necessarily make it erroneous.

            The accuracy of the KJV can only be measured fairly when it is measured in light of the meaning of words in 1611, and in light of the text upon which it was based.  Dr. Brown seemed to grant this when he provided two examples of terms in the KJV that meant one thing in 1611, but which mean something else in 2017:  the term “meat” – which could refer to food in general, including grains and fruits – and the term “study,” which was intended, just as Dr. Brown said, to mean, “Do your best,” or to exercise diligence when pursuing a particular goal. 

            So, when someone interprets the term “meat offerings” as if the cooked flesh of an animal must be involved, and when someone interprets “study” as if the word necessarily involves peering into a book, the error does not emanate from the KJV.  The error emanates from the reader’s failure to perceive what those particular words meant in 1611.  A simple glossary of the KJV’s archaic terms can greatly lower the risk of this sort of misimpression. 

            When Dr. Brown turned to the King James Version’s use of the word “Easter” in Acts 12:4, he called it an error.  However, a careful investigation shows that the term “Easter,” in the early 1600’s, was synonymous with “Passover.”  Dr. Brown said, “The Greek does not say ‘Easter.’  The Greek says ‘The Passover.’” 

            The term “Passover” was an invention of William Tyndale.  If you were to take in hand Tyndale’s translation of the New Testament, you would see that he freely interchanged the term “Easter” and his own new word “Passover.”  One example should suffice:  in Matthew 26:18-19, in Tyndale’s translation, Jesus tells His disciples to go into the city and deliver the message “I will kepe Myne ester at thy housse with my disciples,” – “and the disciples did as Iesus had apoynted them, and made redy the ester-lambe.” [Bold print added to make the reference super effective.] 

       
            So it should be plain as day that the KJV’s “Easter” in Acts 12:4 is not an error; it means the same thing that the versions which refer to the end of the Passover-feast mean:  that Herod intended to wait until after the last day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread before having Peter executed.  Dr. Brown said, “To say ‘Easter’ is 100% inaccurate and misleading.  It’s a mistake.”  However, what he has perceived as an error is really just another case of obsolete language.

            Likewise, Dr. Brown charged the KJV with error because the term didaskalos” is translated in the KJV as “Master,” rather than as “Teacher,” apparently unaware that in 1611, the term “master” was entirely capable of referring to a teacher.  (An echo of this usage is still retained in the term “schoolmaster.”)

            What were the other prime examples of errors in the KJV?  Dr. Brown said that instead of referring to “devils,” the KJV should refer to “demons.”  But does anyone imagine that the KJV’s use of the word “devils” is really confusing?  As confusing as using four English Bibles translated from four base-texts using four different translation-techniques?    

            A few of Dr. Brown’s other examples are more convincing:

            ● Readers could be spared some confusion if the King James Version’s translators had not used the term “unicorn.”  However, the KJV’s preface (The Translators to the Reader) specifically cautions readers against putting too much weight on their renderings of rare terms for animals, plants, and minerals.  Plus, the precise meaning of the Hebrew term re’em that is often translated as “wild ox” is still a matter of debate – it might be a wild ox, or the extinct buffalo-like animal known as the aurochs, or the rhinoceros.  From before the time of Christ, this term has been translated as if it refers to a one-horned animal (a real one, not a mythical bearded goat-horse thing), and the KJV’s translators deferred to the traditional understanding of the term, cautioning their readers not to treat this rendering dogmatically.

            ● Dr. Brown’s objection against the KJV’s artificially plural term “cherubims” seems entirely valid. 

            ● The text of First Kings 18:37 in the KJV could be made more literal by reading “Answer me” rather than “Hear me.” 

            ● Another inaccuracy in the KJV, Dr. Brown said, is found in Psalm 84:  “Psalm 84:  one of the verses that I grew up loving was, ‘Blessed be the Lord our God, who daily loadeth us with benefits’ in the King James.”  Dr. Brown was recollecting Psalm 68:19, not anything in Psalm 84.  His point (minus the mistaken reference) seems valid; more recent versions render the Hebrew phrase as “who bears our burdens,” or “who bears us up.”

            Dr. Brown put a microscope to the text, symbolically speaking, and found an error in how the KJV treats the Greek word exousian in Luke 10:19.  He also objected against translating the word ekklesia as “church.”  Another “major example” of errors he has found in the KJV is its use of two different words (“weakness” and “infirmities”) to represent the same Greek word in Second Corinthians 12:9.  

            In these cases, he may have a technical point, but it’s like watching an archer hit the bullseye, and having a referee say that the arrow didn’t hit the very center of the bullseye, so it’s not close enough and the archer might as well have missed the whole target.   If one were to put such a yardstick alongside the NASB, NIV, ESV, etc., then one could identify hundreds of such “errors,” every time there is no distinction between the singular and plural pronouns, and every time the word και (and) is not represented, and every time a proper name is put in place of a pronoun, and so forth.
            Dr. Brown also proposed that if a team of the King James version’s scholars had been able to sit down to improve the translation 20 years after its initial publication, they would have changed passages such as Acts 12:4 and Luke 10:19.  History stands in the way of Dr. Brown’s theory:  in 1638, some scholars who had served on the KJV’s translation-committees (John Bois and Samuel Ward) did tidy up the text of the KJV – and they did not change those passages. 

            And then . . . 

THE ELEPHANT ENTERS THE ROOM

            About 21 minutes into his presentation, Dr. Brown brought up manuscript-related issues, even though initially he had said that he would set that sort of thing aside.  

            In the fourth segment of the presentation, the manuscript-base of the KJV’s New Testament text came up again when Charles from Tennessee called the show and pointed out that “The bigger issue is actually the textual issue,” and that modern translations treat Mark 16:9-20 in ways that call it into question.  Charles also alluded to the enormous amount of manuscript-evidence in favor of Mark 16:9-20, and to the features in Vaticanus and Sinaiticus which indicate that their copyists were aware of Mark 16:9-20 “and willingly omitted it.”  Finally, Charles asked Dr. Brown, “Would you recommend any version that brackets or negates the ending of a Gospel, that basically removes the resurrection-account of Christ?”

            In reply, Dr. Brown first said that if one feels a certain way about the manuscripts, one should use the NKJV or MEV – but then he said (referring to Mark 16:9-20), “We know that that was not the original ending of Mark.  The vocabulary is totally different.”

            Charles responded that he had read Burgon’s book on the last 12 verses of Mark.

            Dr. Brown responded that Burgon’s book “has been refuted many times over.”  Yet he failed to name any specific refutation of Burgon’s book; instead, he recommended reading D. A. Carson’s book (The King James Version Debate: A Plea for Realism) and James White’s book (The King James Only Controversy), too – “They’ll help you there.”  Those who have read Carson’s book may wonder what Brown was talking about, since Carson specifically says in A Plea for Realism, on page 65, “I am not here arguing for or against the authenticity of Mark 16:9-20.”  White’s book is also remarkably unhelpful for people looking for accurate information about the external evidence pertinent to the ending of Mark – and concludes its discussion of Mark 16:9-20 with the affirmation that “Every translation should provide the passage” as well as mention “that there is good reason to doubt the authenticity of the passage as well.”  Well, that clears things up, eh.  (I contend in my book Authentic:  The Case for Mark 16:9-20 that with patristic support for Mark 16:9-20 from the 100’s, and with over 99.9% of the Greek manuscript-evidence supporting the inclusion of the passage, across all text-types and across many locales, such a definite maybe is not the best we can do.)  

           

            Dr. Brown then reaffirmed, “We don’t have the original ending to Mark’s Gospel.”  But he added that Mark 16:9-20 was “received by the church, and I personally am happy to use it.”

            Wait, WHAT?!  Dr. Brown just said that Mark 16:9-20 is not part of the original text, but he is happy to use it.  Happy to use it as what?  As if it is Scripture, or as if it is the work of some non-inspired person in the second century? 

            Dr. Brown recommended reading good commentaries on Mark to get the details about the ending; unfortunately he did not name any specific commentaries.  Then, after mentioning First John 5:7 again, he reminded himself that he had said that he wouldn’t be debating about the manuscripts – and again told his listeners that if they are at home with the Textus Receptus, “then by all means use the New King James, or the Modern English Version.”  (This seems a little inconsistent, since the NKJV has some of the same features – in Psalm 68:19 and Second Corinthians 12:9, for example – that Dr. Brown called errors.)

            Thirty-four minutes into the show’s video, Dr. Brown tried to reframe the narrative after Charles’ lively contribution to the discussion – but manuscripts were clearly still on his mind:  at one point he started a sentence with “Putting the manuscript debate aside” but continued, “don’t we want a translation . . . that has better manuscript evidence?”. 

           

            I don’t think that there is much of a chance that Dr. Brown will persuade any King-James-Onlyists that they are on the wrong track, as long as he pretends that the textual matters do not matter.  Most people who are willing to learn the archaic language of the KJV are not the sort of people who are going to be satisfied knowing that they have acquired the basic doctrinal message of the Bible; they want the full counsel of God, with no adulteration.  Few and far between are those individuals who would abandon the status of the KJV, the textual stability of the KJV, and the familiarity of the KJV, in order to be rid of the trivial inaccuracies listed by Dr. Brown.  One might as well invite people to kill their Cocker Spaniel in order to get rid of a few fleas.

            There are still some KJV-Onlyists who insist that the KJV’s translators themselves were as inspired as the apostles and prophets, but that is not where the momentum of the KJV-Only movement is going.  Increasingly, KJV-Onlyists (such as Samuel Gipp and David Sorenson) are making textual issues the centerpiece of their case.  To insist that all the essential doctrine is still there in the Alexandrian base-text of the NIV, ESV, NLT, etc., and that that makes it okay to select either the Textus Receptus or the Nestle-Aland compilation with as much consideration as one uses to select ice cream flavors, while it is spectacularly obvious that the differences between the two yield dozens of interpretive differences, is to insult the intelligence of one’s listeners.

            

Who's Making Your Bible?

David Trobisch

          When the 28th edition of the Nestle-Aland Novum Testamentum Graece was published in 2012, it was soon followed by A User’s Guide to the Nestle-Aland 28 Greek New Testament, released in September of 2013.  The author of this introduction to NA28 is David Trobisch, who in 2011 became a member of the editorial committee entrusted with the preparation of future editions of the Nestle-Aland Novum Testamentum Graece.  

          Trobisch’s User’s Guide to NA28 has been met with some concerns among evangelicals; Dan Wallace, for example, noted that Trobisch “got some facts wrong,” and recommended the removal of an entire chapter.  I too have some concerns.  

          One might expect all of the compilers of Novum Testamentum Graece to be Christians, since future compilations of this text will likely be the basis for future translations of the New Testament used in Christian congregations.  However, Trobisch is a fellow of The Jesus Project, an undertaking of a group called the Center for Inquiry.  His fellow-members include Frank Zindler (an atheist who is also a Jesus Mythicist, that is, he denies that Jesus ever existed), Paul Kurtz (President of the International Academy of Humanism), James Crossley (an atheist), James Tabor (perhaps best-known for his theory that the Talpiot Tomb is the tomb of Jesus), Robert M. Price (Jesus Seminar member, and also a Jesus Mythicist), and Richard Carrier (another Jesus Mythicist).    

          At the website of the Center for Inquiry, the organization is defined:  “A world-wide movement of humanists, skeptics, freethinkers, and atheists.”  And its members’ mission is plainly stated:  “To foster a secular society based on science, reason, freedom of inquiry, and humanist values.”  The website also states that it is a priority of the Center for Inquiry “to oppose and supplant the mythological narratives of the past, and the dogmas of the present.”  

          Somehow I suspect that the phrase “dogmas of the present” encompasses the historical doctrines of the Christian church.  One of the research-programs of the Center for Inquiry mentioned at the website is the Council for Secular Humanism.  It is rather surprising to learn that a member of that organization, which is clearly dedicated to erode and marginalize the cultural influence of Christianity, is also an advisor for the American Bible Society, and the curator of the Museum of the Bible which is scheduled to open in Washington, D.C. in late 2017.

          An article by David Trobisch appeared in Volume 28 of the secular humanist magazine Free Inquiry (from Dec 2007/Jan 2008).  His article is mentioned on the cover and it is accessible online (via this link).  In that article, Trobisch expresses some unusual interpretations of some parts of the New Testament.  He proposes, for example, that John 21:24 was written with all four Gospels in mind:  “This sentence does not refer to only one author and one manuscript; instead, it talks about “books” in the plural. The reader of John will have just finished reading the fourth account of “things that Jesus did.”  A modern rendition of this sentence may sound like:  “If everything Jesus did was written down, I suppose that the world could not contain all the books that would have to be published.  Four books are plenty!” The last sentence of John does not refer only to the Gospel according to John; it refers to the Gospel collection as a whole.”

           Trobisch also states, “The New Testament was published by Polycarp of Smyrna between 166 and 168 C. E.”  As corroborating evidence, he points to Second Timothy 4:9-20 and proposes that this passage “may contain the names of the publisher and forger of this letter.”  He focuses on the two names in these verses (without mentioning the four names in verse 21) that do not appear elsewhere in the New Testament:  Crescens and Carpus.  The name “Carpus,” Trobisch proposes, “could easily be interpreted as referring to Bishop Polycarp.”  

          He then goes on to propose that the reference to Crescens in Second Timothy 4:9 was added as an acknowledgement of the role of Polycarp’s secretary (mentioned in Polycarp’s letter to the Philippians which introduced the Letters of Ignatius).  “Although this argument cannot carry the burden of proof,” Trobisch concludes, “it is a nice example of corroborating evidence.”

          That theory is not merely weak.  It’s quackery.  And it is not the only highly dubious theory of the origins of New Testament books that Trobisch has promoted.  In a speech delivered in 2015, he referred to the text about Jesus promoted by the second-century heretic Marcion as “the oldest Gospel,” and began his speech with the claim that “Scholars now know of a Gospel-book that is probably older than the Gospels that are part of the New Testament.”  Trobisch also claimed that the author of the Gospel of Luke used Josephus as a source.        

          One can harbor all kinds of unusual beliefs and still be a competent textual critic.  However, Trobisch apparently believes that the Gospel of Luke post-dates the works of Josephus, and that the earliest text of the four canonical Gospels descends from the 150’s-160’s.  That position, it seems to me, is very likely to have an impact on some text-critical decisions, just as different solutions to the Synoptic Problem yield different implications about some textual variants in the Gospels. 

          Trobisch has also written that the opening sentences of Acts refer, not to the closing verses of Luke, but instead to the closing verses of John – implying that the composition of Acts post-dates the collection of the four canonical Gospels.  He has also written, “Historically speaking Paul probably did not heal.”  Trobisch’s doubts about Paul’s healing-miracles might not affect Trobisch’s text-critical work.  But does anyone think that if a textual critic believes, as Trobisch seems to, that Acts was written in the middle of the second century, this will have no impact on his text-critical decisions pertaining to the text of Acts?

          And does anyone think that it does not matter that Trobisch believes (as he has recently written) that “scribes and editors felt free to revise the Greek text during the fourteen centuries of its manuscript transmission,” rather than the normal view that a scribes’ primary ambition was to make an accurate copy of the text of his exemplar?  Do any specialists besides Trobisch believe that a typical copyist “felt free” to revise the text of the Gospels?  There were indeed some reckless copyists, but to present them as if they were typical is like saying that human beings have six digits on each hand.

          In addition to the objection that Trobisch brings some strange ideas to the compilation-committee’s table, there is a pastoral concern here.  I have never met David Trobisch but from what I have read and watched, the religion to which he subscribes is very different from the Christianity which is taught in the New Testament.  It seems to be a baptized “social gospel” philosophy which does not remotely affirm – and which directly opposes – the statement of faith of the National Association of Evangelicals, which, among other things, affirms the infallibility of the Bible, Christ’s virgin birth, His bodily resurrection, His deity, His future return, the final judgment, and salvation through the work of the Holy Spirit in personal spiritual rebirth.  

          Yet very many evangelical leaders who consider those things to be essentials of the faith – people such as D. A. Carson, James White, Craig Evans, Bill Mounce, and Steve Green – seem perfectly fine when the task of compiling the text of the Greek New Testament is entrusted to someone who denies every one of those tenets of Christianity.  At least, I have not heard much protest from them so far.  Most evangelical preachers probably would not share their pulpits with hyper-liberals and atheists.  Why, then, do they seem perfectly content to have a hyper-liberal edit the book on the pulpit?  

          It may be that our wise evangelical leaders have reckoned that just because a fox is a fox, that is no reason why a fox cannot be a skillful guardian of the chicken coop.  Nothing but bias, they might insist, would elicit a suspicion that an unbeliever might – whether purposefully or unconsciously – render the base-text of the New Testament unstable, or introduce readings into the text which have very little manuscript-support (or even none).  “It would be a gross employment of the genetic fallacy,” someone might insist, “if Christian translators deliberately avoided using a base-text compiled by someone ideologically opposed to Bible-believing Christianity.” 

          Against such politically correct wisdom I protest in the name of common sense.  The gold of the king of Sodom was as solid as the next man’s; yet Abraham (in Genesis 14:21-24) refused to receive any of it.  There is a principle being illustrated there that should not be ignored. 

          Second Corinthians 6:14 says, “Do not be yoked together with unbelievers.  For what partnership does righteousness have with lawlessness?  And what fellowship does light have with darkness?”  Paul stresses this theme emphatically for several verses:  “What agreement has the temple of God with idols?” and so forth.  He utilizes two stirring passages from the Old Testament in his call to the church:  “Come out from among them.”  And what co-operation can there be between Christ-centered churches, and members of the Center for Inquiry?  No one can serve two masters.  Paul’s warning against being yoked together with unbelievers is often unheeded in today’s society.  Still, one might think that in the enterprise of compiling the text of the Greek New Testament, this principle should not be ignored when alternatives are readily available.