The Preacher's Library

(Read part 1, part 2, part 3). Part 4 will cover chapter 1, “The King James Advantage.” This is one of only three chapters that has the same title as that listed in the table of contents. If “the KJV debate has already been won” and “we have already won the war” (p. 30), then why do new modern versions keep getting published and why are more and more Independent Baptists downplaying or ditching the KJV? Hollner guarantees us in this chapter that “nothing else but the truth is going to be presented in this book!” (p. 31). If this is the case, then everyone who bought a copy of the book should request a refund.

Regarding the King James translators, Hollner remarks: “many of them godly men” (p. 38). Just many of them? This implies that most of them were not godly men. He refers to the 27th edition of the Nestle-Aland text as if it were the last edition (p. 37), even though the 28th edition was published in 2012. He begins a sentence in the third person and then wrongly changes to the second person (p. 38). In his quote from Gesenius’ Hebrew Grammar, Hollner not only doesn’t give the page number (440), but fails to italicize two words and omits what Gesenius has in parentheses (p. 40). He completely butchers his quote from Dean John Burgon (p. 49), and doesn’t bother to cite the source (The Revision Revised, p. 16). His statement without explanation that “the King James Bible is a Holy Ghost inspired translation!” (p. 44) is troubling. The verse quoted at the bottom of page 34 that begins a new section should be at the top of the next page.

In addition to the misuse of quotation marks, capitalization, and apostrophes; the inconsistency in the use of Lord/LORD; the insertion of extraneous words: “KJV” (p. 33), “quote” (p. 34); and the annoying excessive use of underlining and all caps, I note the following: “mis-lead” for “mislead” (p. 30), “jesus” for “Jesus” (p. 32), “re-taught” for “retaught” (p. 32), “dis-respect” for “disrespect” (p. 33), “differs” for “differ” (p. 39), and “NAS” for “NASB” (pp. 39, 45). Stay tuned for the fifth installment, if I am able to make it through chapter 2 without having a brain aneurysm.

(Read part 1, part 2). Part 3 will cover chapter 15, “The Oxford vs. Cambridge Fallacy.” In the table of contents this is just called “Oxford/Cambridge Fallacy.” Hollner throughout confounds the Cambridge/Oxford differences issue with the King James editions issue. He also continually misuses the word “reprint.” He wrongly applies it to King James Bibles published from 1611-1769. He wrongly claims (in a poorly written sentence) that the Oxford/Cambridge issue “is basically only involving 12 verses of Scripture” (p. 434). Likewise, if the word “spirit” has a lower case s in a King James Bible and then an upper case S in another King James Bible, the second Bible cannot be called a “reprint” of the first (p. 434). He wrongly says that “there has been a few reprints due to printing press errors in spelling, archaic word updates, individual letters, or even one word within a verse” (p. 439). Every other use of the word “reprint” in this chapter is wrong.

The Collins King James Bible that the author bought in 1984 is not “a Cambridge edition according to the several insignificant differences” (p. 434). It was and will always be a Collins edition. Hollner misuses and truncates a quote from an 1851 (not 1852) report to the Board of Managers of the American Bible Society (see p. 163 in my book King James, His Bible, and Its Translators). He terms the difference in reading of ye/he in Jeremiah 34:16 in some King James Bibles as an “insignificant textual variation” that is “too small or unimportant to be worth consideration” and “meaningless and not worthy of further discussion” (p. 436). Really? I thought “every word of God is pure” (Pro. 30:5). The list that is supposed to be on page 184 is on page 183 (pgs. 439, 440). It is not true that modern revisions of the Bible “all follow the 1881 corrupted Greek text of Westcott/Hort” (p. 440). And, no surprise, commas and quotation marks are misused in several places. Stay tuned for the fourth installment.

(Read part 1). Part 2 will cover chapter 14, “The Septuagint Fallacy.” This is the title in the table of contents. As I pointed out in part 1, only three chapters have the same title as that listed in the table of contents. The title of chapter 14 is “The Real History of the Septuagint LXX: Do You Really Know What the LXX Septuagint Is?” Most recognized scholars believe that the Septuagint or LXX is the Greek translation of the Hebrew Old Testament that was quoted by Christ and the Apostles. The evidence for this is scant. There are some Greek fragments of the Pentateuch that have been dated, supposedly, to the first and second centuries B.C. And there are also some Greek fragments of the Minor Prophets that have been dated, supposedly, to the first century B.C. Relatively complete manuscripts of the LXX are Codex Vaticanus and Codex Alexandrinus. Incomplete manuscripts of the LXX are Codex Ephraemi Rescriptus and Codex Sinaiticus.

Hollner’s overall thesis of this chapter that the LXX is a fraud is sound. However, much of what is found in the chapter is not. The word “Apocrypha” is only capitalized once. Codex Ephraemi Rescriptus is not mentioned. Wikipedia is cited as a source.The Apocrypha is referred to as “it” and “them” in the same sentence, and is elsewhere called a “reading.” The Apocrypha was not “later removed in all KJV reprints.” That some modern scholars accept the Apocrypha as Scripture does not make it true that it “is nowhere accepted as Scripture except by modern scholarship and the Roman Catholic Church.” And these are just the errors in the first paragraph on page 418.

The errors in the rest of the chapter are legion. Words are capitalized that should not be, and words that should be capitalized are not. Book titles are not put in italics. Words are unnecessarily put in italics. Parentheses are not used where they should be. En dashes are used for Em dashes. Apostrophes are used incorrectly. The quote by the unidentified Scott Jones on page 425 has no close quote mark so there is no way to determine where it ends. Hollner misinterprets his quote from Josephus (p. 433).

The term “Masoretes” and “Masoretic Text” should never be applied to anything before the time of Christ. No one claims that “the 7th-10th century Masoretes somehow created a new ‘Masoretic’ text” (p. 419). The first Hebrew Bible (OT) to be printed was in 1488 at Soncino, Italy, not in 1477. It is an overstatement to say that “there is more evidence for a ‘Tooth Fairy’ than there is for a B.C. Greek Septuagint” (p. 420). Hollner assumes his readers will know that “Brenton” is a reference to the edition of the LXX by Sir Lancelot C. L. Brenton. This is called both “Vaticanus/Sinaiticus” and “Vaticanus” (p. 424). Gerhard Kittel (1888-1948), the German Lutheran theologian and lexicographer at the University of Tübingen and editor of the Theological Dictionary of the New Testament did not produce “a corrupted Hebrew text” (p. 421). It was his father, Rudolf Kittel (1853-1929), an Old Testament scholar and professor at Breslau and Leipzig, who edited a critical edition of the the Hebrew Bible titled Biblia Hebraica. Hollner says that the Biblia Hebraica 1937 edition had 30,000 changes from “the true Masoretic text,” but then goes on to say that its footnotes “suggest from 20,000 to 30,000 changes throughout the whole Old Testament” (p. 421). The Leningrad Codex is not “corrupt,” and is an edition of the Masoretic Text (p. 421). Although Hollner claims that “many words are missing” (p. 421), he doesn’t give any examples. The Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia (Hollner’s “Stuttgart edition” of 1966-1967) was issued in fascicles from 1968 to 1976, and published in one volume in 1977. Stay tuned for the third installment.

As I have said from the beginning of The Preacher’s Library, this is not a book review blog. I have written scores of book reviews, and hope to eventually have them all posted at The Preacher’s Library here. Some of them can be found at my Vance Publications website. I am currently reading a review copy of The King James Only Debate: Can You Trust the Modern Scholars? that the author, Michael Hollner, kindly sent me upon my request. Because of the subject matter, and because of my expertise in the area, I think it would be a good idea to review this book at The Preacher’s Library. But because I am reading so many other things right now, I have decided to publish my review in parts instead of waiting until I finish the book, since I have no idea when that will be.

In this first installment, I want to describe the book and give my overall first impressions. I appreciate those who write in defense of the Authorized Version, and especially those, like Michael Hollner, who are not Independent Baptists. However, I don’t always appreciate everything they write. I’m afraid that such is the case with The King James Only Debate. The title of the book is based on that of two other books: The King James Only Controversy: Can You Trust the Modern Translations? (1995; updated and expanded, 2009), by James R. White; and The Scholarship Only Controversy: Can You Trust the Professional Liars? (1996), by Peter S. Ruckman. Throughout the book, Hollner denigrates Dr. White and praises Dr. Ruckman (but he calls him “Pete” on p. 26).

The King James Only Debate is the most poorly put together book I have ever seen. There is no title page. When you open the book, the title of the book (without the subtitle) appears at the top of the first page followed by a 2×5 inch image of a crown over the text “The King James Version 400th Anniversary” (even though the anniversary was in 2011) over an open Bible followed by what seems like a preface on pages 1-11. But it is not actually a preface because the book’s preface actually runs from pages 13 to 28 (but it is referred to as an “introduction” on p. 22). On page 12 appears the copyright information that would normally be on the verso of the title page. The copyright date is 2018, but there are several places in the book which say that the book includes updates made in October of 2020. However, on page 438, “the 2021 update” is mentioned; on page 439, the value of money in 2019 dollars is given; on pages 440 and 451, the year 2021 is mentioned; and on page 441, the year 2018 is mentioned. The table of contents doesn’t show up until page 29. Not only is there no title page, there are also no footnotes, endnotes, bibliography, index, or page headers. This means that you never know which chapter you are in. At least there are page numbers at the bottom of each page. The most annoying thing about the book is that there is barely a quarter of an inch of space at the top of the pages above the first line of text. There are numerous typos in the book as well as formatting issues like the excessive use of words in all caps and the use of both straight and curly quotation marks, even on the same page. Although the book contains 451 pages, instead of the paragraphs being indented, there is a line space after each paragraph. This makes the book appear larger than it is. Many of the quotes in the book are not documented, or are taken from secondary sources.

The King James Only Debate contains sixteen chapters: 1. The King James Advantage. 2. Missing Verses and Words. 3. Attacks on Doctrine. 4. Answering the Critics. 5. Inspiration/Preservation. 6. The “Originals Only” Heresy. 7. New Versions & Prophecy. 8. New Versions & Poetry. 9. Words/Evidences/Questions. 10. The Two Big Lies. 11. The Manuscript Vault. 12. Foreign Translations. 13. The Dog and Pony Shows. 14. The Septuagint Fallacy. 15. Oxford/Cambridge Fallacy. 16. A Fair Warning. However, only three of these chapters (1, 3, 4) actually have the same title as that listed in the table of contents.

The publisher of the book is the author and his ministry, Write the Vision Ministry, in Winter Springs, Florida. The author claims to be “an independent thinker and not a follower of any man or of any denomination” (p. 6). He is “not a Baptist, church of God, Assembly of God, or of any other denomination” (p. 6). He is “not a follower of Ruckman, Gipp, Riddle, Waite, Riplinger, or of any organization” (p. 6). He calls himself “a non-denominational Christian” who has “come out of several Pentecostal denominations” (p. 6). He wrongly states that the “KJV debate” “all started with Gail Riplinger’s book in 1993 entitled the ‘New Age Bible Versions'” (p. 25). His incorrect use of the word “entitled” instead of “titled” and his putting a book title in quotes instead of italics are just two examples of just how sloppy this book is. Hollner admits that he is “not a professional writer” (p. 9). However, he thinks very highly of his book: “This book is unique due to modern technology, and in showing photographic evidence of the ancient manuscripts” (p. 25). “The photo evidence gives our book the unique advantage above all others, for as of today in October 2020 (and the original print in 2018), we have not found a more researched and exhaustive product on the market in showing so many ancient manuscripts” (p. 28). The author hopes that his book “will also receive proper reviews from honest hearted Bible believers” (p. 26). This is my intention. Stay tuned for the second installment.