Round 5 of 5: Bob Enyart & Will Duffy: KJO Battle Royale XIV
Round 5 of 5: Bob Enyart & Will Duffy: KJO Battle Royale XIV
Thank you all for being a part of this debate! Our goals in this concluding post are to:
- Summarize the debate
- Answer the questions, from the King James Only perspective, that our opponent would not answer
- Expand this debate with our offer below to other KJO leaders including D. A. Waite, Jack Moorman, William Schnoebelen, Michael Pearl, and Gail Riplinger.
We begin with a summary of our opponent’s Round One post, then analyze his reply to our 27 questions while attempting to provide, to the best of our ability, the kind of direct answers you would get from a KJO proponent if he were to open his soul. And before concluding, we can’t resist presenting a few more historical gems that also refute the KJO position.
Summary of Kinney’s Round One Opening Statement
Does Kinney Offer Any Proof for His Position? Does Will Kinney even make the argument that the KJB is the
only inspired word of God? In Round One he says that his “belief… is based on a God given faith that our Creator” gave us “‘the book of the LORD’”. He then quotes Isaiah 34:16 referencing the “book of the LORD”. So his first argument is only that he believes in his position by faith, and even that seems invalid because there is no evidence that Isaiah is talking about the KJV. Likewise, his application to the KJO claim of Psalm 12:6-7 that God would preserve His words is invalid because it doesn’t say He would preserve them in a translation, nor in a single-source, and certainly not in the KJV. He then adds the Lord’s wonderful promise in Mat. 24:35, “my words shall not pass away”, but this proves nothing about the KJV. And his admission that “There was no complete and inerrant Bible before the King James Bible” refutes the KJO interpretation of every proof text of their claim, because those verses don’t have an expiration date and neither do they claim to take effect in 1611.
Claims KJB is Faithful to the Hebrew Texts He Claims have Errors: Then Will Kinney brings up a major contradiction common in KJO claims, that the King James more accurately translates the Hebrew texts. Even if this were true, Kinney denies that those same texts are inerrant (see “Originals” paragraph below). So this is another invalid appeal. And if he were to modify his position (as he did on whether the 1611 translators were inspired) and claim that the Hebrew texts were inspired, then his side would lose the debate, because it is titled:
Is the King James Bible the Only Inspired Scripture on Earth Today? So he cannot provide evidence that the KJV is inerrant by appealing to its similarities to texts that he says contain errors.
Offers the KJO Camp’s Circular Arguments: In our opening we warned about the “logical fallacies” of “circular arguments” “offered in defense of the King James Only position.” You cannot prove the KJB is inerrant by showing that it differs from another Bible or that the KJB has 3,000 words more than various other Bibles. The later manuscripts that the KJB was based on became “fuller texts” because over 2,000 years they gradually picked up liturgical phrases. Where once there was “Christ”, while making a copy of a lengthy Gospel say in 400 A.D., the scribe mistakenly though innocently wrote, “Jesus Christ”, and in 900 A.D., another wrote, “Lord Jesus Christ”, and another, “forever and ever”, and yet another ended a passage with, “Amen”, because that is how he’s always heard it in church. Further, there are known places where words are duplicated because the scribe looked back up and caught the same phrase that appeared in an earlier verse, and so then he accidentally inserted the following few words into the passage he was then copying. No mystery. No sin. No crisis. (No crisis, that is, except for the KJO movement which cannot withstand the method that God chose to transmit His texts throughout the centuries.) This circular fallacy lies also at the base of Kinney’s claims about varying interpretations from different translations.
Everything Kinney Said About Originals: (To cover this in one place we’ll grab his relevant comments from throughout the debate.) Using an argument that the KJO camp has hammered on a thousand times, Will Kinney rejects the mainstream Christian doctrine that God inspired only the original writings of the Prophets and the Apostles, also known as the “original autographs”. Likewise, we teach that God did not inspire the scribes who copied and the translators who rendered those writings. He says, “Hint: there ARE no originals to compare anything to. The originals turned to dust thousands of years ago, and never did make up an entire Bible.” As you’ve seen him do however, Kinney constantly appeals to the original written work of the 1611 translators as the perfect text, which his position forces him to do because the KJO movement knows that there have been hundreds of errors in the printed KJBs, including the early ones, that have been corrected over the centuries (with occasional new errors added, as Kinney has admitted.) Yet he persists in criticizing the common doctrine on inspiration: “They have never seen a single word ‘in the original autographs’ a day in their lives… and, most importantly, they are confessing a faith in something that even they know does not exist!”
The Original Idols Were Made of Wood: The rampant contradiction among KJO leaders surfaces everywhere, including in Round Two, when Kinney wrote: “The original handwritten, finalized copy of the King James Bible that was given to the printers was destroyed in a fire along with many other resources they used.” At the risk of being accused of sinking to the KJO level, we will share the only observation that explains this widespread contradiction that fills the KJO camp. When anyone digs in after being corrected and defends their error, that man becomes foolish and prideful. We've broadcast a hundred times on Bob Enyart Live this observation: Stupid does not make you sin, but sin makes you stupid. Of course Will Kinney, as is abundantly obvious, you have never seen your “originals” either and neither do they exist.
Idols Also Made of Paper: When a Christian reproves another for erecting an idol, only repentance can avoid foolishness and self-righteousness. By the prophet Isaiah God makes clear that the idol maker is not only foolish, but absurd.
The craftsman [who] fashions [an idol] cuts down cedars for himself… to burn… he kindles it and bakes bread [and then with the other part] he makes a god and worships it. He makes it a carved image, and falls down to it. He burns half of it in the fire; with this half he [cooks his lunch and] eats meat; He roasts a roast, and is satisfied. … And the rest of it he makes into a god, His carved image. He falls down before it and worships it… and says… “...you are my god!” -Isaiah 44:13-17
The KJO movement has made an idol out of that same wood, processed into pulp, and formed into a text.
KJO Against Itself: Kinney’s Round Two contradictions continue as he makes fun of what he himself believes, that (even) the (KJB) inspired original texts no longer exist. And mocking he says, “including those non-existent originals you claim to believe in.” And in Round Three: “The King James Bible itself is the inspired words of God in a similar way that those long lost and never seen by you ‘original Greek and Hebrew scriptures’ were inspired.” Astoundingly, in the same round he then repeats his previous’ round’s observation: “We do not know what was finally handed over to the printers because all handwritten copies of it were burned up in a fire shortly after the KJB was first published.” And in Round Five: “Bob E. and Will D. next give us another song and dance routine about ‘the originals’...” And we’ve seen Will Kinney blame the printers for the very detailed translators’ annotations that ended up being reproduced exactly in the 1611 as errors that were later corrected. Like the evolutionist who believes that proteins form by random chance, the trillions-and-trillions-to-one chance that the printers happened to set scores of passages incorrectly, but coincidentally identical to what the translators themselves had written, is absurd in the highest degree.
KJO Sides with the Anti-KJO Position: Our anti-KJO position is that God’s Word exists in various languages. In agreement with this (except for the 1611 date which is not referenced in Scripture) Will Kinney rightly says that prior to the KJB, “God's true words were still preserved, but they were in different Bible versions and manuscripts that also contained many corruptions.” Because those same manuscripts still exist, this means that God’s words are still preserved today in the exact same manner as Kinney says they were before. Thus by this inherent KJO contradiction, Kinney has admitted the truth of the anti-KJO side of BR XIV: Is the King James Bible the Only Inspired Scripture on Earth Today?
Kinney Never Directly Claims the KJB Is 100% Inerrant: Notice that not once in this debate has Will Kinney described the King James Bible as “100% inerrant” even though he used “100%” ten times. On his website he uses “100%” extensively, more than 150 times (in context, and as of today). Yet not once there does he describe any KJ Bible as “100% inerrant”. This is not an accident. KJO leader Will Kinney knows that there are errors in the King James Bible so depending upon his particular argument, he uses the phrases:
“100% historically true” – “100% true” – “100% accurate” – “100% pure” – “100% infallible”
“100% truth” – “100% textually pure” – “100% inspired” – “right 100% of the time”
Of course being called on this, expect Will Kinney in the TOL Grandstands to now claim that when he includes “inerrant” in sentences with these phrases, that the “100%” extends to the inerrancy too. But aside from the big errors, every one of the little errors that we’ve been pointing out and that he has agreed to then ever-so-easily falsifies their extremist and spiritually immature KJO claim. For like other KJO leaders Kinney has admitted errors in various King James Bibles (“I’ve seen [only] printing errors”; “hundreds of… printer errors such as omitting… a word”; “errors… today are much less frequent”; etc.), and of course there are the whopper KJB errors admitted such as, “Thou shalt commit adultery”.
KJB Standardizes on Differing Texts: Further, depending on which argument he is pressing and which weakness in the KJB is not in the immediate discussion, he also very deliberately permutates the above terms with the words “infallible”, “perfect”, “inspired”, and “complete”. Yet he has admitted that the 1769 Oxford is not “complete”, even though that means that millions of KJV Bibles were not “complete”, based on that one error alone. When someone points out his admission that the Hebrew and Greek texts contain God’s “inspired” words, Kinney then throws in “complete”. If they point out a modern Bible that is complete (like say the Hungarian Bible, for which Kinney approved that it had a verse omitted in other versions), he will circle back around to “perfect”. Yet in 1769 the King James Bibles “standardized”
with differing texts from Oxford and Cambridge (and there’s also the widely-used different text from 1762). So certainly for the first 150 years while the KJB publishers were working out the bugs, clearly the KJV could not be considered “100% pure”. And the millions of Bibles printed from then until now based on the currently circulating, differing texts have hundreds of variations so they cannot all be “100% inerrant” 1) by Kinney’s own admission, 2) by his frequently used reasoning, and 3) by his preference for a single KJ publisher, Cambridge. Yet during these 400 years of the “purifying” KJB text (as Kinney describes it), the old Hebrew and Greek texts used to translate the King James haven’t changed at all. And in those texts, the very ones Kinney appeals to again and again to defend a reading in the KJB, in them Kinney had said, “God's true words were still preserved”. And still are.
Will Kinney says that God chose English to combine both testaments: “when He worked in history to combine both testaments into one single far reaching language, he chose English, which just ‘happens to be’ the closest thing to the end times universal language there is.” And he claims that God waited for the printing press, but eight English Bibles were printed before the King James and the famed Gutenberg Bible was in Latin.
Kinney makes fun of Bible “agnostics” saying that they must have “compared all bible translations” to the Greek and Hebrew to make their claim that “no translation” is “inerrant”. However again he argues against himself in this debate, because he would have to “compared all bible translations” to defend his proposition in this debate that: The King James Bible is the Only Inspired Scripture on Earth Today.
Purity of Doctrinal Truth vs. 25 Errors: Our opponent, again subjectively and circularly, concludes his first post by ascribing to the KJB “purity of doctrinal truth.” And he then provides what he says are 25 examples of doctrinal errors in other versions. His eleventh is: “son of the gods” vs. “the Son of God” which is paralleled in the similarly contradictory translations
within the King James versions themselves. Included among many inconsistencies in our “
Cambridge vs. Cambridge” and “
1611 vs. Other KJBs” charts we’ve pointed out:
- the “God” vs. “the LORD” change from the 1611 to the 1629 and the still-in-use 1769 Oxford text
- “thy God” vs. this reference to God omitted, a change from the 1629 KJB and the 1769 Cambridge as compared to other versions including the 1611 “He” Bible and the Cambridge 2005 and 2011 versions. The KJO movement cannot survive without its special pleading, exempting itself even when the KJB has the virtually exact errors that used to reject all other versions.
Analysis of the KJO Replies to All 27 Questions
That summary of Kinney’s opening post gave us an overview of his position, and in a way, of the whole debate. Now we dive down into the questions that form our challenge to the KJO movement.
BWQ1: Is God able to produce a robust message that could remain effective even as reproduced by mere men (i.e., without the need for [further] divine intervention)?
In rounds two, three, and four, Will Kinney quotes but does not answer this question. He could easily have answered something like: “Yes, as I’ve said, the Gospel message itself is found in any Bible version in any language.” In Round Three he misread our question (which we then pointed out, and then we needlessly clarified it, as above, with the word
further). He adds that the question is absurd and then replied regarding, of course, the KJB (and again in Round Four), that “God can use mere men to give us not only ‘a robust message’ but an actual Book in print”, by which he means
with divine intervention. The question asks if God can produce a robust message that can remain effective even when reproduced “
without… divine intervention.”
Our previous Battle Royales currently have a combined quarter of a million views here in the Coliseum’s Center Ring. In BR VII’s
Does God Exist? (also available in paperback), TOL’s resident atheist Zakath the psychologist refused to answer many questions. So we decided to put him on sodium pentothal truth serum. In the twelve years since then, TheologyOnline has acquired some state-of-the-art technology for use only in the kind of extreme circumstance like the one we now find ourselves in.
The only one at TOL who can officially authorize the use of this compulsion technology is Knight. But he is currently traveling somewhere in the jungles of Central America. (Literally). Yet coincidentally, out of the whole United States, Will Kinney happens to live nearby. (We practically drive by his house whenever our families get together for dinner.) So, while some might claim we used false pretenses to set this up:
So we now have the answers we’ve asked for. We insert these where needed but not with Kinney’s TOL username brandplucked, but under the username
Will Kinney Lie Detector.
WiKiLiD: For BWQ1, I just didn’t want to answer this. If I deny this, I seem unreasonable because firstly, God is utterly competent. And if I admit that God is capable of producing a robust message that could remain effective even as reproduced by mere men without His further intervention, then clearly He could have chosen to communicate His word in that way. The three other examples that you guys gave seemed pretty strong. I remember them. That the fallen cosmos still declaring the glory of God; and of our human DNA still enabling us to bring kids made in God’s image into existence; and that a million species still filling the world with life even without divine intervention. So, if God could do all that, it seems that He probably could communicate His Word effectively, even through man’s imperfect transmission. But I didn’t want to think about that, and I sure wasn’t going to admit it.
BWQ2: Of any actual error that appeared in the 1611 KJB (like ones corrected in later versions), if that error was made not by the printers but by the translators themselves, would that falsify the KJO position?
WiKiLiD: Well hey, give me credit. I did say that this “might change the KJB only position somewhat”, but yeah, I know, in Round Two when you asked for a clarification, I wasn’t going to give you one.
Enyart: Why not?
WiKiLiD: In the KJO movement, we’ve always said that any errors that exist in any of the King James Bibles are the result of printer errors. I was surprised when I saw that you guys brought the translators themselves into the debate. So I was afraid to answer either yes or no. If I answered Yes, that errors by the translators would falsify our movement, I was afraid that you might be able to show from the translators’ own handwriting that they were the ones who produced some of the errors. If I answered No, that would seem obviously deceptive. So I just pretended to answer. Any anyway, you guys had a good point. If we deny that the translators were inspired, which we sometimes do, and admit that they made errors, and if we admit that the printers made errors, which we do, and if we admit that the text had errors, which we do, it’s like having your head in a vice and there’s no way out. So, to keep defending the KJO position, I just refused to answer, and implied that somehow, while the King James Bible for years had many errors, that over the next centuries, divine intervention moved various editors and printers, many unknown to us, to get the Bible perfect. It’s confusing, I know. But that’s my position.
Duffy: Will, are you comfortable?
WiKiLiD: Physically? Yeah, I guess I’m fine.
BWQ3: Does God’s perfect Word exist anywhere on Earth today?
In Round 2 Will Kinney quoted this question but didn’t answer it so we immediately re-asked BWQ3 adding, “Please answer yes or no, and feel free to expound of course.” In Round Three, Kinney answered, “Yes. You gentlemen may have even heard of it. It is called the King James Bible. You can pick one up at any bookstore.” However, you can get KJBs based on the 1769 Oxford which Will Kinney said is not God’s complete Word. And bookstores sell David Norton’s 2005 & 2011 Cambridge KJV, and Scrivener’s 1873 KJV, and many others based on various texts all of which have changes between them. So by Kinney’s wrong but oft-repeated argument that if two texts have changes between them, then they can’t all be God’s Word, therefore, these varying King James Versions cannot all meet the extreme and spiritually immature standard of the KJO movement.
BWQ4: Will Kinney, please provide a list of King James Bibles, listing publisher and year published, for which you and, to the best of your knowledge, the KJO camp generally, claim them to be free of error (i.e., God’s perfect Word). Please also specifically indicate, by presenting the year published, which edition was the very first that was free of error.
In Round Two Kinney quotes this question and answers by saying, “I don’t know what year
it first came out, but I would say that the Cambridge edition of the King James Bible that you can find in any bookstore today…” (emphasis added). Of course there are a number of Cambridge King James Bibles that have many changes between them, and after decades of obsessive study on the KJB, of course he knows that. During this debate using Google we found on multiple forums that Will Kinney was saying in the past that the 1762 Cambridge was God’s perfect Word. Now that he is aware (though apparently, he has not read) of impeccabile researcher Rick Norris’ work, Kinney knows that there are changes in the very popular 1762 KJV as compared to many other popular KJVs. So the reason that various KJO advocates prefer to be vague about which KJB is inerrant is similar to the reason that the favorite fossil of the evolutionist is the incomplete skeleton. Both can make their strongest points on that which cannot be tested.
Duffy: So Will Kinney, exactly what year did they finally get all the errors out of the King James Bible? Two of the differences that we pointed between Cambridge editions at Acts 7:28 and Rom. 10:7 are also differences between the 1769 Oxford and the 1769 Cambridge. Between those two still-popular King James texts, here are a few of the differences:
At Acts 7:28:
1769 Cambridge: as thou “killedst” the Egyptian
1769 Oxford: as thou “diddest” the Egyptian
At Romans 10:7:
1769 Cambridge: “ascend”
1769 Oxford: “descend”
And the pattern continues with:
Rom. 11:23 “not still in unbelief” vs. “not in unbelief”
1 Cor. 4:13 “the world” vs. “the earth”
2 Cor. 3:11 “is done” vs. “was done”
2 Cor. 12:2 “above” vs. “about”
Jam. 2:16 “and be ye filled” vs. “and filled”
1 Jo. 1:4: “your joy” vs. “our joy”
Rev. 18:22 "at all in thee, and no craftsman, of whatsoever craft he be, shall be found any more” is missing from the 1769 Oxford
Mt. 19:29 “eternal life” vs. “everlasting life”
Mat. 18:12 “large sums of money” vs. “large money”
John 10:29 “none” vs. “no man”
Acts 21:25 “from things” vs. “from”
Lev. 11:10 “nor scales” vs. “and scales”
Num. 9:13 “from his people” vs “from among his people”
Deut. 11:30 “champian” vs. “champaign” (vs. the 1611’s “champion”, so things are going downhill here)
2 Sam. 19:18 “came” vs. “was come”
So Will Kinney, again, to the rest of the Body of Christ, these changes do not hinder the effectiveness of God’s robust word. But to the KJO camp, you guys claim a “100% textually pure” Bible. So my question is, exactly what year did they finally get all the errors out of the King James Bible?
WiKiLiD: Well... I don’t know. Any year that I say and you guys will list a dozen differences between that and all the other KJBs that our movement tells people to go out and buy as God’s perfect word. So, I don’t know what year.
Duffy: Are there still printing errors in today’s King James Bibles?
WiKiLiD: I don’t want to answer that.
Duffy: You have to. Will, we pointed out to you in Round Two that in Acts, regarding that Egyptian, that there are seven Cambridge editions that change the text as compared to many other Cambridge editions and as compared to Oxford editions. And remember that also in Acts 7:45 that a dozen KJ versions say “Joshua” brought the tabernacle into the promised land whereas Cambridge and Oxford editions say “Jesus” brought it in. So again, have there been printing errors throughout the history of the King James Bible?
WiKiLiD: Can I think about it for a while?
Duffy: Sure.
Because Kinney did not answer our fourth question in Round 2, we then split it into two to separate out each part of the question.
BWQ4a: Will Kinney, please
provide a list [we indicated three or four] of King James Bibles, listing publisher and year published, for which you claim them to be free of error (God’s perfect Word).
In Round Three Kinney quoted this question and only replied, “The Cambridge printings of the King James Bible you can find in any bookstore today” and that it doesn’t “interest me in the least” as to which Cambridge anyone might purchase because he knows “which one is totally right”. All this in itself seems stunning and revealing. Eventually, though it was like pulling teeth and required a bribe, of the hundreds of different KJV editions, Will Kinney seemed unwilling to provide a list but he did name one by sufficiently identifying his own KJ Bible.
BWQ4b: Please specifically indicate, by presenting the year published, which edition was the very first KJB that was free of any type of error.
We asked this first in Round Two and Kinney broke the relevant BR XIV rules that require him to first quote the question in full which he didn’t do, and then to number his reply and to directly answer the question, which he didn’t do. So we asked this again in Round Three and in Round Four he mentions the number of the question but says he won’t answer it because he already has and so he never answered this question.
Enyart: Will Kinney, you’ve been thinking about Will Duffy’s question. So, exactly what year did they finally get all the errors out of the King James Bible?
WiKiLiD: I can’t answer.
Enyart: Why not?
WiKiLiD: If I say any year, you guys can probably find errors in that year’s King James Bibles. And if I say that there are probably still errors in the King James Bible, then I admit that our KJO camp’s claim that we have the inerrant and 100% accurate Bible is false, and that four hundred years later, there are still problems in the text. That’s why I can’t answer the question.
Duffy: You mean that you can answer it, but that you don’t want to answer it.
WiKiLiD: I guess.
Enyart: Why not?
WiKiLiD: I don’t want to.
Enyart: It’s one of the hardest things in the world to give up an idol.
BWQ5: Did God’s perfect Word exist in English in 1610, and if so, in which version?
In Round Two Kinney answers this directly with a “No” and says that there “was a purification process taking place and the King James Bible was the final product...” This is a reference to a hyper-spiritual claim that some KJO proponents make, as does Kinney on his website, that Psalm 12:6-7 refers to God’s words as “purified seven times.” To various KJOnly believers, that specifically refers to six (of the eleven) English Bibles published prior to the 1611. The King James then became “the ‘preserved’ words”. For as Kinney writes, “When the King James Bible came off the press, beginning in 1611, God’s promise of the preservation of his words was almost complete.” Almost? After seven full stages covering nearly a hundred years? Of course Kinney says “almost” because of all the errors in the King James that took another few hundred years to iron out, with some actually being ironed back in, and other, rather resilient mistakes, still around in 2015.
As to our own answer to this question, we did understand how Kinney could reasonably complain, from his perspective, about our own answer to the same question that he put to us in WKQ3. The KJO Gambit that they often open with is this: Do you believe there is a perfect word of God in the world [before 1610, now, whenever.] As soon as a naive Christian says Yes, as in the Grandstands during this debate, Will Kinney pounces and says:
Well then, you are claiming that every other version is bad, because there can only be one true Book. The poor unsuspecting Christian has no idea how she just became the judge and condemnor of every other Bible in the world.
So when Kinney asks if God’s perfect Word exists in English in 1610, we can answer exactly how he answers that for other languages on his website: “God's words from the Old Testament were most likely preserved in the Hebrew texts… for the New Testament... in the Old Latin Bibles.”
So, he objects to others using this answer, which inherently declares that there is no single version, but rather, that God’s Word permeates the world, including in English. And that is how we answered in Round Two, “from back around 730 A.D.” and we stated that “we reject the superstitious, self-contradicting, and superficial ‘type of Bible’ that the KJO camp pretends to believe in, which even they hesitate to point to one specific one and say, ‘This is it.’”
BWQ6: Will Kinney, please explain how God revealed to mankind that the KJ is the only inspired version of the Bible, and please indicate when, i.e., what year, this was first known?
In Round Two Kinney quotes this question but does not answer it, saying that some people who were born before us believed the KJ Bible was inerrant and that fifteen years ago he came to the same conclusion via a spiritual revelation for “that’s how God does things”.
In Round Three Kinney apparently realized that he did not answer this question so he then found a way to misunderstand it. Even though in the previous round he knew that we were asking how it was that God communicated
to him, or to anyone, that the KJV is the only inspired Bible. So now he misreads the question and claims it is asking how did God reveal the truth about the KJV
to every person in the world, and adds, “I never said that” and God “obviously has not revealed this to either of you.” Touché.
Will Kinney then pulls out of context three verses that teach that God has revealed truth and in yet another instance of circular reasoning assumes they mean that the KJB is the only inspired scripture.
Duffy: Bob, should we ask Will Kinney that question, number six?
Enyart: No, he won’t know the answer, not even in this condition.
WiKiLiD: Can I get a drink of water?
Duffy: Sure. How about some iced tea?
BWQ7: Will Kinney, because neither the Bible nor the Gospel is only for English-speaking persons, from the insights gained by the KJO movement, please explain how Chinese Christians, or those who speak Spanish or Hindi, for example, could evaluate whether God’s Word was available for them and their children in their own language?
In Round Two, Kinney might have forgotten that both sides posted their opening statements simultaneously, so he chastises us saying “I already answered this.” Because Will Kinney didn’t answer this, we re-asked him this in Round Two. In Round Three he quoted the question but again refused to answer it claiming he already had. We are more than willing to recognize when Kinney has answered a question, just as we’ve done above, even when we disagree with his answer. But the KJO position has motivated Will Kinney to obfuscate instead of answer, and so he never answered this throughout the debate.
BWQ8: Will Kinney, from your past statements, we believe that you will agree with us, and here help to dispel the myth believed by many KJO adherents, that there was only a single 1611 King James. So will you affirm that in fact there were two 1611 King James Bibles, and that these two differ in hundreds of instances?
We were a bit surprised in Round Two when Will Kinney answered this essentially saying
No. Even though 400 years later they are referred to as the He Bible and the She Bible and their four hundred differences are well documented.
BWQ9: It is your camp, and not the Scriptures, that claims that in the production of the King James Bible, God inspired the translators, but not the printers. (Thus you blame the errors on the printers.) So Will Kinney, can you explain why that is a reasonable claim for you all to attribute to God, considering that the printers’ work would be read by millions, whereas the translators’ work was only read by the printers?
In Round Two Kinney quotes this interesting question and simply does not answer it. Instead he ducks the
read by a few vs. read by millions question and diverts attention to whether it was the translators (no), or their writings (yes, the text itself), that were inspired. Of course he could have offered that clarification and then answered the question, which would be polite and forthright.
So in Round Two we re-asked this question clarifying it to: “[Please explain the KJO defense of the translators and criticism of the printers] ‘considering that the printers’ work would be read by millions, whereas the translators’ work was only read by the printers.’”
In Round Three Kinney neither quoted nor answered the question so we repeated it in that round. In Round Four he mentioned the number of this question and said that he was not going to answer it because he already had which was surprising to hear. In Round Four we listed this as an unanswered question and Kinney never answered this first round question in the entire debate.
Enyart: So, Will Kinney, if the King James Only camp’s standard for a perfect Bible is correct, then why would God inspire only the text read by a few printers, but not inspire the printing, which was read by millions?
WiKiLiD: I don’t know. I never could figure that one out.
BWQ10: In 1611, any particular minister may not have been convinced that King James was even in a position to authorize a new translation of God’s Word. Such a minister could count and find literally thousands of differences in the new text as compared to the 1537 Matthew Bible that his great-grandfather had preached from. If a minister back then had the kind of spiritual insights of today’s KJO leaders, how would he have been able to refute the one who declared: “King James’ corrupt 1611 translation has hundreds of changes as compared to the Word of God”?
In Round Two, Will Kinney quotes this question but did not answer it. He asserted again what we’re referring to as his mystical defense, that to know the KJB is the one requires a subjective spiritual assurance: God told me so. That is not an answer to: “how would [that minister] have been able to refute” an accusation against the King James.
Because Will didn’t answer this, we re-asked it in Round Two, changing it to: “In 1611... a minister could count and find literally thousands of differences in the new text as compared to the 1537 Matthew Bible that his great-grandfather had preached from. ...how would he have been able to refute the one who declared: ‘King James’ corrupt 1611 translation has hundreds of changes as compared to the Word of God’?”
In Round Three Kinney neither quotes nor answers this question so in that round we explicitly asked him to do so. In Round Four Will Kinney mentions the number of this question and says he’s not going to answer because he already has, yet he never answered this first round question throughout the entire debate.
Duffy: So, Will, how would you answer this question?
WiKiLiD: I really have no idea. The only thing I could think of is to say that God will tell you. I really didn’t like it when you compared my answer to what Mormons and Moonies say. Those cults do say the same thing. And it especially bothered me when you talked about Jesus providing actual evidence for his claims. Now here I am in a debate that probably tens of thousands of people will read (with 4,000 views here on TOL already). And I’m given a chance to provide reasons for how accusations back in 1611 against the King James could have been answered, and I have no idea. I really have no idea.
BWQ11: If the King James translators have taken a position on a matter regarding their work that differs from your position Will Kinney and that of the KJO camp, who would have more authority as to the truth of that particular matter, you and the KJO camp, or the translators themselves?
In Round Two Kinney quotes this question and just didn’t answer it. He did say that we probably misunderstand some things that the translators wrote (which is certainly possible; they wrote a lot), and that the translators are not his final authority, the “Book” is, which is a great answer to a different question. We noticed that he capitalizes “Book” but not “word”. There’s nothing wrong with using either an uppercase or a lowercase “w” for the Word of God. However, because the KJO movement relentlessly psychoanalyzes their opponents, we’d like to offer this: Why does Will Kinney repeatedly point out that he uses a lowercase “w” to refer to the Bible and an uppercase “W” to refer to Jesus? He is overcompensating. The KJO advocates have erected an idol, which is the text of the King James, above God Himself. Therefore Kinney feels compelled to show everyone that he uses a lowercase “w” to refer to the Book.
We re-asked our eleventh question in Round Two to no avail so in Round Three we more explicitly asked him to answer this. In Round Four Kinney mentions the number of this question but says he will not answer it because he already has. He did not answer this opening round question throughout the entire debate.
BWQ12: Will Kinney, do you agree that these actual handwritten notes from the 1611 translators themselves demonstrate that various errors previously admitted by the KJO camp were not the fault of the printers, but that these errors were generated by the translators themselves?
Will Kinney quotes and directly answers this question in Round Two with a “No”.
Enyart: Will Kinney, you’ve listened to our Real Science Radio broadcasts, right?
WiKiLiD: Yes. They’re interesting.
Enyart: Thank you. You’ve heard us talk about how absurd it is for evolutionists to claim that unique, individual proteins could arise by random chance when the odds of that happening are trillions, upon trillions, upon trillions to one.
WiKiLiD: Yes, that’s a good point.
Enyart: So, what do you think are the odds that the printers could exactly, by accident, create many of the same errors that the translators had created in their own handwritten annotations?
WiKiLiD: Not good, I guess. They’re probably astronomical, if they even could be calculated.
BWQ13: Will Kinney, if in truth the actual 1611 KJB errors long blamed on the printers could be shown to have been caused by the translators, would you publicly call for the KJO leaders to join you in humbly retracting those incorrect statements?
In Round Three Kinney quotes this question but doesn’t answer it. Like a politician unwilling to answer a hypothetical question about the possible consequences of his policies, Kinney diverts attention from his failure to answer by saying that we have not proven our case that these are translation errors. Kinney never answers this question throughout the debate.
We know his answer though. For unless he repents of his sin of teaching this false doctrine regarding the 1611, Will Kinney would not call for other leaders to retract their incorrect statements.
BWQ14: Will Kinney, can you describe in a thoughtful way how the KJO movement might be able to survive if many of the actual King James Bible errors that it has admitted to were actually the fault of the translation work itself?
In Round Three our KJO opponent quotes this question but doesn’t answer it and says that we had already brought this up.
Duffy: So Will Kinney...
WiKiLiD: WHAT?
Duffy: How could the KJO movement survive if their errors were actually the fault of the translators?
WiKiLiD: I don’t know. I have no idea. That would be rough. I hope that idea doesn’t catch on. Because even if it is true, of course I’m still going to tell everyone that the King James Bible was a result of supernatural intervention. But like you guys said, if God didn’t keep the translators from error, and if He didn’t keep the printers from error, and if He didn’t keep the text from having errors, and if hundreds of years later publishers were still dealing with errors, then it does get harder to make our case.
BWQ15: Will Kinney, if you do not believe that the translators were inspired (which we are thankful that you do not) then why can you not agree with their own testimony, which is right before your eyes, and acknowledge that some of the errors that the KJO camp has always attributed to the printers were instead, demonstrably, caused by the translators?
In Round Three Kinney quotes this question but doesn’t answer it. He seems to think he has dodged it by saying that we haven’t “proven”, i.e., convinced him, that these are not printer errors. Then he claims that “the King James Bible translators did NOT give any testimony to having made errors in their translation”, which seems to ignore the fact that, being unsure of how to translate certain texts, they provided more than 2,150 alternative translations in the margins of the KJV along with 67 variant readings that indicated that they weren’t even sure what was the correct underlying Hebrew or Greek wording that they were supposed to be translating. Will Kinney never answered this question.
Duffy: So Will, it’s Will again. Will versus Will. Huh! Sounds like Paul in Romans 7. So, you say you don’t believe that the translators were inspired. Over at Oxford I took about 4,000 photographs, with the vast majority of those capturing their very specific notes. We can see in their writing that they certainly came up with these exact errors, months and even years before they ever got to the printers. So if you don’t believe that they were inspired, then why can’t you agree with the obvious, that some of the errors in the 1611 were their fault, and not the fault of the printers? Why can’t you agree to that?
WiKiLiD: I don’t know. It’s scary in a way. If I agree to that, I’m not sure where it will lead. So I’m not going to agree.
BWQ16: Do you deny that there were at least 400 textual differences between the “He” 1611 and the “She” 1611?
We asked this in Round Two because Will failed to acknowledge in his answer to BWQ8 that there were two different 1611s. In Round Three, Kinney quotes this question but then changes it somewhat in his answer, “No, I do not deny that there were very minor printing errors”. Of course that wasn’t the question. The truth helps everyone. Just like later when Will Kinney admitted that (unlike other Anglican Bibles) the 1611 KJB did not say that it was “Authorized”, here too, it would have helped if a KJO leader could openly acknowledge the order of magnitude of the errors in the first King James Bibles.
Oops: Will Kinney then criticizes us because “next [we] bring up… Judges 14:17...” which we did not. He did, in his opening statement. On November 1st we called Will Kinney to discuss the rules with him. They are very brief, and we talked them through and asked him if he understood them. He had previously acknowledged his agreement to Knight here on TOL. Atop this thread Knight posted the rules which stated that they are designed to “ensure[] that the participants actually debate one another and not simply post material written for other purposes…” Kinney has rapidly copied and pasted lengthy excerpts from his site into this debate, enabling him to post absurdly quickly, and thereby deny us the time TOL debate opponents expect to read, understand, research, and write their replies. An unintended consequence of Kinney’s bulk pasting of material, is that he would forget what he posted. So we will remind the readers. In his Second Round post, resisting our photographic evidence, Will Kinney listed seven verses, including Judges 14:17, which he claimed were (not translation errors) but obvious printing errors. We then looked up each of his seven verses in the 1602 Bishops’ Bible that many of the translators worked on for seven years. All seven of Kinney’s verses had annotations, and those detailed notes in all seven verses were exactly reproduced by the printers in the text of the 1611 KJV. Kinney’s reply to this historic and astounding development was to claim that we were making a big deal about a small printing error that we found.
He ends by saying that we were “making mountains out of molehills and straining at gnats. But since this is all you’ve got, I guess you just have to run with it and hope that others will become Bible doubters like yourselves”, all of which is about a verse he brought up and asked us about.
BWQ17: If you really agree with us, Will Kinney, as you have stated, that the 1611 translators were not inspired, then why can’t you admit the overwhelmingly obvious truth that errors in the 1611 that come from the translators’ own handwritten notations were caused by the translators?
We asked this in Round Two and in Round Three Kinney quoted it and did not answer and asks if we’ve “heard the definition of lunacy” and says we are broken records. Our opponent never answered this question in the debate.
BWQ18: Will Kinney, can you see from the 1602 Bishops’ Bible [at 2 Chron. 32:5] that the 1611 translators explicitly changed the correct word “repaired” to the incorrect word, “prepared”, by adding a “p” to the beginning of the word and then striking out the “i”?
We asked this in Round Two because, rushing a hasty reply in his own Round Two post, Kinney apparently misunderstood both the question and what the translators had done. In Round Three he did not quote this question nor did he answer it. So in Round Three we explicitly asked him to do so and we pasted the moderators reprimand of Will Kinney, including that he had not answered this question, into our post. In Round Four, Kinney mentioned the number of this question and said he would not answer it because he already had. The behavior of our KJO opponent is typical of the bad behavior of a number of the KJO leaders. (See James White’s KJO Controversy book for a summary.) Will Kinney never answered this question.
Enyart: Hey Will, you still with us?
WiKiLiD: Hmm. Yeah, I was just thinking about something.
Enyart: In the debate we showed you the translators’ own handwritten changing the correct word “repaired”, in Second Chronicles 32:5, to the incorrect word, “prepared”. They added a “p” to the beginning of the word and then they struck out the “i”. Did you see that?
WiKiLiD: Not really. I didn’t really look at the picture.
Enyart: Well, have you gone back and looked at that verse? Do you believe us that that’s what is shows?
WiKiLiD: Yeah, sure.
Enyart: So, everybody, even your own guys, admit that this was an error. So can you admit that this KJB error was caused by the translators?
WiKiLiD: Yes.
Enyart: Yes? Wow. Yes!
WiKiLiD: No, yes, I can admit that, if I wanted to. But no, I won’t admit it.
BWQ19: Will Kinney, will you dispel the myth believed among many KJO advocates that the KJB was only being perfected from 1611 to 1769, by affirming that in reality, there are many instances where the text incorporated additional errors?
We asked this in Round Three. In Round Four Will Kinney quoted this question and declined to answer it saying that there is no such “myth” and that “errors… today are much less frequent.” So at the very least, for an “inspired”, “100% textually pure”, “perfect”, and “complete” text, at least it doesn’t have too many errors.
BWQ20: Will Kinney, will you take our offer and specifically identify two or three King James Bibles, by publisher and year, that meet your standard? And if you do, we will specifically identify a Bible currently available that meets the standard that we’ve been proclaiming.
We asked this in Round Three, a question that is almost verbatim from BWQ4a. In Round Four Will Kinney quoted this question and refused to list two or three, but we were thankful that he did give at least enough information about his own personal Bible for us to identify it.
BWQ21: Will Kinney, you have been referring to the complete, perfect and inerrant word of God. Is the 1769 Oxford edition complete?
We asked this in Round Three and in Round Four Will Kinney answered directly with a “no”. He claimed there are three or four very minor differences, which of course is false. No matter how big the changes between various KJBs, the KJO camp almost always describes them as very minor, except when they don’t. Here, if Kinney really thought that there were only a few minor differences between millions of other KJBs and the 1769 Oxford, then he wouldn’t have answered “no”, “the 1769 Oxford edition [of the King James is not a] complete [Bible]”. In a moment of near clarity, KJO author D.A. Waite has admitted that by his own counting there are “136 substantial changes” between the 1611 and today’s King James Bibles. His other widely-noted claim of about 400 “audibly” noticeable changes of any kind of significance has been utterly refuted.
BWQ22: Will Kinney, how did you come to the conclusion that it was the Cambridge edition of the KJB, and not the Oxford, London or Edinburgh editions, for example, that are free of error?
We asked this in Round Three and in Round Four Will Kinney quoted this question and answered it rather well. He says he determines this by looking at the Hebrew texts that underlie the KJB. Of course, this sets him up as a judge over God’s Word. How dare he claim to be the arbiter between one King James Bible and another. As we’ve shown previously, KJO leaders assert their own authority above all else. Of course this is an enormous admission and would also mean that the Hebrew (and of course the Greek) truly is the higher standard. And that means, as Kinney earlier admitted, that the Hebrew is inspired. But it would also mean that every Christian needs to learn Hebrew to figure out for themselves which KJB is inerrant. Or, they could just trust Will Kinney (who, by the way, significantly disagrees with other KJO leaders on which King James Bible is the one).
BWQ23: Will Kinney, like Bibles published in England in the 16th and 17th centuries, did the printed 1611 King James Bible say anywhere on it that it had the designation of being “Authorized”?
We asked this in Round Three and thankfully, Will Kinney answered directly with a “No”. So everyone should remember that the KJO camp has always been defending not the AV but the UB, the Unauthorized Bible.
BWQ24: Will Kinney, regarding your utterly contradictory claim that God produced an inspired, 100% perfect, inerrant text
from printers that you admit made errors, and
from translators that you admit were not inspired, who brought about
a text that you admit had errors, can you include these three underlined admissions of your in explaining how this all adds up to the world’s only supernaturally preserved inspired text?
We asked this in Round Four. In Round Five Will Kinney quoted this question and did attempt an answer. He backtracked and now claimed that the “translators were inspired” but that they did not give us completely new Scripture. Of course that is a strawman because we had never claimed such a thing. But with these underlined admissions from our KJO opponent, Kinney does not explain how they could add up to the world’s only supernaturally preserved, purified, perfect, inerrant, inspired text. So of course one could wonder then, did God intervene over hundreds of years with the printers, at various times and in sundry places, and primarily at Cambridge University Press, or is it just by man’s efforts that they finally got it right?
BWQ25: Will Kinney (please try to understand this question before answering it; you are not good at hypotheticals), if in fact the New Testament records Jesus and the Apostles quoting from a popular but imperfect Greek translation of the Hebrew, rather than from the Hebrew Scriptures themselves, would that demonstrate that unlike you and the KJO camp, God is not uptight about a perfect translation?
We asked this in Round Four, and Will Kinney never answered.
BWQ26: Will Kinney, please try to answer this question. Ruckman, Riplinger, others within the KJO camp, and you in your own article “No LXX” all reject that the Septuagint existed in the time of the Lord. So, did the 1611 translators agree with the opinion expressed today within the KJO camp that the Septuagint was not quoted within the New Testament, or do the translators by their preface in the 1611 KJ agree with KJO opponents who affirm the existence of the Septuagint in the time of the Lord?
We ask this in Round Four and in Round Five Will Kinney replied to but didn’t quote this, and answered a different question saying, “NO, I do not agree with their statement.”
BWQ27: When you claim that we have never seen the originals, you have never seen the originals. You claim they were burned in that London fire. So how is it that more and more changes are being made to the text by printers, without those originals available to be accessed?
We asked this in Round Four and Will Kinney never quoted it and and never answered.
KJO Battle Royale XIV Invite To All KJO Leaders: We invite any of the top KJO leaders who think they could better defend their position to join in this debate according to the following offer. James White had already falsified the KJO claims in his KJO Controversy book. This TOL debate took a different approach and gave the translators themselves the opportunity to testify against the KJO movement (and on behalf of the poor printers). With this BR XIV, we hope that until the Lord returns, help will be just a click away for a Sunday school teacher being browbeat, or a pastor getting harassed, or a family member fatigued by a misguided KJO promoter. (To help others find this debate helpful, please post links now and then to this debate here on TOL or to our kgov.com/kjo.)
Of course we can expect the KJO authors to continue to promote their claims. So to the top KJO leaders, we make an offer to each of you, for we have devised a way for you to join in on this very debate. This offer specifically includes D. A. Waite, Gail Riplinger, Peter Ruckman’s group, Steve Anderson, Jack Moorman, William Schnoebelen, and Michael Pearl.
Here’s an email from Michael’s ministry a few years back declining our debate offer:
He [Michael Pearl] recommends that you contact Peter S. Ruckman... He is probably the
strongest Bible defender bar none. ... Be sure and tell them Michael Pearl and Chuck Joyner from
NGJ sent you their way. I would recommend that you... possibly make [the debate] available online to document the "total slaughter" that will certainly occur. Please stay in touch and keep me updated. [emphasis in the original]
We’ve just emailed the Pearls to let them know that this debate is now available online and that perhaps their assistant general manager Chuck Joyner’s prediction has come to pass.
So here’s our standing offer to these KJO leaders. We will reply to you, as though we were debating you, if you post here on TOL in the Bob Enyart Life forum your own answer our 27 numbered questions as listed below. If you do that, also in a single post (which might help us keep the interaction concise) by providing thoughtful answers to the questions, then we commit to respond to you and to answer a similar number of your own questions. And please follow the BR XIV rules for numbering convention, no links, etc. We look forward to the KJO camp’s vigorous defense of their position against the evidence presented here from the translators.
Jesus Quotes the Septuagint Instead of the Hebrew: Why does the KJO camp deny that Jesus quoted from the imperfect Greek translation of the Old Testament? The answer is evident. The KJO argument is nullified
if the Lord Jesus ever quoted from the very different Greek translation of the Scriptures. (Every KJO leader being honest easily admits this.) Realize that the Septuagint is not the original, God-inspired, Scripture. It is manifestly a less-than-perfect (as all translations must be) translation, sometimes a paraphrase, and sometimes, well, sometimes, it’s just something else altogether.
A Textual Lesson on a Graphic: Carefully read the following graphic (even if you don’t know Greek) and you will understand this relatively simple (though foreign) matter. Majority opinion does not decide truth. Still, we note that the vast majority of Christian theologians and language and textual scholars (including, notably, the 1611 translators as we heard them in Round Four) concur that a large percentage of the Old Testament passages presented in the New Testament quote not the Hebrew but the Septuagint. For example, at Ps. 8:2:
Such dramatic examples fill the New Testament.
In the last round we reported to you that the 1611 translators testified against the KJO movement by affirming the use of the Septuagint in the New Testament (which fact alone destroys KJOnlyism). Now though, we would like to show you their written affidavit to that effect. Note their brilliance of their understanding as they explain why God preferred to use a popular but imperfect translation rather than have the Lord and the Apostles translate for themselves the Old Testament Hebrew into New Testament Greek. For the quotes from these Hebrew Scriptures provided the evidence for the assertions of the Gospel, and if the Apostles were generating their own translations, then they would lack credibility because any thinking person would reasonably question whether they were biased in their translation. See for yourself the 1611 translators testifying on our behalf and against the KJO movement:
Regarding use of what the KJO camp sees as the imperfect Septuagint: Regarding New Testament quotations of the Old Testament, the Holy Spirit’s acceptance and use in hundreds of places of the Septuagint Greek translation, rather than requiring use of the original Hebrew text, testifies to the observation that there is no such thing as a perfect translation of any work of considerable length. God Himself instituted diverse languages and just as it is impossible to exactly render any number of fractions in decimal notation, likewise, by their very nature, it is impossible to exactly render any lengthy text into another language. In fact, as our Russian translator told us regarding our classic article, Judge Rightly Is Not Some Guy’s Name, the title of that article on judging is simply not translatable into Russian, nor, undoubtedly, into hundreds of other languages, for it makes use of an English idiosyncrasy of having two identical words that are a verb and the title of the person who performs the action of the verb.
Thank you for participating in this debate!
Links:
For the work of
KJB researcher Rick Norris.
David Norton’s
A Textual History of the King James Bible
Ward Allen’s
Translating for King James
John King's
Foxes' Book of Martyrs: Select Narratives
thebiblecorner.com site for reading old (and newer) Bibles
Manifold Greatness website
“
Authorization of the KJB” Macmillan’s Magazine June 1881
On Ps. 136 (and a global flood passage that we intentionally displayed when we showed the notations diving down into the binding)
Billy Graham advocating the killing of some unborn children.
Audio clip of Peter
Ruckman denying the baby in the womb is a living soul.
More about the
KJV’s incorrect translation of kill vs. murder at kgov.com
A simple listing of all questions from Bob Enyart and Will Duffy to the KJO movement
Statistics of projects overseen by Wycliffe Bible Translators
The Septuagint refutes the KJO camp, so they deny its existence
despite the evidence.
Examples of consultations we had with our local Hebrew expert during the debate at
kgov.com/kjo#mcmahon
kgov.com/kjo#james-white will link to James White’s book and any analysis he may have of BR XIV
An inerrant KJV would require miracles on demand;
more about miracles at kgov
Questions about BR XIV rules, violations, and length of posts
Ongoing debate analysis and updated resource list at
kgov.com/kjo
Official BR XIV Supplemental Material by Bob Enyart and Will Duffy right here on TOL in the BEL forum