Diligent to present yourself approved to God, a worker who does not need to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. Alpha and Omega Ministries presents the Dividing Line radio broadcast. The Apostle Peter commanded all Christians to be ready to give a defense for the hope that is within us, yet to give this answer with gentleness and reverence. Your host is Dr. James White, director of Alpha Omega Ministries and an elder at the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church. If you'd like to talk with Dr. White, you can call now by dialing 602-274-1360. That's 602-274-1360. Or if you're out of the Metro Phoenix dialing area, it's 1-888-550-1360. That's 1-888-550-1360. And now with today's topic, here's James White. And welcome to The Dividing Line. My name is James White. We continue this week with our response to the Southwest Radio Church's airing of a four-part series. We're looking at the sections that hosted Dr. D.A. Waite as the main person responding to my book, The King James Only Controversy. We'll be looking as well at the subject of their other responses to my book, The King James Only Controversy, and we have been providing a direct response. What I mean by that is we've been playing for you the actual comments made by Dr. Spargimino and by Dr. Waite, and then responding to them. And I again point out we We'd like to be able to have Dr. Waite on and we'd like to be able to cross-examine him and provide a response and ask him to provide specific documentation of his allegations of error. And we've invited Dr. Waite to be on, but as of this date, well, there's just no willingness to do that. And so we provide this response, we continue to provide this response because people need to know what the real facts are about these particular issues. And so this week we continue with the second program that featured Dr. Waite. And here is the first section of that program we'd like to respond to. Mr. White contends that proponents of the King James Bible are guilty of circular reasoning. Now, if someone argues and compares a modern version with the King James Bible and says that, quote, this verse has been deleted or omitted in the modern version, that we are guilty of circular reasoning. And I've had that objection pop up many times. What's your response to that? Now before Dr. Waite gets to his response, I'd like to respond to that specifically. What did I mean in my book when I said that King James Only advocates reason in a circle? I was referring to their use of such words such as altered, changed, deleted, and added. They take their text, the King James text or the Texas Receptus, they make that the standard, and then they force you to compare everything to their standard. And of course, the question is, why should we accept that as the standard? My standard is what Paul or John or Peter wrote, not what Desiderius Erasmus, a Roman Catholic priest working in the beginning of the 16th century, thought they wrote. And so the circular reasoning comes out in the constant unwillingness on the part of King James Only advocates to allow for their text to be tested on the same grounds that we should test any text, whether it's the modern text or the King James. Both have to answer to the same standard, and that is their reflection of the original text itself. That was the original assertion in my work of the circular reasoning that you hear on the part of King James-only advocates. But notice how Dr. Waite responds. Well, my response is this, as far as you may know. the possibility or the probability of the text of Receptus and this longer Greek text adding things instead of the heretical text that we consider the Westcott and Hort B&L text deleting things, the probability that this could happen and this would be the case It's just simply incredible. It would be almost the same probabilities of happening as if, as someone has aptly put it, if there was an explosion in a junkyard and the whole parts would come down as your mother's Cadillac, see? Impossible. Now, such an assertion, I think, demonstrates why it is that Dr. Waite would not, in our debate, get into any kind of discussion of any specifics about the text, because that kind of assertion shows absolutely no familiarity whatsoever with the practice of textual criticism and actually working with the textual variations in the text itself. There is no connection whatsoever. between the explosion and the junkyard analogy, which is supposed to represent the probability of something as complex as DNA or life itself, the structures of a cell or something like that, resulting from random chance. The transcription of a manuscript is not random chance. And in point of fact, what we're talking about is how do scribes generally, as they're copying, make errors? What are the kind of errors that you and I make when we copy out of a book, even on a keyboard? Even in a situation where we have plenty of light and we have a very nice environment in which to work, for example. What kind of errors do scribes make? And when scribes have more than one kind of manuscript before them, what do they do? Do they conflate the readings? Do they reject readings? What do they do? Now, the fact that the idea of addition is the reality in regards to what happened with later manuscripts and not subtraction from the text is so easily demonstrated by anyone who's familiar with the history of the text. I mean, you can find so much evidence of a longer text the farther you go into history. In fact, that's why we can say we know we have the originals, because even if a reading didn't make any sense, it would be maintained in the text, which means the original readings would not be taken out. That's a very important point called the tenacity of the text. Let me give you just an example. There is a manuscript of the book of Revelation. And listen to this title. This is a later manuscript. This is Hoscars 236, Gregory 1775 is the number. Here is the title to the book of Revelation. Now the earliest manuscripts say Revelation. Here's the title of this book. The Revelation of the All-Glorious Evangelist, Bosom Friend of Jesus, Virgin, Beloved to Christ, John the Theologian, Son of Salome and Zebedee, but Adopted Son of Mary, the Mother of God, and Son of Thunder. That's the title to the book of Revelation in one of these manuscripts. So you're telling me that a longer version of that is not possible? Well, obviously anyone familiar with the text itself knows that that is not the case. But Dr. Waite then goes to talking about, well, a favorite King James Only passage, the longer ending of Mark, Mark 16, verses 9-20. First let's take Mark 16, 9-20. His argument would say that B.N. Aleph, which are the only major texts that take away Mark 16, 9-20, the last 12 verses of Mark, he would say that B.N. Aleph, having taken it away, why the text was sent to his people, simply added it. But just think of the possibilities. Here's Mark 16, 9-20. Eighteen unshilleds have it. This is from Dean Burgan's last 12 verses of Mark. Over 600 cursive copies have it. Every known lectionary of the East has it, and then on top of that, you have 10 different early versions containing Mark 16 and 9 to 20, and then you have quotations from 19 early church fathers, all of whom refer to or allude to Mark 16 and 9 to 20. Now the question is, how if this was added? How could it be added all over the then known world, and all these different centuries, different church fathers, some in the 3rd century, some in the 4th, some in the 5th, how could it be added exactly the same way every place? How could these versions, how could these early translations have Mark 16, 9 to 20, with verse 9, and then 10, and then 11, then 12, all the words fitting into place? That's an impossibility that nobody could conceive of, and that's not circular reasoning, that's just plain logic. Well, that sure sounds good, doesn't it? I mean, I can understand how someone hearing that would go, wow, that sounds like a full refutation. And that's why we want to get people to get in a situation where you can answer questions. Because you see, folks, this was supposed to be a response to my book, The King James Only Controversy, and yet nothing that I said about Mark 16, 9 through 20 was just addressed. In fact, those of you who've read the book know that that entire response has nothing to do with what I said in my book. Instead, what I pointed out in regards to Mark 16, 9-20 is that there's not just one ending, and Dr. Waite forgot to mention that. He forgot to mention the textual variations that exist within the longer ending that's there. In fact, there are three, maybe four different endings for the Gospel of Mark. And of course, the argument I made was that if the longer ending of Mark in Mark 16, 9-20 is original, there would be no reason to create other endings of the Gospel of Mark. None of the other Gospels have that problem. So why was it that the real argument that is based upon the existence of multiple endings of the Gospel Mark, why wasn't that mentioned? Well, folks, it's because all of the responses that I have seen to the King James Only controversy have partaken of this kind of response that really isn't a response at all. It's just a reiteration of a statement of faith. We believe the King James Version of the Bible. Well, we know that. But we're trying to dialogue about it. We're trying to issue. And Dr. Waite's response, while sounding very good, When you cross-examine and say, well, wait a minute, what about this? What about that? It doesn't sound very good at all because nobody's saying that someone was coming along, the quote-unquote textus receptus people. The longer ending of Mark was written long before there was an English language alone. Anyone who would be called a textus receptus person No, that doesn't make any sense whatsoever. So, I'd like to ask Dr. Wade again, how about dealing with what I said about Mark 16, 9-20, rather than passing off what sounds like a good answer, but one that has nothing to do with what I said in the King James only controversy, as if it is a response. Let's get serious about this because that's an important textual variant. And there's very good reason for not considering it to be a part of what Mark himself wrote. And no one is doing any Christians any favors by dodging the issue and providing a response like Dr. Waite just provided there. Now, Dr. Spargimino falls directly into the trap of accepting this kind of argumentation. Well, that would mean that everybody had to take their texts and make the same kind of change. No, the change, that is, the construction of the intermediate ending of Mark, the longer ending of Mark, was very early on. And so those manuscripts copied from those manuscripts that contain the ending, contain it. There wasn't any kind of big conspiracy, but listen to what Dr. Spargimino says at this point. Like you pointed out about the Mark 16-9 and following passage, for that to have happened back then, we would have to presuppose that they had email. Because there is such a parallel and it's so precise, so that is a tremendous... Tremendous response is what he said. Well, If you think it's a tremendous response to assert that kind of thing, that, well, actually all these people had to make these emendations and changes and assert the longer ending and they all had to be the same, that's not the argumentation that anyone has put forward. So again, a person listening to this program goes, oh, what a response to the King James Only book, when in reality, the actual argument of the King James Only book has not even yet been touched. Dr. Spargimino continues his demonstration that he really didn't look closely at what my book said and what the content of my charge of circular reasoning was when he says the following. The Church has always taught that God has preserved His Word, so to say that this verse has been omitted or that this verse has been deleted is not circular reasoning, it's simply reasoning that is based on the promise of the Lord Jesus Christ. Confuses the assertion that I made and that is to set up the King James as the standard and then say everything else is a Change from that and a omission or addition so on so forth involves circular reasoning now He brings in the King James only theory of preservation and says the church has always taught the preservation of scriptures No one denies that but he will not find the church teaching the preservation of the King James version of the Bible That's a completely different subject, so many different concepts here get sort of mish-mashed together and it's quite confusing to try to follow this attempted response to the King James Only controversy. Now, Dr. Waite then steps back in and makes the following assertions. that 99% of the manuscripts that we have today contain this, and contain this, contain this, and just a small little handful, the old unshilled, Aleph and A and B and C and D, especially B and Aleph, just a small little tiny fragmentary handful, knock out this verse and that verse and this verse, it's strange, the churches, the thing about it is the churches knew what was true and what was false, and they never copied and recopied those false manuscripts. Now, please note two things. Dr. Waite is very, very enamored with Dean Burgon. And in fact, Dr. Waite's primary understanding of this entire field is based upon what Dean Burgon said more than 100 years ago. That's one of the reasons that those who do depend upon Dean Burgon generally make errors because they are not aware of the current state of textual studies and the current state of what manuscripts are available for our study today. Notice he just said just a couple of unseen manuscripts, all of them B and so on and so forth. He never deals with the papyri manuscripts. He never deals with the papyri that have been discovered since the days of Burgon, and I know that Burgon would have had a different view had he had access to those papyri manuscripts. Bergan was a scholar, and even though I disagree with him on many issues, it's interesting to note that Dean Bergan could not have been a member of the Dean Bergan Society that D. A. Waite is president of. That is, the doctrinal standards of the Dean-Burgon society would not allow Dean-Burgon to be a member of the society named after him, because he was not a Baptist, he was not a separatist in that sense, he was an Anglican. And not only that, but ask D.A. Waite, since he won't seemingly talk to us, ask D.A. Waite, did Dean-Burgon accept or reject the Kamiohonium of 1 John 5-7? And see what he has to say. I think that these are important issues. And so again, he says, well, 99% of these manuscripts contain this thing. Yes. And 89% of them were written after the year 1100. So they're all copies of each other. Why should manuscripts written a millennium later have more weight in telling us what the original text was than one that was written 200 years after that period of time. Again, cross-examination, interaction would allow these simple facts to come out. And that's why we provide you with this kind of response. I like the statement that Mike quoted of Herman Haskier in his book Codex B and its Alliance, page 468 to 469. Here's his assessment of this Westcott and Hort Creek text. He says they're basing their accusations on an Egyptian revision that was current 200 to 450 A.D. and abandoned between 500 to 1881, merely revived in our day and stamped as genuine. Now again, this quotation comes from a time period before the discovery of the papyri manuscripts that so clearly demonstrate that Aleph and B represent a primitive form of the text. And so again, you go back to individuals who are writing before the current state of facts, you quote them as if they're still relevant in light of the situation today. And it's interesting, going back a little bit to what Dr. Spargiamino said, and to what Dr. Waite has said, that the Church would not copy these manuscripts. The Church, the Church, the Church. This is why the folks at Southwest Radio Church seemingly, I guess, think that Dr. Waite and Dr. Ledis are saying the same things, when they are not. They are not saying the same things. When Dr. Ledis talks about the church, he's talking about 17th century Protestant orthodoxy. And he, in essence, is investing into the Protestant orthodoxy of a Francis Turretin, or the orthodox Protestant writers of the 17th century ability to, in essence, speak for the church and define the church's text. That is not what a separatist, independent Baptist like D.A. Waite is saying. And it's fascinating to hear these two programs knowing that the people they're interviewing are coming from completely different perspectives. And the only reason they're both getting interviewed is because they're attacking one book. A fascinating thing to see indeed. And so, again, when we know something about the historical setting, when we know something about the manuscripts that are being discussed, the assertions simply fall flat. Now, remember what was just said, well, you know, for all these hundreds of years till 1881, which of course is when the Westcott and Hort text is published, this Egyptian text falls into disuse. Remember something in history about the Muslim invasion? Remember the Muslims coming across North Africa? You think that might have had some impact upon manuscript production? And isn't it interesting that the Textus Receptus is primarily Byzantine in character and it was the kingdom surrounding Byzantium that kept speaking Greek and held out against the Muslims until the middle of the 15th century. Might that be why that's where the most manuscripts come from? You see, a little bit of history changes so much of the assertions that are made in this area. Now, if you think it's unfair of me to say, well, Dr. Wade is dealing with 100-year-old scholarship. He's just following Burgon. He's not even dealing with the modern state. Listen to these words and see if he deals with P66, P52, P75, P72, any of these modern manuscripts, modern in the sense they've been discovered since the days of Burgon, that demonstrate that Oliphant B, Sinaiticus and Vaticanus, do represent an early form of the text. See what he says. All of a sudden West Garden picked these two old manuscripts up from the graveyard and exalted them to be the prince of the manuscripts. See, that was the argumentation back then against the Westcott and Hort text, is that it was based on only two manuscripts, Oliph and Bea. That's what Bergan was saying. That's no longer the case. That's one of Dr. Waite's problems, is he does not recognize the state of affairs today. He does not recognize that the UBS 4th, Nesulon 27th, is significantly different in many aspects from the Westcott and Hort text. Because the fact that all of them being no longer are the quote-unquote prince of the manuscripts, they haven't been exalted, they now are recognized as being extremely important. And where their text type, and I don't think Dr. Wade understands what a text type is, Their text type has been demonstrated to be primitive by the papyri manuscripts, but they themselves are no longer the kings of the sea, shall we say, and you will find places where the papyri correct them, or so on and so forth. Again, it just simply demonstrates that Dr. Waite is not familiar with the modern state of the situation. And going back to Dean Burgon isn't helping anyone today in that way. Now, in this next section, Dr. Spargemino left me somewhat amazed at how he responded. Dr. Waite was talking about how the viewpoint that I'm presenting is spreading like wildfire amongst fundamentalists. And Dr. Spargemino responds and says that the text of the Bible was corrupted early on. Now this is very important because in reality, and I've said this in the King James Only controversy, the King James Only position undercuts the true foundation for the defense of the Bible, and for the defense of inerrancy, and for the defense of the accuracy of the transmission of Scripture. The King James only position undercuts that. And listen to what Dr. Spargiomino says here. Not only does he say that there is early corruption of the text, and of course he identifies that with Olive and Bee. I guess he'd also identify that with all the papyri manuscripts that come before that. But listen to his use of the Apostle Paul here. You know, the whole assumption when Mr. White and others of his school speak about the early manuscripts being the best or better, they forget that corruptions entered the text at a very early date. In fact, even the Apostle Paul mentions those who corrupt the Word of God. So if we take Vaticanus and Sinaiticus from, what, the third or fourth century, say they were early, well, Paul said they were corruptions even before then. What an amazing assertion! Amazing on many counts, but 2 Corinthians 2 17 in the King James Version of the Bible says, For we are not as many which corrupt the word of God, but as of sincerity, but as of God in the sight of God we speak in Christ. Now, for those of you who don't speak King James English, and translating the Greek phrase that translated corrupt even better here, the NIV says, unlike so many, we do not peddle the word of God for profit. On the contrary, in Christ we speak before God with sincerity like men sent from God. And so the passage, Paul is not talking about changing manuscript readings. He's not talking about textual variation. He's talking about those who peddle the Word of God trying to make a profit. It is amazing to see the lengths that people will go to in attempting to substantiate this position when it simply has no foundation. Now, Dr. Waite goes on to say, well, you know, we have these other translations into other languages that are very, very early. And, of course, they always opt for the earliest dates for these translations, Latin translations and the like, as they can. And, see, they contain the Mark 16, 9 through 20 passage. So, therefore, obviously, it was just a deletion on the part of those two manuscripts. ignoring any evidence that's been discovered since that period of time, and ignoring the fact that the text type of Olif and B has been demonstrated through the discovery of the papyri to predate the period of that going all the way back It's not just at the beginning of the 4th century any longer, but it goes even before that. So again, it would be very useful to those who listen to Dr. Waite to recognize that, in essence, he's sort of stuck in time. The time of Dean Burgon. And that, of course, results in information just isn't accurate any longer. now earlier in the review and i i don't believe we played at the section that we did and i didn't comment on it that earlier in uh... the review he made reference to an incident that took place uh... back in april of this year uh... up in salt lake city and this is i think a little bit insight into how king james only advocates frequently operate i did a debate with a roman catholic in our cia instructor at the Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Salt Lake City on the issue of justification. And after this debate was over, a man came up to me and he started asking questions about the King James Only controversy. Now, I just finished a debate with a Roman Catholic on justification. I do not even have my book with me. I have not been discussing King James Only-ism. It's not even on my mind. And yet, this individual comes up to me and does not identify himself as a King James Only advocate. He doesn't say, I'm a pastor of a King James Only church and I have problems with your book. In fact, to be quite honest with you, he was dishonest with me in the way he represented himself. But he wanted to discuss early church fathers and their citations of textual variants. Now, I'm sitting here trying to put my books away. There are people staying around who are asking questions about Roman Catholicism and they're all looking at this guy like, why did this have anything to do with what you're doing this evening? Well, not only did that King James only pastor, then go and write some silly review of our conversation. that was anything but accurate. If that King James only pastor would like to debate King James only-ism, maybe he should contact us honestly so we can actually deal with it out front and he can answer some of these questions. That might be a good thing to do. Now Dr. Waite refers this man as one of his friends and reports what his friends said took place after this debate. Notice how this comes up in the review. Now, as far as the statement I meant earlier, remember that he has a chart on the page 353 of his book, and the chart implies, and he was asked by my friend, where did he get the chart? He didn't remember where he got the chart. Now remember, I don't even have the book in front of me. I'm debating a completely different subject. Well, he didn't remember where he got the chart. I told him that I had gotten it primarily. In fact, it even says it's adapted from Dan Wallace, and I told the individual that. Let's try a little bit of research when we're talking about stuff like this on a national program. I think that would help out a whole lot. Well, after we take the break at the bottom of the hour, we are going to be coming back, and we're getting close to being able to wrap up most of the things that Dr. Waite had to say in his review, but we'd like to know what you think. Why don't you get involved? Lines are open, 602-274-1360 here locally. or 1-888-550-1360 if you're not in the Phoenix dialing area. Get online now. We'll be taking calls again in the last quarter of the hour. And so get in line now. Talking about the King James only controversy here on The Dividing Line. Welcome back to the Voting Line. My name is James White. We're responding to Dr. D. A. Waite's commentary on the Southwest radio church along with doctors for jimmy no responding to my book the king james only controversy as next section of plates for a lengthy section doctor wait is addressing the issue of text heights and one of the problems in king james only material is that they confuse a manuscript that contains a reading that might agree for example with the later byzantine tax with a text that has a text of the Byzantine family. And the problem with this is a single reading does not a family make, as it has been rightly said. And to demonstrate that the Byzantine text type, which basically underlies the King James Version, and again, for those of you who are sticklers, I'm well aware of the fact, and in fact I believe it's one of the problems that Dr. Waite has, that he just identifies the Byzantine majority, TR, King James, as all one thing. They are not. There's all sorts of different TRs, there's differences between the TR and the majority text, all the rest of that stuff. I am aware of that. The argument he's going to present, and again, it sounds real good if you don't have an opportunity to criticize it and to interact with it, is that, well, if you look at the early church fathers, they use a Byzantine text type. And this is a very common argument. This is what his friend in Salt Lake had brought up. And I'll tell you the same thing I said to Dr. Waite's friend. I said, no one has done in-depth textual study on the early church fathers in the sense that Dr. Waite's going to mention Mormon and Burgon and their studies of the citations found in early church fathers. Well, there's a real simple question here, and that's this. Did they look at the early church fathers as being also having had their writings having had to been transmitted over time to us today? In other words, is there a critical text of the early church fathers that can take into account the textual variations in their writings and the process that their writings went through? And the answer to that is no. Basically, there's almost no textual work has been done in regards to the early church fathers' texts. i would refer those who are interested to uh... doctor gordon fees article uh... these the greek fathers for new testament textual criticism found in uh... studies and documents text new testament temporary research uh... that was uh... published uh... by herdman's a few years ago uh... for a bit of a rundown as to where we are currently uh... in regards to getting a critical text of the patristic citations the citations your church fathers gave So the point is, they're referring to a source that we haven't even had the opportunity yet to really look into the process through which the early church fathers' writings came to us. And it's quite obvious that there would have been many examples of the early church fathers' writings being, when they quoted a passage of scripture, scribes later on that are copying these things down would then bring their citations into line with the text they were familiar with. So it's really a fairly surface-level argument, but it's again, it sounds really good when you present it. In fact, listen to how it comes out. denver gathers and his understudy edward miller had a research on seventy six early church fathers that died four hundred years at four hundred eighty or before and all those early church fathers he found out not only that there was a examples of texas receptor separate exchange a type of readings when the early church fathers who died four hundred eighty or before but it was in the percentage of three at the two in favor of the text receptors reading numbers sixty percent of forty percent And now Dr. Jack Mormon has done another study, a current study, and he's even got a better percentage. He took a total of 40 different works and 401 scripture quotations from the Church Fathers. He was an accurate student, and his count made up that only 122 of these quotations were from the Aleph and Bee type of text, but 279 were from the text receptus. His ratio is 70% against 30%, even better than Dean Burgan's as far as the early church quotations of the Church Fathers that lived 400 A.D. and before. So this idea that there's no early readings, that the text receptus is late, is simply false. Now remember, when you hear such confident statements, again, knowing that there's no one there who's going to contradict him, remember the debate that we played last week. Remember when specific TR readings were presented to Dr. Waite, he had no reply. He said, well, we don't want to look at particular passages. We don't want to look at particular words. Why is that? Because the TR, as the TR, is not what these scholars are talking about. They're saying, well, we can find early Byzantine readings. Well, again, a reading is not a text type. Make, and all the other issues are brought up. But again, when he just melds together TR, King James, Byzantine, majority, whatever, that is not a scholarly thing to do. There is a differentiation. It must be made between each one. Now, Dr. Waite's friend up in Salt Lake City did at least communicate to him some of what I told him. Listen to what he says here. And then, you know what Brother White says? He says, why, you know, in the 1800s, they couldn't research these church fathers. They really didn't know how to do this right. Well, Dean Burkett's got a total of 16 folio volumes in the British Museum, giving 86,000 quotations or allusions of the early church fathers to the scriptures. And you mean they couldn't do it in the 1800s? If they couldn't do it, and Dean Burkett couldn't do it, how could Westcott and Hort do it? They lived in the 1800s also. 1881. So that's what Mr. White reasons. No, Dr. Waite, that's not how I reason at all. And again, you could have found out and been accurate if you had wanted to. What I said to your friend was that no one, even to this day, has created a truly critical edition of the patristic sources. So to rely upon their text without knowing how we've arrived at that text is simply to rely upon something that cannot be relied upon in any scholarly or logical way. And so to tell people this is how I reason when that's not how I reason, well that's dishonest. And Dr. Waite may feel that he has every reason to say what he's saying because he's protecting the King James Bible. It's still dishonest and it's still wrong. And I ask him to come on the program, respond to these things, do interchange with us. If you're right, then it'll be easy for you to refute what I'm saying. If you're wrong, that will be seen just as clearly. Now, at this point, Dr. Spargemino steps in, and again, no critical interaction with what Dr. White said, of course, but then he starts to say, well, you know, Dr. White attacks us in his book, he says we're Bible thumpers and things like that. Folks, read the book. one of the biggest comments that has been made has been how fair i attempted to be with these individuals i differentiate between different kinds of king james only people uh... i i i bent over backwards to document what they were saying and you cannot find a single misrepresentation a single miscitation of d a weight anywhere in my book and i cited him a number of times Why can't these folks be as fair in reviewing my material as I was in theirs? That's a question that certainly has caused me to do a lot of thinking. Listen to what Dr. Spargiomino says. I'm glad you brought all this out because, you know, we who hold to our King James Bible position are actually attacked in the James White book as being ignorant and Bible thumpers and bound by tradition and being belligerent. I never said D.A. Waite was belligerent in my book. I said Gail Ripplinger is belligerent. I said that Peter Ruckman is belligerent. I quoted material from various individuals that demonstrate that they have no problem whatsoever attacking the personality of others. But again, every single one of those citations was completely in context. Anyone who reads Ruckman's materials knows that he is the very definition of belligerence. But that's sort of leading into what comes next. Now, I want to quote a statement that Mr. White makes, and I'm not just making this up. He says, quote, the KJV-only controversy feeds upon the ignorance among Christians regarding the origin, transmission, and translation of the Bible. Those who have taken the time to study this area are not likely candidates for induction into the KJV-only camp, close quotes. Now, Dr. White, you and I have taken the time to study this area, and yet, We have done a great deal of research, but we don't agree with him. So he creates the impression that those who hold to our position are all ignoramuses. And certainly by the vast amount of knowledge and the statistics that you have quoted and the reading of the church fathers and looking at the lectionaries and so forth, that is certainly an erroneous conclusion. But I know so many people, they say, well, Mr. White's position is academically credible. Our position is not. Now, of course, that is a misrepresentation. Well, I'll let the listener who has listened to the past number of weeks of review and listened to the facts as they've been presented decide for themselves. There is very little representation of King James-only-ism in scholarship, and I use the term scholarship there of conservative, non-naturalistic, non-materialistic scholarship, scholarship that believes that the Bible is the Word of God, that it's inspired of God, and yet there's very, very little King James-only-ism in that. It is a tradition. It's a tradition that cannot stand up to examination and it cannot stand up to cross-examination. And as such, it is not scholarly. And what we have heard from Dr. Spargiamino and Dr. Waite is not scholarly up to this point at all. To present things that are simply inaccurate, knowing that what you're saying could be easily challenged by the other side, is not scholarship. Now, at this point, Dr. Wade and Dr. Spargemino say something that I want you to hear, because if they believe what they're saying, then it shouldn't be too long until we're doing programs here where they're live on the air and we can interact, because this is what they had to say. It's not ignorance that leads us to the Canaanite Bible position. It's truth. That's what it is. It's truth. That is an excellent analogy. Well, if it's truth, truth can be examined. Truth can undergo cross-examination and still remain truth. And that's why we should get together and discuss these things, both sides live, being able to discuss them back and forth because that's when truth really shines. Now finally, Dr. Waite makes an accusation that I've made a serious error in lumping him together with Peter Ruckman. He quotes one section of page 91 where I said, if you have already been exposed to the writings of Peter, Samuel Gibb, D.A. Waite, or J.J. Ray, you are already aware of the tactics and strategies employed in presenting the KJV-only position. Well, here again is a wonderful way of misrepresenting your opponent. He ignores the fact that at the beginning of the book, I specifically differentiate between various groups of King James-only people. And I specifically, in my criticisms, differentiate between Peter Ruckman and Gale Ripplinger and anybody else. So again, I don't understand why he would say what we're about to repeat him saying when anybody can go out and get the book and find out for themselves that I did differentiate. Listen to what he says. In his book on chapter 5, page 91, Mr. White talks about the King James only camp. And I am very disturbed about this. I was told that this was coming out even before the publisher published it. I wrote to the publisher. I said, would you please distinguish the differences between these men that he lists? He says, if you have actually been exposed, I'm quoting now, to the writings of Peter Ruckman, Samuel Gipp, D.A. Waits or J.J. Wray, you are already aware of the tactics and strategies employed in presenting the KJV only position." lapping us together as if there's no difference, no distinction. And you and I both know the tremendous distinction between my position and that of Dr. Ruckman. In fact, I'm an enemy as far as he is concerned. I'm not even on the same side. In fact, he says I'm an apostate, a heretic in his paper. And to put us all together as if we're in the same war, in the same battle, with the same uniform, I think is a very serious error on his part. Well, I'll certainly allow anyone to read the book for themselves and determine whether that allegation and the one made immediately thereafter by Dr. Spargimino of great intellectual dishonesty on my part is in fact true or false. But I would put out to Dr. Waite If you want to differentiate yourself from Dr. Ruckman, and you do by your behavior, this series didn't help you any along those lines, but you're not nearly like Dr. Ruckman is. I mean, you do misrepresent me, but Ruckman does it with insults, and you do not. One thing you might want to think about, if you want to differentiate yourself from Dr. Ruckman, then why don't you tell us whether you agree with Bergan that the Kama Yohani in 1 John 5, 7 shouldn't be there. Why don't you deal with some of these passages and tell us whether you believe the King James is perfect in every reading? Because if you do believe that, then what is your difference with Ruckman as far as a real position goes, functionally? That's what we'd all like to know. 602-274-1360. 1-888-550-1360. After this break, we go to your phone calls. We'll be right back. And welcome back to The Dividing Line. We are taking your phone calls. Well, we would if there was anybody online. Nobody wants to talk to me today about the King James Only controversy. Well, I understand that especially today, many of the issues that we were addressing are maybe possibly a little bit on the technical side. I understand that. But we do a lot of our programs with an eye to the future. an eye to archiving these programs, making them available, and I can tell you something, when you are, for example, a Christian who was raised maybe reading the New American Standard Bible, And you first encounter the writings of D.A. Waite, or of Peter Ruckman, or of Gail Ripplinger, or whatever of the various brands and groups there are out there. And I know Dr. Waite doesn't like to be called King James, only the same breath with Peter Ruckman, and there's no doubt that the two of them don't get along very well. Their fundamental assertion is everything but the King James Version of the Bible is a satanic deception. And they may present it in a different way, but the conclusion is the same. If you're just encountering that information, it can be extremely troubling. I cannot tell you how many people I've had who have contacted me that were just about to burn their Bible and go get a King James Version of the Bible, which they admitted they couldn't even understand. They couldn't understand it. They didn't understand its meter. They didn't understand its phraseology or its meaning. But they were going to go for it because they read this very, very poor information. And in that situation, let me tell you something, running across these programs, running across the King James only controversy is very important for those folks. We do this program as a ministry and we address these subjects because we want to help people to understand the Christian faith and to respond to attacks upon it and to respond to those people who would in some way, shape, or form cause confusion. And so as we're dealing with this area, next week, for example, we'll be finishing up looking at Dr. Waite's program. We'll be looking for about the first 15 minutes or so of the program. at Dr. Spargimino and Dr. Waite discussing Desiderius Erasmus. And we're going to listen as Dr. Waite tells us that Erasmus' text wasn't used by the King James translators even though that's not the case. And we're also going to be told that Erasmus was not a strong Catholic and the proof of that is he was buried in a Protestant churchyard. Yes, indeed, coming up next week on The Dividing Line. You like that, Rich, huh? Rich is really looking forward to that one. He's going to be counting the days until we get to that. But then, after that, we're going to be looking at the first two programs that were aired, and those are the programs that featured Dr. Theodore P. Letus, and he was introduced as a true textual critic and that puts him far ahead of james white that's how he was introduced and it will be fascinating to listen to his comments uh... because uh... he doesn't get specific on almost any passage because his theory doesn't allow you to be very specific uh... but the fascinating thing is the better debate the better debate would not be between myself and D.A. Waite or between myself and Theodore Liedis. The best debate that would be fascinating to hear would be between Theodore Liedis and D.A. Waite because D.A. Waite is the head of the Dean-Burgon Society and I hold in my hand a book by Theodore P. Liedis from 1992 called The Revival of the Ecclesiastical Text and the Claims of the Anabaptist and in here you have a multi-page attack on the Dean-Burgon Society and the positions of D.A. Waite. I just think it's fascinating that the Dean-Burgon Society, in the beginning of its Statement of Faith, talks about a belief in the inerrancy in Scripture. Inerrancy in Scripture. And yet here, Theodore P. Letus, in his book, talks about the doctrine of inerrancy as an error, as something that we should not believe in. It was something that Warfield made up. And where is the authority of scripture? It's found in the copies, not in the originals and all the rest is fun stuff. And the great debate would be very, the best one would be to listen to Dr. Wade and Dr. Liedis debate with each other. But interestingly enough, the Southwest radio folks had them both on to attack the King James only controversy. And the reason for that, is that the book has made a tremendous impact upon that movement. And that movement isn't all homogenous in any way, shape, or form. Dr. Ledis presents the ecclesiastical text format, the ecclesiastical text theory, which is very, very different than what Dr. Waite is presenting. And yet, isn't it interesting that they don't bring those issues out when they talk about my book, on the air. And so, that's going to be next week. Now, just for your information, you know, sometimes I've mentioned the Texas Receptus in the responses that I've provided to D.A. Waite, and I mentioned, if you listened to the debate section last week, we played about 20 minutes of the debate that Dr. Waite and I did back in 1994, which, by the way, was before the King James Only controversy came out. I was working on the book at that time. You may recall that in that debate I specifically asked Dr. Waite about 2 Timothy 2.19 and in 2 Timothy 2.19 the King James Version of the Bible talks about the name of Christ and all other translations talk about the name of the Lord. This is a quotation from the Old Testament and so it would make sense it would be the name the Lord not the name of Christ. when you're quoting from the Old Testament. And here the Textus Receptus stands out against all the other Greek manuscripts. Against all Greek manuscripts, not other Greek manuscripts. The Textus Receptus is a version. It is based upon Greek manuscripts just as the Nessiolan 27th edition, the UBS 4th edition are. There are other passages you might want to write down that I could have asked Dr. Waite about and I would have gotten the exact same type of understanding, same type of response. But for example at Ephesians chapter 1 verse 18, the Textus Receptus reads the eyes of your understanding, whereas the Greek manuscripts say the eyes of your heart. Now is your heart and your understanding the exact same thing? And if they're not the exact same thing, then why does the TR have that reading? In Ephesians 3, 9, the New American Standard Bible says, and to bring to light what is the administration of the mystery, which for ages has been hidden in God, who created all things. And yet, if you look at the very same passage in the King James Version, it says, So one says, fellowship, that's what the King James says, but all the Greek manuscripts refer to the administration of the ministry. Now, the Greek term that appears there, oikonomia, that's in all the Greek manuscripts, but probably in a simple process of mistranscription. The Textus Receptus has koinonia instead. And they look somewhat alike, the words look somewhat alike. But again, for Christians, for 1,500 years approximately, from whenever time the book of Ephesians was written, had seen one thing, and then in the TR all of a sudden it's changed to something else. Those are important issues, those are questions that need to be addressed and Christian scholars aren't confused about it, but King James only advocates do cause confusion because of their positions. So, next week we finish up with D.A. Waite and then we move on from there. I've sent letters to Dr. Waite, I've sent letters to Dr. Sparra Germino, I've sent emails to Dr. Liedis. We'll keep trying folks, we'll keep trying to give them the opportunity to respond. Because that's only fair, right? Well, we think that it is, but so far haven't gotten any takers. There might be a reason for that, folks. I think that there is. My name is James White. We've been talking about the King James only controversy. More information on this on our website, www.aomin.org. We'll be back again next week here on The Dividing Line, continuing with our response. Thanks for listening and God bless. The Dividing Line has been brought to you by Alpha and Omega Ministries. If you'd like to contact us, call us at 602-973-0318 or write us at P.O. Box 37106, Phoenix, Arizona 85069. You can also find us on the World Wide Web at aomin.org. That's A-O-M-I-N.O-R-G, where you'll find a complete listing of James White's books, tapes, debates, and tracks. Join us again next Saturday afternoon at 2 p.m. for The Dividing Line.