KJB:The Two Lies  By Daryl R. Coats

   Since Satan first asked Eve, "Yea, hath God said?", hundreds of lies
have been told about the Bible. Most "fundamentalists" have enough
discernment to recognize most of these lies; the two biggest lies about
the Bible, however - the two lies that ultimately form the basis of all
other lies - are not only unrecognized by most Laodicean
"conservatives" and "fundamentalists" but actually are promoted by
their colleges and seminaries and churches. Both lies concern the
Bible's inspiration and attempt to undermine it. The first claims that
the Bible "is" inspired only in "the original manuscripts"; the second
maintains that the Bible is inspired only in "the original languages."
These two lies share one thing in common with every lie ever told about
the Bible since Genesis 1:1: they simply cover up the natural man's
desire to undermine God's authority.

   Supposedly the translators of "The New King James Version" are
"Bible-believing" conservatives because each one signed a statement
that he believed in the inspiration of "the original autographs"; what
a shame, though that they weren't translating the original autographs!
"The Bible alone, and the Bible in its entirety, is the Word of God
written, and is therefore inerrant in the original writings," says the
doctrinal statement of a Christian organization which sponsors
archaeological digs and which publishes a monthly newsletter.
Apparently no one in that organization has noticed that the words "in
the original writings" makes the statement logically fallacious. Nor
apparently has anyone in that organization noticed that "inerrant in
the original writings" does not mean "inerrant now." As one liberal
theologian pointed out in his review of Harold Lindsell's The Battle
for the Bible, the only real difference between the conservative and
liberal positions on the Bible is that the conser vatives say the Bible
used to be inspired and inerrant, whereas the liberal says it was never
inspired or inerrant. Both positions agree that the Bible is not now
inspired or inerrant.

   The fundamentalist and conservative position on the Bible's
inspiration is identical not only to the liberal position but to the
charismatic and "neo-evangelical" positions, and exactly how this
similarity is maintained in a state of "separation" from the world is
never explained! "WE BELIEVE that the Holy Bible as originally written
was inspired and the product of Spirit-controlled men, and therefore
has truth without any admixture of error for its matter," says the
first article in the statement of faith of a "prophetic ministry" in
California. Left to the read er's imagination is just how past-tense
inspiration ("was in spired") is proof for present-tense inerrancy
("therefore has truth"). "We believe that the Bible is the written Word
of God, without error in the original manuscripts, and of infallible
divine authority in matters of faith and life," says an advertisement
for a Presbyterian church in Oxford, Mississippi. Immediately following
those words in the ad comes the revelation of the real issue here:
final authority. "Our only other doctrinal standards are the
Westminster Confession of Faith and the Larger and Shorter Catechism."

   In other words, since the Bible no longer is inerrant, it is
necessary for this church to have two "doctrinal standards" in addition
to the Bible. Such is always the case. Since the original manuscripts
no longer exist, some other authority must be substituted for them,
whether that other authority is a revelation, a Book of Mormon, a
Nicene Creed, or a college education. Modern "Bible scholars" realize
this only too clearly, and that is why they spend so much times talking
and writing about non-existent "originals." Since the "inspired
originals" no longer exist, the scholars and their conjectures replace
the Bible and become themselves "the final authority."

   Like the "missing link," the original manuscripts have never been
seen by Laodicean Christians. How, then, can someone believe they are
inspired? Suppose that locked in my office is a book which no one has
ever seen, and that there is absolutely no way you could ever see it.
Would you be willing to risk your eternal salvation on whether the
contents of that book were inspired? I hope not. Most reasonable people
would wait until they had seen an object in question before they made a
judgment on it. But modern Christians are more than willing to judge
something no one has seen for two thousand or more years. Whether any
scholar or "layman" admits it, present-day copies of the "inspired
originals" are the only evidence available to support the inspiration
of those originals, and unless those copies are also inspired, there is
no evidence that the originals were inspired. In fact, if the present
day copies are not inspired, then neither were the originals, because
inspiration can no more produce non-inspiration than a fig tree can
produce berries (see James 3:12; cf. Gen. 1:21, 24, 25: "after his
kind").

   If the Bible were inspired only in the original manuscripts, no one
in the entire history of the world has ever had an in spired Bible. The
original autographs of Job and the books of Moses had disappeared more
than a thousand years before the first book of the New Testament was
written, so no one has ever owned a complete Bible made up of the
"divine originals." Nor has anyone ever owned a complete New Testament
made up of "inspired originals" because the originals were distributed
among more than a dozen individuals and local churches.

   If the Bible were inspired only in the original manuscripts, no one
today really knows for sure what is in "the Bible" because no one today
has ever seen the original manuscripts. Not surprisingly, this is the
attitude behind every English "bible" published since 1611. "We can
only follow the best judgment of competent scholars as to the most
probable reconstruction of the original text," says the preface to the
RSV, too deceitful to define just what a "competent scholar" is and to
cut through the double-talk and admit, "This is what we think the Bible
might be." "Scholararly uncertainty" is more clearly evident in the
third edition of the UBS "Greek New Testament," the introduction to
which states, "The letter A [next to a passage] signifies that the text
is virtually certain, while B indicates there is some degree of doubt.
The letter C means that there is a considerable degree of doubt whether
the text or the apparatus contains the superior reading [note: "the
superior reading" is not the same as "the correct reading"!], while D
shows there is a very high degree of doubt concerning the reading
selected for the text." Apparently the scholars change their mind from
year to year as to which "readings" are genuine; how else do we explain
the "more than five hundred changes" between the second and third
editions of the UBS "Greek New Testament"?

   If the Bible were inspired only in the original manuscripts, no one
today has an inspired Bible. If that is true, what makes your religion
any different from that of the Buddhist, or Hindu, or Moslem, or
Mormon? If the Bible you read from, study from, memorize from, and
preach from is not inspired, what makes it any different from the
Koran, the Book of Mormon, and the Upanishads, none of which is
inspired, either?

   If the Bible were inspired only in the original manuscripts, God
certainly went to a lot of trouble for nothing. Only Moses ever saw the
original of "the two tables of testimony" (Exod. 31, 32). The "original
manuscripts" of Exodus, then, did not contain the "original autograph"
of the ten commandments. Nor did the "original autograph" of
Deuteronomy. Were Exodus 20 and Deuteronomy 5 somehow not inspired even
in those books' "original autographs"?

   Baruch and Jehudi (and possibly Jeremiah) were the only people who
ever read the "divine original" of portions of Jeremiah (Jer. 36). Less
than a dozen local churches and even fewer individuals ever owned an
inspired copy of a New Testament book. What was so special about
Philemon and Gaius that God would give them inspired copies of New
Testament epistles but not give them to all Christian believers? What
was so special about the carnal church at Corinth that God gave it two
inspired epistles? And how did God decide which of the seven churches
in Asia Minor would receive the "divine original" of Revelation and
which six would have to settle for "uninspired" copies of the original.

   If the Bible is no longer inspired, who removed its inspiration? Who
gave it in the first place? God gives a man his breath, and only God
can take it away (Gen. 2:7, Dan. 5:23). If God gave the Bible its
inspiration (and He did - 2 Tim. 3:16), then only God could have taken
it away. If He did, then He violated His own commandment: "Ye shall not
add unto the word which I command you, neither shall ye diminish ought
from it," He tells us in Deuteronomy 4:2, indicating that through His
use of the word "ought" He is referring to more than just letters or
words. If He did, then He lied when He said in Psalm 89:34 that He
would not "alter the thing that is gone out of my lips." According to
the Bible rejectors, then, God is guilty of the same sin that they are.

   Fortunately, the Bible says nothing about its inspiration being
limited to "original autographs" or even "original languages." Of
course, many men teach that it does say such a thing, and each of them
quotes 2 Timothy 3:16 to prove his point. But is that what the verse
really says? Looking at the verse in the context in which it appears (2
Tim. 3:14-17), you will notice that Paul admonished Timothy to continue
(v.14) in those same scriptures that he had studied as a child (v.15),
because those scriptures are inspired (v.16) and are able to
"throughly" furnish" the man of God. Did Timothy somehow own the
original manuscripts of the Old Testament books? Of course not. Yet the
scriptures which he owned were inspired!

   Even taken out of context, 2 Timothy 3:16 cannot be used as a
proof-text for limited inspiration. Look at it closely. Nowhere in the
verse do the words "in the original manuscripts" occur. For that
matter, nowhere in the verse will you find a verb in the past tense.
"All scripture is given by inspiration of God," not "was given." The
inspiration of the Bible is present tense - NOW. It is alive and still
breathing, and you had better be glad it is. God inspired the Bible for
only one reason: "that the man of God may be perfect, throughly
furnished unto all good works" (2 Tim. 3:17). If the Bible were
inspired only in the original manuscripts you would have no chance of
living and working for God the way He wants you to!

   Second Timothy 3:16 also does not say anything about the Bible being
inspired only in the "original languages" (Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek).
Nor will you find a reference to "original languages" anywhere else in
the Bible. Yet "scholars" and brain washed non-scholars alike continue
to teach that the Bible's inspiration is somehow limited to "the
original languages."

   If the Bible is inspired only in the Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek,
less than two percent of the people who have ever lived have ever been
able to read or understand the Bible (or portions of it) in its
"inspired form." Again, the question arises, why would God have
bothered to inspire the Bible if only a handful of people would ever be
able to benefit from its "inspired form"? When it comes to making the
gospel available to all people who want to receive it, is not God "no
respecter of persons"? Didn't He prove this when He sent the
Latin-speaking Roman Cornelius the same word that he had originally
sent the Hebrew speaking children to Israel in the Old Testament (Acts
10:34-37)? Regardless of his language or nationality, if a person fears
God and "work eth righteousness," God will give him (and allow him to
know) the same word "which God sent unto the children of Israel." The
same God who can understand a prayer in any language can also
communicate in any language.

   Stewart Custer, in his deceitfully titled pamphlet, The Truth About
the King James Version Controversy, claims that "to say . . . that the
King James Bible is the inerrant Word of God is to say that God favors
the English-speaking people of the world" (p.13). To the contrary, to
say such a thing is to admit that God favors all people when it comes
to making the Bible available to them. Custer's claim is logically
fallacious if not downright hypocritical. Doesn't he realize that to
say that the Bible is inspired only in the "original languages" is to
say that God somehow favors Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek-speaking
peoples, most of whom have been dead more than a thousand years?

   If the Bible is inspired only in the "original languages," it is a
dead book, because Biblical Hebrew, Aramaic, and Koine Greek are dead
languages. The Bible, however, claims to be alive ("quick," Heb. 4:12).
"Being born again . . . by the word of God, which liveth and abideth
forever" (1 Pet. 1:23). "The words that I speak unto you . . . they are
life" (John 6:63). Because it is alive, the Bible can see and discern
and produce life, an impossibility if it were dead.

   If the Bible is inspired only in the "original languages," it is
barbaric. "Therefore if I know not the meaning of the voice, I shall be
unto him that speaketh a barbarian, and he that speaketh shall be a
barbarian unto me," wrote Paul to the church at Corinth (1 Cor. 14:11).
God required that the Corinthians translate their "unknown tongue" so
that the entire church could be edified (1 Cor. 14:5). In light of
that, since God inspired the Bible to equip Christians for His service,
wouldn't it be unbiblical for Him to limit the inspiration of His word
to He brew, Aramaic, and Greek ("unknown tongues" to ninety-percent of
the people who have ever lived)? Wouldn't it be unbiblical for God not
to translate His word? It certainly would, and that is why, in
accordance with 1 Corinthians 14:5, 19, and 27-28, God "interprets"
from the "original languages" in the text of the Bible itself.

   "To interpret" literally means "to translate" (which, interestingly,
sheds some new light on Peter's statement that the Bible is not of any
"private interpretation," 2 Pet. 1:20; a preacher or professor or
scholar who makes up his own translation from a Greek or Hebrew Bible
is making a "private interpretation"!) At my church, "signers"
translate ("interpret") sermons and testimonies and songs for the sake
of the deaf. When I worked in Africa, "interpreters" translated my
messages and presentations from English into Swahili. Joseph hides his
identity from his brothers by speaking to them through an interpreter
who translates from Egyptian to Hebrew (Gen. 42:7, 23). Several times
in the Greek New Testament, God throws in some Hebrew or Aramaic and
then "interprets" it into Greek so it won't be barbaric (Matt. 1:23,
27:33, Mark 5:41, 15:22, 34, John 1:41-42, 9:7, John 19:17, Acts 9:36,
4:36, 13:8, Heb. 7:1-2.) God also translates Hebrew words that appear
in the Aramaic portion of Daniel (Dan. 5:25-28).

   A study of the "interpretation" found in Daniel 5 sheds much light
on the "Bible issue." When Daniel and the other Hebrew youths were
brought into Babylon, they were trained in the use of "the tongue of
the Chaldeans" (Dan. 1:4). Even though every Jew in Belshazzar's court
was completely fluent in his native Hebrew and his adopted Aramaic,
only Daniel could "interpret" the Hebrew written on the wall; in the
same way, years of study of "Biblical languages" do not of themselves
qualify a man to "interpret" the Bible, because "interpretations belong
to God" (Gen. 40:8). God will provide the translation that He wants,
wrought at the hands of a man or men whom He has proven, and any other
translation is a "private interpretation." In addition, notice that for
clarity, God's translation adds words not found in "the original"
(e.g., the italicized words in the AV 1611) and that God withholds His
judgment until Belshazzar had heard the word in his own language!

   Some argue that the Authorized Version of the Bible could not be
inspired because if it were, then the King James translators would have
been just as "inspired" as the "original writers." The Bible, however,
does not say that Peter, Paul, Moses, or any other Biblical writer was
inspired. Instead, it says that the writers of the bible "were moved"
(2 Pet. 1:21). Only the Bible itself is inspired. Belief that the
writers were inspired is responsible for works as the Epistle to the
Laodiceans and two additional epistles to the church at Corinth. If
Paul were inspired, then everything he wrote would be scripture; it
isn't. If Solomon were inspired, all three thousand of his proverbs and
one thousand and five of his songs would be scripture; they aren't.

   Just as God can use saved sinners to record His word, so He can use
saved sinners to translate His word. Rome, naturally, fully opposes
this, especially when God translated His word into English. Like many
Fundamentalists in the 1980's, Rome denounced the AV as it was being
translated, claiming that God could speak only in the Biblical
languages; the translators' response to such nonsense is as valid today
as it was in 1611: ". . . we do not deny, nay we affirm and avow, that
the . . . translation of the Bible in English . . . containeth the word
of God, nay is the word of God: As the king's speech which he uttered
in Parliament, being translated into French, Dutch, Italian, and Latin,
is still the king's speech."

   What America needs today is more Christians who will affirm and not
deny that the AV 1611 is the word of God.

   That the Bible in English is just as inspired as the Bible in its
"original languages" is shown by several passages in the Bible. On the
day of Pentecost, Peter preached only one sermon; yet every person
present heard that sermon in his own language. Just as there was only
one sermon, there is only one word of God. Just as the sermon was not
bound to Peter's "original" language, so "the word of God is not bound"
to its original languages (2 Tim. 2:9). And just as each version of
Peter's sermon was true to the "original," so the genuine versions of
the Bible are true to the original, which is settled forever in heaven.
Hundreds of counterfeit versions exist today, but they are not true to
the original. The only authorized Version of the Bible in English, the
only one which God is responsible for, is the King James Bible.

   If the Bible is inspired only in the original languages, then every
Old Testament passage quoted in the New Testament is uninspired,
because the New Testament translates them before it quotes them. If the
Bible is inspired only in the original languages, part of the Old
Testament must be an uninspired transla tion of Egyptian, because the
scripture spoke to Pharaoh (Rom. 9:17), and I doubt very much that it
spoke to him in Hebrew. If the Bible is inspired only in the original
languages, you had better start learning those languages as quickly as
you can. Jesus said man was to live by "every word that proceedeth out
of the mouth of God." His words are to abide in us, and if He didn't
give us any words in English, we had better pick up the original
languages so we can stop living in disobedience.

   According to Isaiah 55:11, one characteristic of the inspired word
is that it shall accomplish what God pleases. What does God desire? He
desires that sinners repent of their sins and get saved (Isa. 55:7,
Ezek. 18:23, 2 Peter 3:9, Luke 14:23), and the preaching of the
inspired word accomplishes this (Isa. 55:11, Rom. 10:14-15, 2 Tim.
3:15). Does the AV 1611 accomplish what God desires? If it does, the AV
1611 must be inspired, because the word that accomplishes what God
desires "goeth forth out of my mouth."

   According to Hebrews 11:5, "Enoch was translated." The primary
meaning of "to translate" is not "to turn one language into another"
but rather "to convey, or remove from one person, place, or condition
to another; to transfer, transport" (Oxford English Dictionary). Enoch
was borne, conveyed and transported from one place (Earth) to another
(Heaven), and as a translation into English, the AV 1611 has been
borne, conveyed, and transported from one place (the original
languages) to another (English). Did this translation process effect
the inspiration of the Bible? Not in the least. Notice that Enoch was
the same person after his translation as he was before it; if anything,
he was actually better off after being translated. Even so, the King
James Bible is just as inspired after its translation as it was before
it. Only its locale and language changed; its nature remained the same.

   Some will argue, however, that some things cannot be conveyed from
one language to another; some things will be clouded except in "the
original." I once heard a student offer this excuse for not reading the
Bible: "Reading it in translation is bad, because there are some words
in Greek and Hebrew which we don't know what they mean." Somehow he
could not comprehend that if a word's meaning is unknown, being able to
read it in its "original language" still will not help him to know what
it means!

   Loss of meaning as a result of translation might be true as far as
ordinary literature is concerned, but the Bible is not just literature,
nor is it ordinary. God can communicate in any language - clearly and
precisely - because He is God. God is not the author of confusion (1
Cor. 14:33 - in the context of "interpreting"!), and a Bible that is
unintelligible without a knowledge of "original languages" is confusion
at its worst. The "doctrine" that an idea which can be expressed in
Hebrew or Greek somehow can't be expressed in English (even though a
large portion of Greek vocabulary has been absorbed into the English
vocabulary, the largest of any language in history) is nothing but
"scholarly" ethnocentricity.

   The fact that the Bible in English is still the word of God has not
stopped a vast number of preachers, teachers, and scholars from saying
otherwise: "What this means in the original Greek"; "a better
translation would be"; "the Hebrew actually says . . . " I have yet to
see an example of "going back to the Greek" that was not a waste of
time for one or both of these reasons: (1) the passage in question was
clear to begin with; or (2) the word(s) in question could be explained
by a dictionary instead of a lexicon.

   "Going back to the Greek" is usually a good, "scholarly, acceptable"
way of getting rid of distasteful doctrines and/or setting up
scholarship as a final authority. For example, here is how most
scholars and expositors explain what "inspired" means: "The phrase
'given by inspiration of God' is all one word in the Greek,
theopneustos - literally, God breathed." Yet when I look up
"theopneustos" in my lexicon, I find only this: "given by inspiration
of God." Knowing Greek doesn't explain what the word literally means;
to learn the literal meaning, a person must trace the etymology of the
word.

   First of all, any English speaker familiar with his own language
should not need a Greek scholar to tell him the literal meaning of
"theopneustos." Didn't "theos" (God) come into English in a number of
forms, such as "theology" and "theism"? Didn't "pneustos" (breathed)
come into English in a number of forms, including "pneuma,"
"pneumatic," and "pneumonia"? Secondly, even if a speaker is not
familiar with his native tongue, if he's willing to research the
etymology of "theopneustos," why shouldn't he, just for a change of
pace, be willing to research the etymology of the English word
"inspired"?

   The English word "inspired" literally means "produced by blowing or
breathing [into]," with the connotation that a deity is doing the
breathing! This should be obvious to any American high schooler who had
to memorize the opening lines of the "General Prologue" of Chaucer's
Canterbury Tales, which speaks of Zephirus inspirating things with his
sweet breath (lines 5-7).

   "Given by inspiration of God" literally means "given by the breath
of God". "In" obviously means "in" or "into"; "spire" comes from the
Latin word for breath and is the source of our word "spirit" (see John
3:8 and 20:22). When your breath exits your body, you "expire." When it
comes back (returns) into you, you "respire" (usually on a respirator).
When you breathe through your skin, you "perspire." When you get close
enough to someone else that you share his breath, you "conspire." When
your breath travels, something has "transpired." Notice that all of
this can be discovered simply by looking into a dictionary; a lexicon
was not necessary.

   The number of Biblical passages abused by "language scholars" is
almost legion and includes John 21:15-17 (even though the Greek text of
the New Testament uses "phileo" and "agape" interchangeably), Matthew
12:40 (Jonah's whale), and others literally too numerous to list here.
The Satanic motive behind such abuse is simply to establish a final
authority other than the Bible. The "historic Baptist position" has
always been that the Bible is the final authority on all matters. When
the "original languages" are emphasized, as they are today, then not
the Bible but some thing else is the final authority. I once knew a
woman whose husband was a student at a seminary. It became a chore for
her to read (much less study) her Bible because exposure to the teach
ings of the seminary and to her husband's new-found knowledge of Hebrew
and Greek convinced her that all translations of the Bible were faulty
and that the Bible, if it were inspired, was inspired only in the
original languages. Since she did not know the original languages, she
ceased to study the Bible and instead took the word of Greek and Hebrew
"scholars" as to what was "really" in the Bible.

   When the Bible is inspired only in the "original languages," only
those who know (or who claim they know) the languages can read it, and
then they become the final authority because ignorant "lay people" go
to them instead of the Bible itself. Students of history will recognize
that this is the same ruse used by the Catholic Church and its
"inspired Latin Vulgate" for fifteen hundred years. No wonder, then, so
many Baptists and Protestants are eager to embrace Catholicism through
the ecumenical movement!

   "The Two Lies" is a five part series that appeared in the Bible
Believer's Bulletin from September, 1988 to January, 1989.
