An Open Letter
13 July 2005
Rev Dr Jeffrey Khoo, Academic Dean
Far Eastern Bible College
9A Gilstead Road
Singapore 309063
Dear Dr Khoo,
10 JUL 05
MORNING SERMON AT CALVARY PANDAN
JN 7:24 “JUDGE RIGHTEOUS JUDGEMENT” – NO BASIS FOR PERFECT KJB
I refer your sermon last Sunday morning, which was
diverted to promote your pet but unfounded “doctrine” of KJV Perfectionism
in its underlying Hebrew and Greek apographs (copies). Your two points on
the assigned Scripture text are that 1) “judge not according to appearance”
means not by dress, good looks and good singing voice, etc, and 2) “but
judge righteous judgement” means to hold to “Verbal Plenary Preservation” (“VPP”)
of the KJV underlying texts.
I respectfully submit that you missed the true
exegesis and failed to edify the congregation. Your points are without
warrant.
Reading in context, the Jews sought to kill our Lord
Jesus. This was not because of His physical looks but because they had
judged Him superficially as having broken Moses law, by healing on the
Sabbath and by saying that God was His Father (Jn 5:16, 18, 7:1, 19). He
tells them (in the Greek present imperative), “Stop judging superficially”,
and His conjunctive (in the aorist imperative), “but judge righteous
judgement”, directs urgent attention to the specific example of His case.
The Jews had evaluated superficially and unrighteously. None of them kept
the law (Jn 7:19), whereas Christ did not break the law. Healing on the
Sabbath is as legitimate as circumcision on the Sabbath (Jn 7:23), and Jesus
is in truth the Son of God! They discarded Jesus as not being the Christ
because He was from Galilee and not from Bethlehem (Jn 7:42) and carelessly
concluded that He was thus worthy of death for blasphemy.
Having missed, you then leapfrogged tangentially away
into various verses to support “VPP”. Again these scripture applications
were exegetically incorrect. Let me cite just two problems: -
1.
The same verses that you cited are also found in all the other Bible
versions such as the Chinese United Version (CUV), the Indonesian Akitab,
The Thai Bible, NASV, NIV, NKJV, etc. Anyone reading these in those
versions, if interpreting as you do, would conclude that it is their version
that is “VPP”, rather than the KJV.
2.
When more fully examined, none of the verses quoted support the “VPP”
proposition
For example: Matt 5:18 “For
verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle
shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.” And Matt 24:35:
“Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away.”
When the earth passes away,
would not all that it contains including all material apographs also pass
away? In these verses therefore, our Lord was not referring to apographs,
but rather as the context clearly shows, to the absolute and inviolable
claims of God and of the Son upon us, for Jesus spake “as one having
authority, and not as the scribes” (Mt 7:28).
Another example Ps 119:140 “Thy
word is very pure: therefore thy servant loveth it.”
Was the psalmist’s love of
God’s Word due to the purity of the apographs? And this Psalm, being
written before the completion of Scripture canon, if VPP pureness
(completeness, perfect to every jot and tittle) is meant, should have been
the last book of the Bible.
Is not the purity here rather the purifying effect of God’s Word, as
illustrated through the entire Psalm as well as say in Ps 19:7-9, “The law
of the LORD is perfect, converting the soul: the testimony of the LORD is
sure, making wise the simple. The statutes of the LORD are right, rejoicing
the heart: the commandment of the LORD is pure, enlightening the eyes. The
fear of the LORD is clean, enduring for ever: the judgments of the LORD are
true and righteous altogether.” And in Heb 4:12, “For the word of God is
quick, and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword, piercing even to
the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and
is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.”
As for scribal errors in the specific KJV underlying
Hebrew Masoretic and Greek Textus Receptus texts, this, whether intentional
or unintentional, is inevitable due to the passage through human hands.
Inspiration occurred only once, and once for all, at the original giving of
God’s Word, when the Divine Autographs were God-breathed; when “holy men of
God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost” (2 Tim 3:16, 2 Pet 1:21).
For the KJV to have a completely identical apograph text to the Divine
Autographs (Originals), in jot and tittle terms, would necessitate a second
inspiration either in the copying process, the textual editing process or
the translation process. It also necessitates that written script forms for
Hebrew and Greek not change an iota throughout the passage of decades of
centuries.
This does not mean that God’s Word is not preserved
for us! They are in the providential sense! Is 59:21 indicates this, “my
words which I have put in thy mouth, shall not depart out of thy mouth, nor
out of the mouth of thy seed, nor out of the mouth of thy seed's seed, saith
the LORD, from henceforth and for ever.” Dean Burgon expresses it thus,
“But I would especially remind my readers of Bentley’s golden precept, that
‘The real text of the sacred writers does not now, since the originals have
been so long lost, lie in any MS, or edition, but is dispersed in them
all.’ This truth, which was evident to the powerful intellect of that great
scholar, lies at the root of all sound Textual Criticism.”
In other words, God’s Word is providentially preserved
in the many copies of uncials, codices and fragments surviving to this day,
supplemented by early translations into other languages such as the
Septuagint, the Syriac-Peshitto, the Arabic, the Latin and other Bible
versions, and supported by the writings of the Early Church Fathers that
have survived. By painstaking comparison of these, (textual criticism is
not a dirty word or a needless science; Dean Burgon and F H A Scrivener
being eminent in the field), we can arrive extremely close to the Originals.
As for clear evidence of textual problems in the KJV
underlying texts, I here cite two (we both know of more, yet only one is
needed to disprove the “Perfect KJV-VPP” case): -
2Sam 8:4 (700 horsemen) and 1Chron 18:4 (7,000 horsemen)
in KJV
In your “A Plea for a Perfect Bible” (The Burning Bush
January 2003), you put this down as an “apparent discrepancy”, that perhaps
one counted them one-by-one and the other by groups. The obvious difficulty
is that there are no groups! All the other numerals are in concurrence –
one thousand chariots, twenty thousand footmen and horses David
reserved for one hundred chariots and his slaying of twenty two
thousand men (Syrians). If 2Sam 8:4 counted horsemen in groups, why did
it not also do the same for the chariots, footmen and slain men? Do you
lord it over the intelligence and faith of your hearers? But your approach
creates large difficulties in reading and understanding God’s Word – one
would never know when a number is a number or a group of numbers, opening
the way for “spiritualising” non-literal, liberal interpretation of God’s
Word.
But God’s Word states,
“In the mouth of two or three witnesses shall every word be established.”
(2Cor 13:1, Deut 19:15) If the above verses therefore are at odds, they
cannot be established; therefore one of them has to be correct and the other
probably a scribal error!
Since it is normal that an army would have more footmen than horsemen, and
more horsemen than chariots, seven thousand horsemen in 1Chron 18:4 would
seem the more correct. When we research evidential sources older than the 10th
Century AD Masoretic texts, Praise the Lord, we find this true! The
Septuagint, with older extant textual copies dating back to the 2nd
and 3rd Century AD, has 2Sam 8:4 exactly as 1Chron 18:4, “one
thousand chariots, seven thousand horsemen, twenty thousand foot soldiers!
And the Hebrew Dead Sea scrolls also, recently discovered and dating back to
the time of Christ, confirm this reading!
But this is not all.
The KJV translators recognised the 2Sam 8:4 error of the Masoretic, which
actually reads “one thousand seven hundred horsemen”! The word “chariots”
is not in the Masoretic (thus italicised in the KJV to indicate not in the
original)! The CUV and the NASV are thus more faithful to the Masoretic
than the KJV on this point. Confronted with the scribal error revealed by
the parallel account of 1Chron 18, the KJV translators, without any warrant
or basis, chose to deviate from the Masoretic and broke up the one thousand
seven hundred into one thousand, to which they added the word “chariots”
and left the balance seven hundred as horsemen, to reduce the discrepancy.
I reiterate: they have absolutely no warrant; no underlying Hebrew text
support whatsoever! Clearly in this instance, the KJV translators
recognized the scribal error and chose to discard the original reading of
2Sam 8:4 of the Masoretic text!!
Matt 10:8 (“to raise the dead” not part of the
Autographs)
Dean Burgon himself gave us this, “When our LORD first
sent forth His Twelve Apostles, it was certainly no part of His ministerial
commission to them to ‘raise the dead’ (Matthew 10:8). This is
easily demonstrable. Eusebius, Basil, Chrysostom, Jerome, Juveneus, omit the
words. P.E. Pusey found them in no Syriac copy. But the conclusive
evidence is supplied by the Manuscripts; not more than 1 out of 20 of which
contains this clause.”
I was at first surprised at reading this, and asked
myself, “Could this be?”, but on reflection over a long time, realised that
Burgon was right. The parallel accounts are Lk 9:1-6 (the sending of the
twelve) and Lk 10:1-9 (the sending of the seventy), who were to go before
our Lord into every city and place whither our Lord himself would come. The
passages in Luke omit the phrase “to raise the dead”. Certainly, this power
was solely our Lord’s prerogative, testifying to His deity, as in the
raising of the widow’s son at Nain (Lk 9:11-16) and the raising of Lazarus (Lk
11:45, 12:10-11). This power was not extended to the apostles until after
our Lord’s ascension and the descent of the Holy Paraclete at Pentecost. In
all four gospels accounts, no apostle raised any dead. Even as late as Mt
17:16-19, they had trouble casting out some types of demons after the Mount
of Transfiguration incident, let alone “raise any who were dead”.
Dear brother, with the above I rest my case. I appeal
to you and your friends, “Stop judging superficially, but judge righteous
judgement!” Stop alleging that we say that the Bible contains errors! We
affirm wholeheartedly with Dean Burgon, “The BIBLE is none other than the
voice of Him that sitteth upon the Throne! Every Book of it, – every
Chapter of it, – every Verse of it, – every word of it, – every syllable of
it, – (where are we to stop?) – every letter of it – is the direct utterance
of the Most High! – ∏άσα γραφή θεόπνευστος. “Well spake the
Holy Ghost, by the mouth of” the many blessed Men who wrote it. – The Bible
is none other than the Word of God: not some part of it, more, some
part of it, less; but all alike, the utterance of Him who sitteth upon the
Throne; – absolute, – faultless, – unerring, – supreme!”
The King James Version however is not so. If, as you
yourself say, there are mistakes in the English of the KJV due to
translation errors, how can it be that the translators can make mistakes in
their own current mother tongue, but be absolutely flawless in the textual
identification of the apographs in rare ancient foreign tongues?
Nevertheless, we hold the KJV as reliable, trustworthy, venerable and
beloved, and with this common agreement, we should be content.
Your cause has been divisive, and self promoting
rather than seeking the honour and glory that comes from God alone (Jn
5:44). Brethren are falsely attacked, and the unity of our churches
affected. You miss out the truest test of Biblical separation as given by
our Lord in Jn 13:34-35. Only if we love the brethren to the same extent as
our Lord loved us and laid down His life for us, shall all know that we are
His disciples.
Finally, I bring again to your attention my research
article, “An Evidential Review of the VPP Theory” sent to you on 24
September 2003. Please do not mentally ignore the facts and the truth
clearly set forth, which would be intellectually dishonest. If you are not
convinced of this, and would like to debate this publicly, we need only to
work out the time and place, provided we agree to let the debate results be
conclusive to resolve this once and for all.
I await to hear from you. In the meantime, this open
letter may be freely circulated to any and all concerned in any of our
churches.
Sincerely, in our Lord Jesus
Christ,
Lim Seng Hoo
Member of Calvary Pandan Bible
Presbyterian Church
Page 26 of “The Traditional Text of the Holy Gospels, Volume I”, 1896,
by Dean John William Burgon, edited by Edward Miller, M.A posthumously
after the Dean’s death. Re-published by Dean Burgon Society.
Page 107 & 108 and their footnotes, “The Revision Revised – A Refutation
of Westcott and Hort’s False Greek Text and Theory,” 1881, by Dean John
William Burgon. Re-published, Dean Burgon Society
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