Foundation and Lineage of the VPP-KJV Onlyism
Benjamin Wilkinson
In 1930, Wilkinson,
a Seventh-day Adventist missionary, wrote "Our Authorized Bible Vindicated",
a book of several hundred pages which attracted almost no attention in its
day.
J.J. Ray
Wilkinson's book
lay unused and unknown, until 1955 when J. J. Ray" published a little
volume, "God Wrote Only One Bible". Ray heavily plagiarized Wilkinson's
book. Ray acknowledges that there are some erroneous translations in the KJV
which do demand revision (pgs. 30-31, 102), a position today's KJV-Only
mainstream would consider rank heresy.
David Otis Fuller
The other chief
disseminator of Wilkinson's misinformation was the late David Otis Fuller, a
Baptist pastor. In 1970 Fuller issued "Which Bible?",
which was in its 5th edition by 1975 and contained 350 pages. Fuller's book
took almost half the information directly from Wilkinson's "Our Authorized
Bible Vindicated", with some editing to both conceal Wilkinson's cult
affiliation, and to correct some of the worst of his errors. Even so,
Wilkinson's material is still plagued by blatant misstatements of the facts,
distortions, misrepresentations and half-truths.
Peter S. Ruckman
Self-described "Restorer" of the "Missing Link"
of KJV "Final Authority".
Also in the third
generation, without question the most arrogant and abusive of the KJV-Only
partisans is Peter S. Ruckman, whose torrent of errors
flood virtually every page of Ruckman's published work. He
single-handedly has injected more misinformation into the controversy than
all other writers combined.
Edward F. Hills
Hills, who wrote
"Believing Bible Study" (1967) and "The King James Version Defended" (1956,
1973), did not advocate the inerrancy of the King James Version nor the
Origenian origin of the Septuagint, is neither a founding father nor a star
of the first magnitude of the KJV-Only movement, but may be viewed as a
secondary tributary, whose works are commonly cited wherever his words can
be made to support a writer's point.
Gail Riplinger
She wrote "New Age
Bible Versions". Riplinger claims God was the author and she was His
secretary. She alleges a "Satanic inspired conspiracy" on the part of
"modern Bible versions" which is sponsored by the "New Age Movement". Along
with other boasts, these claims were just "too much" for even some of her
fellow KJV-Onlyites to swallow. Yet the book has received the unqualified
endorsement of KJV- Onlyites such as Chick, Ruckman, Jack Hyles, Texe Marrs,
J. R. Chambers, D. A. Waite, Walter Beebe & others.
Summary
From Wilkinson in
the first generation, through Ray in the second, and Fuller and Ruckman in
the third, the entire KJV-Only movement has arisen, and every present-day
KJV-Onlyite is, in varying ways, a direct spiritual descendant of these
ill-informed men and woman.
