In this paper, I examine whether Augustine’s belief in the LXX was rational (i.e., not merely a feeling, intuition, or a belief lacking in evidence) and warranted (i.e., justified according to certain accepted belief-forming criteria). I’d like to thank the Reformation Bible Society for allowing me to present this paper.

Blessings.

My pastor was away with his wife visiting grandkids and asked me to over the evening service for him, a privilege I happily accepted. Ours is a small country church filled with saints that love the Lord. Sunday evening, the numbers were down but the singing of favorite hymns was sweet and robust. I used as my text 2 Peter 1:16-21 describing the character of immediate inspiration. We had a wonderful time together around God’s word and in the Lord. These folks are not just saints but they have grown to be my friends.

About a third of the way through the lesson, an elderly gentlemen slipped in the back row, someone I had not yet met. After giving the benediction, and greeting the saints, I walked to the back of the auditorium to introduce myself to the gentlemen. He was curious about my training and I shared with him I was graduate of Westminster East in Philadelphia, which caused him to bristle a little. During my lesson I did not mention the King James Bible once. Indeed, the passages we examined have to do with the character of the immediately inspired Original documents of Scripture. I said after seminary training at Westmenter and Calvin Theologicaly Seminary I was never more convinced the King James Bible was the word of God in English. This statement sent the older gentleman into a fury.

I want everyone to remember that this church of faithful saints with a faithful pastor is in mountains of SW Virginia in one of the most sparsely populated counties in Virginia. And on this given evening, an older man, (who I later found out from the saints had been a Presbyterian pastor) began to unload in the back of this little country church with the same vile, critical arguments I have heard about the King James Bible throughout my academic career. “It’s not God’s word, it’s only a version. It only came into existence in 1611. If you want to read the Scripture you have to know the Hebrew, Greek and Aramaic he barked.” Of course, almost everyone that ever told me that could not read any of the original languages and neither could he. I said, none of these dear people read Greek and Hebrew. Are you telling them that when they read their King James Bible, they are not hearing the voice of God in its pages, to which he said no. I turned to the saints and said that this is what I have been speaking about and warned you of but tonight its standing in the back of the church building. Scholars and scholar wannabees want to be the arbitrators of God’s Word, with their critical texts and versions, and rob the saint of hearing the voice of God on their own, and tonight, you’re hearing this firsthand. Asked him what version he was carrying – the ESV. He told me it was God’s word, a typical MVO response. I said it contains God’s words. I said there many missing verses in your bible something clearly, he was unaware of. Turn to Acts 8:37 I said. Finding the page he read 36…38. Where’s 37, I asked? Of course, there is no Acts 8:37 in the ESV.  He closed his ESV, and I said turn to 1 John 5:7 but He was done publicly embarrassing himself for having a bible that was missing many passages.

He resorted to cheap shots, criticizing my message, and my lack of education for holding such a backward position. I said the King James Bible is based on the Greek and Hebrew apographa to which he retorted, the apocrypha? I said it seems obvious that you do not know what the apographa is.

This story is very familiar to my son and I. What bothered me the most about this exchange was not his meandering argument, rather this ecclesiastical bully came into the evening service of the church hoping for a soapbox to sway the saints from their commitment to God’s word. This was especially egregious because the under shepherd of this flock was away. He said we would have to agree to disagree and said that was not possible. I can’t agree with anything he said. That the disruption he had brought into the sweet fellowship of the saints was despicable and shameful and that his only recourse was to stop what he was doing. When he had exhausted his pathetic but disruptive diatribe (because I would not stop telling him how appalling his disruption of our service was), I corralled him to the door and out of the church building.

I don’t know the state of his soul, but what happened Sunday night was the work of an ecclesiastic wolf who was going to bully his way into the minds of the saints with lies and falsehoods foisted upon us all by proponents of the critical text and modern corrupt versions.

If you missed the inaugural meeting of the Reformation Bible Society, here is the first plenary lecture by Dr. Russell Fuller. He does an excellent job laying out the history and state of the LXX. If the LXX has been something of a mystery to you, Dr. Fuller certainly puts you on the right track to understanding it and its impact here. Blessings.

This post argues that the inspired word of God of the apographa or the derivatively inspired word of God in a faithful translation such as the King James Bible has always existed in part in a non-written form alongside the preserved written word. The Scripture’s itself describes at least three ways in which inspired Scripture exists apart from the written text: 1. in the mind of the listener, 2. in the memory; 3. by God’s implantation.

1. In the hearing by those who cannot read.

Turretin addresses the issue of the value of Scripture for those who cannot read, or in other words, to whom the written word is meaningless. The illiterate either because of life circumstances or by age, not yet able to read, can nevertheless know the written word of God simply by hearing it. Reading is not necessary to know the content of holy Scripture. He writes,

“Although the Scriptures formally are of no personal use to those who cannot read (analphobetous), yet materially they serve for the instruction and edification such as the doctrines preached in the church are drawn from this source.” Turretin, Institutes, 59.

And this is true because,

“The Holy Spirit (the supplier [epichorega] by whom the believer should be God-taught [theodidaktoi], Jer. 31:34; Jn. 6:45; 1 Jn. 2:27) does not render the Scripture less necessary. He is not given to us in order to introduce new revelations, but to impress the written word on our hearts, so that here that the word must never be separated from the Spirit (Is. 59:21). Turretin, Institutes, 59.

Whether by reading or hearing, it is the Holy Spirit that “impress[es] the written word on our hearts.”

2. In the memory

Scripture tells us to hide God words in our hearts or, in other words, to memorize the Scripture, to make the Scripture a part of our intellectual construct. When a written text is not available, the saint is able to draw upon the Scripture they have memorized for doctrine, reproof, correction, and instruction in righteousness, enabling his memorized word to be as profitable as would have been the written word.

Dt. 6:6, “And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart:”

De. 11:18, “Therefore shall ye lay up these my words in your heart and in your soul, and bind them for a sign upon your hand, that they may be as frontlets between your eyes.”

Psalm 119:11, “Thy word have I hid in mine heart, that I might not sin against thee.”

Romans 10:8, “But what saith it? The word is nigh thee, even in thy mouth, and in thy heart: that is, the word of faith, which we preach;

Col. 3:16, “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom; teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord.”

As a sidebar note, it’s interesting that memorizing large sections of Scripture is also taken up in popular secular works. Ray Bradbury’s dystopian classic Fahrenheit 451 where books are illegal, closes with displaced scholars preserving entire volumes by putting them to memory. Speaking of men called by the books they memorized, Mr. Simmons says,

I want you to meet Jonathan Swift, the author of that evil pollical book, Gulliver Travels! And this other fellow is Charles Darwin, and this one is Schopenhauer, and this one is Einstein, and this one here at my elbow is Dr. Albert Schweitzer, a very kind philosopher indeed. Here we are, Montag, Aristophanes and Mahatma Gandhi and Gautama Buddha and Confucious and Thomas Love Peacock and Thomas Jefferson, and Mr. Lincoln, if you please. We also have Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451, 144-145.

3. In the heart implanted by God

Hebrews 8:8-12 is a repetition of the New Covenant from Jer. 31:31ff. The Hebrew word rendered “covenant” is בּרית beriyt.. The word which Paul employs is – διαθήκη, diathēkē. It never means a compact or agreement between equals and remotely and secondarily means a “will, or testament” or “a bond in blood.”

The first of the “better promises” of Hebrews 8:10 is located in the unconditional, covenantal language, “I will put.” What is better is putting God’s laws into the mind and writing them on the heart? In the former clause the Hebrew has, “I will put my law in their inward parts;” the law shall be within them, no longer an external code. In the latter, the “fleshy tablets of the heart” are contrasted with “the tables of the Law.” This is the first of the “better promises.”

The second of the better promises is in Hebrews 8:11: The second promise is the universality of the knowledge of God. The inward acceptance of God’s will involve the knowledge of God. In the new covenant all were to be “taught of God” (Isaiah 54:13, John 6:45) and independent of the instruction of a privileged class. Priesthood of the believer. But God promises a time when there will no longer be reliance upon scholars and the theologically elite – scribes and Pharisees to teach people about God. Communion with God through his word will be embedded in the heart and mind relieving the need for the scholarly elite to tell you what God says.

Of special note is the unilateral, unconditional impartation of the word of God in the heart. Further probing of the ramifications of this impartation as this juncture serves as experimental theology, not designed to shape doctrine but to generate thinking and further inquiry into the eschatological nature of Scripture.

We therefore conclude that Holy Scripture exists apart from the written text impressed on the heart of the illiterate by the Holy Spirit, by inculcation in the mind by memorization also in complete unity with the Spirit, and in a preliminary manner through the eschatological implementation of God Himself in the heart as the consummate work in the believer of the New Covenant through the bloody sacrificial death of Christ. Practically, it is hoped that such an experimental rendering of Hebrews 8:10-11 and the dialogue such a text engenders will contribute to a burgeoning contemporary apologetic for historic, orthodox, bibliology.

Allow me to add a word to what Dr. Van Kleeck, Jr. posted regarding my shared appreciation for the First Reformation Bible Society in Lynchburg, VA. The more public exposure for the superiority of the Reformation era Greek and Hebrew texts and King James Bible, in my humble estimation, the better. Because our subject is the written word of God, our message is accompanied by the Holy Spirit which will perform not only a teaching work in the heart and the mind of the listener but a sanctifying work as well. Refreshment of the mind and spirit is one reason the RBS conference was so enjoyable. And yes, it was an academic conference that is just as necessary as less academically focused, popular apologetic. Everyone that holds to the precious truths regarding the inspiration and preservation of God’s word has a place in the public defense of the faith and specifically of our Bible. Our theological differences are from the interpretation of Holy Scripture not a question of if we have Holy Scripture. More of these kind of meetings are necessary and I thank the organizers of this conference for planning and holding the RBC conference.

It is our hope that this becomes an annual event, something to keep the momentum of the gathering moving forward and that others organize similar events. My hope is that our focus would remain on the preserved, inspired text of Scripture and the King James Bible and that soteriological and eschatological differences might for a day or two take a secondary role to the primary reason we have gathered together, that being the defense and propagation of the pre-critical original language texts and Authorized Version.

Blessings!

Peter Van Kleeck, Sr.

Yesterday afternoon in the summer sun my grandson and I went out into the front yard to throw the baseball. After one particularly bad, uncatchable throw, we laughed together and said, “it was the baseball’s fault.” It couldn’t be thrower error; it was because of the baseball. This baseball is a standard weight and size baseball. A “run-of -the-mill,” baseball. A baseball that every warm-blooded American would immediately identify as a baseball. A baseball that has served in the baseball kingdom for decades and can be thrown with the utmost precision, over 100 mph and serves as the baseball for Major League Baseball. A baseball. But with one bad throw, the standard baseball of the baseball universe was in jest made the scapegoat for a bad throw.

I told my grandson that we just developed a homespun metaphor for the Bible version debate. It’s not the reader that the problem, his or her inability to intellectually and spiritually throw and catch the truth of the King James Bible, it’s the Bible’s problem. It’s not personal spiritual weakness or emotional instability or intellectual bias. The problem is with the Bible. It’s not the academic sun in our eyes, or the slothfulness of refusing to practice – it the Bible. After all these years enjoying baseball, I finally realized the whole idea of an error is not really the fault of the players – it was then ball’s fault. If only the ball would have accommodated the thrower, the error would have never occurred. It was a pure moment of baseball illumination!

So, the players, the saints, appealed to the baseball industry to make a better baseball. A baseball that will always go precisely where it was meant to be thrown. It kind of looks like a baseball, but every season it changes. A little smaller, a little lighter and compared to the baseballs of other seasons it really doesn’t look much like the standard baseball anymore. Some seasons the baseball looks indented like a golf ball, sometimes it looks fuzzy like a tennis ball, and sometimes it looks like it’s full of holes like a whiffle ball, but no matter the changes the baseball industry tells the prayers, “It’s a baseball, new and imrpoved.”

But after all the industry assurances, after the season is over, believe it or not, the new baseball is still causing errors on the field. Because the errors on the field are not because of the players – it’s the baseball’s fault. Everything about the game has changed for the better, as advertised, except the baseball that still causes errors..

In other words, the declining spiritual condition of the Church cannot be problem – it’s the Bible. The self-righteous saint who in his self-righteous imagination always throws a perfect spiritual strike cannot be the problem. And of course, the seasoned veteran ball player from the heights of baseball knowledge never made an error in the first place. The money-grubbing publishers are not the problem. No beloved, it can’t be fallen, sinful people or “den of thieves” publishers in the courtyard that are the problem; the problem is the ball, the Bible and we’re going to make everything better for baseball and Church by changing the most important thing – the baseball, the Bible. That way, we don’t have to change ourselves. After all, there is really nothing about the people that needs changing.

Still, errors are made because the root cause of the error is not being addressed. It’s not the ball; it’s not the Bible, it’s the player, the Church that is the problem. But because of pride, sloth, envy, and greed, the solution, a return to a standard Major League baseball, the King James Bible, is made the problem. The solution is demonized for the sake of the self-righteous preservation of those who believe they are able to impose their inability to throw straight to understand and believe, on the written word of God in English, the King James Bible.

It was excellent! There were between 50 and 60 people in attendance. The plenary speakers did a splendid job laying the groundwork for the value and scope of the Septuagint so much so that I found myself better appreciating the LXX as an ancient resource. In like manner, I also came to better appreciate its limitations as both a scholarly work as well as an authoritative work in the task of translating the OT. The conference was indeed academic in that strove to identify and explicate the good and the bad, the strengths and the weaknesses of the Septuagint.

Perhaps the greatest element of the entire conference was the fact that this conference was a gathering of like-minded individuals on the topic of the text and translation without all of us being of the same mind on every other theological issue.

That is to say, even given our disparate positions we could all agree that with the right Bible comes the right theological path, a place where disparate positions are reconciled through the Word and Spirit by faith.

If you missed it, you missed a great time of fellowship and encouragement. There was talk of waiting until 2026 to have such a gathering again. I say, No. I say, spread the word and see you all next year.

Blessings.

Over the weekend I had the opportunity to debate the above question. Thanks again to Nick and Francis. Overall, I enjoyed the experience. There certainly is an opportunity to improve but I was pleased with the number of ideas articulated. I was particularly happy with the fact that my interlocutor tried to meet my arguments which allowed me to lay further ground and advance ideas with greater detail than in prior opportunities. Lord willing, Dr’s Van Kleeck with make an assessment of the debate, and offer some critiques as well as clarification and places for improvement. If you didn’t get the chance to watch we invite your observations and comments as you have time to watch.

On a separate note, if there is anyone out there who would like to engage us on the topics of the TR and KJV, whether in discussion or debate, we are available. All you need to do is comment here or on any of our blogposts and we will be notified of your message.

Blessings.

“Now the God of peace, that brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant, Make you perfect in every good work to do his will, working in you that which is well-pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ; to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen.”

ὁ δὲ θεὸς τῆς εἰρήνης ὁ ἀναγαγὼν ἐκ νεκρῶν τὸν ποιμένα τῶν προβάτων τὸν μέγαν ἐν αἵματι διαθήκης αἰωνίου τὸν κύριον ἡμῶν ἰησοῦν καταρτίσαι ὑμᾶς ἐν παντὶ ἔργῳ ἀγαθῷ εἰς τὸ ποιῆσαι τὸ θέλημα αὐτοῦ ποιῶν ἐν ὑμῖν τὸ εὐάρεστον ἐνώπιον αὐτοῦ διὰ ἰησοῦ χριστοῦ ᾧ ἡ δόξα εἰς τοὺς αἰῶνας τῶν αἰώνων ἀμήν

1. Everlasting covenant — διαθήκης αἰωνίου

Hughes comments,

But the resurrection manifested his glory as the prince of life and conqueror of death and confirmed that the blood is the seal of the covenant that is eternal and that by this single offering of himself “he has perfected for all time those who are sanctified,” (10:14).[1]

The bloody death of the immutable Savior, Jesus Christ, (Hebrews 13:8) secured the everlasting, immutable covenant, the grounds for the eternal life of the saint sealed by the resurrection. The single means of revealing such otherworldly truths to the Church in writing, namely eternality, and immutability, is through a word that can never change or pass away.

Modern critics demands that the Church explain the origin, content, and meaning of “everlasting covenant” without Scripture, and do this in real time across generations. This impossible ecclesiastical and academic pressure is the impossibility the purveyors of post-critical thought have imposed upon the Church. Now manipulating and therefore corrupting the text of Scripture, the corrupters expect the Church to speak of an immutable and everlasting covenant while holding to an ever-changing, temporal document.

• Make you perfect — καταρτίσαι ὑμᾶς

The “everlasting covenant” performs an eschatologically oriented work in the believer’s life of “making perfect.” Here, katartisai means to make fully ready; to put in full order; to make complete. The meaning here is that God would progressively, fully endow the saints with whatever grace was necessary to do his will and good works. This necessarily implies that the everlasting covenant serves a future, transgenerational purpose of sanctification in the Church. That is, the “everlasting covenant” is forward looking, in the same natural way birth is forward looking to physical maturity and rudimentary things of the gospel are foundational for more systemic truths.

Note that a mutable, temporal “covenant” fails the Church on multiple levels. First, mutability resists future spiritual growth by casting doubt upon the certainty of the sanctifying trajectory, or the words of Scripture. Much of the Church is no longer certain about what God expects from them or how spiritual growth manifests itself because the mutable scripture only serves the epoch of time in which it is empirically relevant. Second, because the mutable covenant is temporal, the transmission of the same covenant across generations has dismally failed, resulting in the transmission of contradictions.

• Working in you — ποιῶν ἐν ὑμῖν

Here, this “doing” on the part of the believer is “through Jesus Christ.” Barnes notes “The idea is, that God does not directly, and by his own immediate agency, convert and sanctify the heart, but it is through the gospel of Christ, and all good influences on the soul must be expected through the Saviour.”[2] It is through the message of the everlasting covenant that doing things “well pleasing in his sight” is accomplished. That is Christ, and His word, are not separable; they cannot be sequestered, bifurcated, or broken, John 10:35. Christ, through his word does this eschatologically oriented, sanctifying work in the life of the believer, which says that the eternal God’s eternal word, will have eternal efficacy in the life of the Church culminating finally in permanent glorification. Novel versions miserably fail one necessary component of the dynamic which drives redemptive history to eschatological consummation, that is the everlasting word in the mouth of the covenant keeper, Isa, 59:21.

• To whom be glory for ever and ever — ᾧ ἡ δόξα εἰς τοὺς αἰῶνας τῶν αἰώνων

And finally, eternal glory is ascribed to Jesus Christ as the resurrected Lord who sealed the everlasting covenant in his bodily resurrection from the dead. If the eternal covenant is mutable and temporal, the glorification of the Lord is impossible – the Church has only a glimmer maintained by ecclesiastical tradition of the purpose of this glorification. And it is here, that novel versions demonstrate profound evil. If Christ is not glorified, this void is being filled with something else to worship, Romans 1:21f. Because man is fundamentally a religious creature, he will create his own godless religion and give it some sweet and precious name.

Incremental ruin is tough to nail down because those living through it can always find vestiges of the old paths to ameliorate those that sound the alarm. But considered over generations, the case for spiritual deterioration is easier to build.

---

[1] Huges, Hebrews, 589.

[2] https://biblehub.com/commentaries/hebrews/13-21.htm

We should first remember that Dr. Ward is not a scholar in the traditional sense of doing high level research probing for yet undeveloped or underdeveloped truth. His “false friends” idea was neither original nor did it contribute to the literature on the King James Bible. It was rather the tract of a propogandist looking for an endorsement and congratulations from his managers. Dr. Ward suspended belief in the inherent authority of Scripture, acquiesced, and finally fully swallowed the propaganda that party orthodoxy is always true even when it is proven to be false by traditional scholarly research. Part of this falls to the manipulation of professors who students naturally feel that their teachers are there to help them (a terribly flawed and harmful submission) and part of this falls to the failure of Dr. Ward to challenge the status quo (which should be the intention of every post-graduate student). Rather, he is an erudite zealot driven by a secular ideology which, since the end of the 19^th century, has become party orthodoxy for most of evangelical and reformed institutions of higher learning. Party orthodoxy means that the ideology for which he is a prominent spokesperson must remain the standard for what is true no matter what sound research to the contrary might discover. No amount of pre-critical research, no matter how historically, ecclesiastically, exegetically or theologically grounded can be allowed to usurp the preeminent position of the critical contradictions prevarications, which over the past 150 years have been uttered countless times, i.e., “I hold in my hand the inerrant word of God,” and “stand for the reading of God’s holy word,” while questioning the authority of the text based on the textual apparatus, because the text can be “better rendered” based on recent findings. Party orthodoxy affirms theologically, that the Scripture is God’s word, what is denied to the Scripture textually, that the Scripture is God’s word, rejecting any passage that may refer to Scripture’s self-attesting authority making Scripture a wholly phenomenalistic, empirical document. No passage exists in the Scripture for providential preservation because party orthodoxy says no such authority to make this claim exists.

Dr. Ward is under no compulsion to reverse himself in Psalm 12:6-7 because he cannot apostatize from this secular ideology without being ostracized by the party and be at the risk of losing not only his standing in the party but losing his job. The academic and financial threat of following historically sound research and not party propaganda is real. In truth, challenging party orthodoxy will result in putting your course grades at risk. This assessment is from personal experience and is anecdotal and must always remain so. College professors, violating their own consciences and compromising their academic and scholarly credibility, remain silent because of the control party orthodoxy holds over institutions of higher learning. Dr. Ward’s allegiance is not to scholarly research and the publication of unvarnished Ph.D. level research. Rather, he has sworn allegiance to maintaining the party’s status quo bifurcation of what Scripture is, the very preserve, inspired words of God, and, what it tells us about God. After all, he might argue, Scripture doesn’t have to be the word of God to tell us true things about God. It doesn’t have to possess transcendent qualities like inspiration or infallibility, or purity, or immutability, to tell us about a pure, immutable God. For Mark Ward, a corrupt, anthropologically grounded Scripture is at the core of party orthodoxy and Dr. Ward is the next generation propogandist for advance this abomination to historic, orthodox, ecclesiastical, theological formulation.

Because party orthodoxy is beyond questioning, no retractions for past publications since proven to be factually incorrect will ever be made because all contrary findings are marginalized and demonized. The party, bolstered by the information dominance of publishers constantly repeating old and worn-out pejorative slogans slavishly echoed by pastors and individuals would rather be liked than challenge the critical status quo. Think about it, what interloculars say and write today sounds like they’re stuck in the 1970’s, see James White. Institutions of higher learning keep the party members in stale, lock step together. What we are now witnessing is an epoch of the total secularization of Christianity within evangelicalism, a true paradigm shift away from the authority of Scripture to the authority of self-appointed religious bureaucrats, (think Pharisees).

For Dr. Ward and those he represents, truth is what party orthodoxy says it is and party orthodoxy says there are no verses in the Bible that teach providential preservation, therefore, Psalm 12:6-7 does not teach providential preservation. Scholarly research and unbiased findings are not the preeminent goal of zealots of party orthodoxy such as Dr. Ward, because truth for the party is not found preeminently in the person of Jesus Christ, truth is what the party says it is.

So, what do we do. First, our focus must be on the source of the faith, not the various ways we interpret the Scripture. Ecclesiastical, soteriological and eschatological differences between those of us who believe the Bible is the pure word of God must be laid aside so that together our single apologetic and polemic might be upon the preservation of Scripture by God’s singular care and providence.

Secondly, within our sphere of influence whatever that may be, we press the exegetically sound, historic defense of the faith one delivered to the saints with whenever we can and wherever we can. That will require reading and writing and speaking and networking and encouraging one another in the work.

And thirdly, there is a generation of young people for which this is all a new idea, who are open to listening, and who have no allegiance to the status quo. The Bible, speaking for itself, makes more sense to young Christian minds than Dr. Ward ever will. Take time to listen and be prepared to give an answer of why we do what we do. Virgina Tech engineering students make better Bible defenders than seminary grads. Hard science guys that know the Lord don’t have time to put up with Ward’s and White’s feckless, pickwickian quibbling.

Blessings!