“The words of the Lord are pure words: as silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times. Thou shalt keep them, O Lord, thou shalt preserve them from this generation for ever.”

אִֽמֲרֹ֣ות יְהוָה֮ אֲמָרֹ֪ות טְהֹ֫רֹ֥ות כֶּ֣סֶף צָ֭רוּף בַּעֲלִ֣יל לָאָ֑רֶץ מְ֝זֻקָּ֗ק שִׁבְעָתָֽיִם                            

אַתָּֽה־יְהוָ֥ה תִּשְׁמְרֵ֑ם תִּצְּרֶ֓נּוּ׀ מִן־הַדֹּ֖ור ז֣ו לְעֹולָֽם                                                       

“words” אִֽמֲרֹ֣ות: plural, feminine, noun

“keep them” תִּשְׁמְרֵ֑ם: qal impf 2ms, 3mp pronominal suffix — ם

“preserve them”תִּצְּרֶ֓נּוּ :qal impf 2ms, 3ms pronominal suffix (him), with the nun energieum — נּוּ

In a recent podcast Dr. Mark Ward referred to Psalm 12:6-7 in a surprising manner. I do not know Dr. Ward personally, my first knowledge of him was his refusal to debate Dr. Peter Van Kleeck, Jr. after publicly offering to debate anyone. After watching his podcast, to help clear up some misunderstandings on his part relating to Hebrew grammar, the following post is submitted. To paraphrase, “he knows of no one that argues that the preservation spoken of in verse 7 refers to the word,” supporting that perspective by noting the antecedent “words” in verse 6 is feminine gender, and “them” is masculine, which is of course correct. He may have other objections, but as the podcast stands, his objections were anecdotal with one grammatical reference to gender distinctions. Gesenius on this gender combination writes, “Through a weakening in the distinction of gender, which is noticeable elsewhere…and which probably passed from the colloquial language into that of literature, masculine suffixes (especially in the plural) are not infrequently used to refer to feminine substantives.” Grammar, 440. Diehl objects to the credibility of this assessment arguing that “many of these cases may be set down to corruption of the traditional text, while the sudden (and sometimes repeated) change in gender in suffixes is mainly due to the influence exercised on the copyists by the Mishnic and popular Aramaic dialects, neither of which recognizes such [gender] distinctions.” To this charge, Gesenius counters, “Such influence, however, is insufficient to explain the large number of instances of this weakening, occurring even in the earlier documents.” Grammar, 440.

            One would have to reasonably assume that Dr. Ward overlooked this one of many irregularities in the Hebrew language. In that he did not offer any other objections, except an anecdotal assessment, this material should be sufficient to say that “words” can properly be the antecedent of “keep them” even with the “weakening in the distinction of gender” in accordance with the practices of Hebrew grammar. If, however, Dr. Ward’s, polemic against “keep them” referring to “words” is in fact more robust, the following material is offered as aid to a fuller and more comprehensive comment on the passage.

            Beginning with the 1537 Matthews Bible microfilm, located at Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo, MI, at Psalm 12:7, John Rodgers, aware of the scholarly discussion swirling around this passage, includes a marginal note at “them” stating, “that is often times, that is, such and such and such men, after Kimshi but after Ibn Ezra words.” In Rabbi Abraham Ibn Ezra’s, Commentary on the First Book of Psalms: Chapter 1-41, trans. & ann. by H. Norman Strickman (Brighton, MA: Academic Studies Press, 2009), 103: “THOU WILT KEEP THEM. The mem [Heb. “them”] of tishmerem (Thou wilt keep them) most probably refers to The words of the Lord.” (v. 7 [Heb.]). With Rashi (1038-1105), Abraham Ibn Ezra (1089-1164) and David Kimshi (c. 1160-1235) are recognized to be the greatest Hebrew exegetes of the High Middle Ages. The significance of Rogers’ marginal note is that two renowned Hebrew scholars referred to by the Reformation writers differed on the interpretation of “them” in Psalm 12:7. Rogers was obviously conscious of this difference and informed the reader of the variation of interpretation.

            The weakness of the gender/grammatical distinction argument begins to dissolve when faced with the grammars of Kimshi and Ibn Ezra. Since the 11^th and 12^th c. the rendering of this passage has been divided between the people and the words for the first “them.” We have then answered Dr. Ward’s objections, both the grammatical objection and the anecdotal objection. By doing so, we have also established a grammatical grounding for “them” referring to the antecedent “words” and for the support of 11^th and 12^th c commentator Ibn Ezra agreement that the antecedent of “them” is the “words.”

            Perhaps these citations remain unconvincing or the research unfamiliar to Dr. Ward, requiring additional clarity. The next time Dr. Ward has the opportunity to speak on this passage, we want to provide a much help as necessary for him to give an informed presentation.

Take for instance the Medieval scholar Michael Ayguan (1340-1416), on Psalm 12:7 commented, “Keep them: that is, not as the passage is generally taken, Keep or guard Thy people, but Thou shalt keep, or make good thy words: and by doing so, shalt preserve him—him, the needy, him the poor—from this generation. Thou shalt keep Thy word, — “Cast thy burden upon the Lord, and He shall nourish thee; “Thy word, — “I will inform thee, and teach thee in the way wherein thou shalt go;” Thy word, — “Fear not, little flock; it is My Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom; and so, preserving him from this generation, shalt hereafter give him a portion with the happier generation, the assembly of the First-born which are written in heaven.” Neale, Commentary on the Psalms, 181. Moving from the 11^th and 12^th c into the 14^th c. Ayguan, again, familiar with the controversy, argues that the antecedent of “them” are the “words.”

            At this juncture, and risking the accusation of name dropping, I am indebted to Dr. Richard A. Muller, P. J. Zondervan Chair of Historical Theology at Calvin Theological Seminary in Grand Rapids, MI, now retired, for his comments regarding my initial essay on this passage submitted to him for a Ph.D. course toward my Th.M. On my original paper, Dr. Muller noted, “Here we do have the use of one option determined by the Hebrew – i.e., the v. 6 antecedent—but the choice of the antecedent is what limits the exegesis, and in fact excludes the broader interpretation of the ‘them’ as a reference to Israel and God’s people generally that is far more frequently (I think) the path of interpretation.”

            Moving from the 14^th c. to the 20^th c. one of the most accomplished Church historians, especially on Post-Reformation Reformed Dogmatics, states that the Hebrew antecedent,” “words” excludes “them” as a reference to God’s people.

So in addition to the grammar, personal testimony of a renowned 11^th c Hebrew scholar, we have added the 14^th c testimony of Ayguan, and the recent erudite observation of Church historian Dr. Richard Muller.

            Because at the core of this brief review was a polemic against the use of Psalm 12:7 as a passage that teaches providential preservation, a sometimes-volatile subject, for the sake of bridge-building additional information may be necessary to shore up any apologetic cracks that the debate may have created. Admitted, not everyone has access to Gesenius’ Grammar, University microfilm, books referring to 14^th c scholars or Calvin Seminary’s Ph.D. courses, but everyone has heard of Martin Luther.

            It is interesting what Luther has to say in his commentary on this passage. Still arguing for a divided rendering, Luther’s 1519 commentary on this passage contains not only his interpretation but also that of Jerome’s despite the Latin rendering, “keep us,” preserve us.” Luther’s commentary includes three possible interpretations of this passage: the words, the saints, and the ungodly. Beginning with the interpretation supported by Jerome’s Latin text (342-420), Luther’s translation agrees with the Hebrew, “them”: “And he prays God that his words (eloquia) may be guarded, after the manner of protection, that the ungodly might not pollute them. And instead of “thou shalt preserve us,” it is in the Hebrew “thou shall preserve them”; and it refers to the words of God, as Hieronymus (Jerome) translates it.” Noting that “them” is masculine, he includes the alternative reading in reference to the saints, “But it may also be referred to the saints, as it is in the masculine gender servabis eos.”

            Even Luther, with Jerome, at this passage allows antecedent “words” to govern the pronoun “them.” I am inserting the following notation in support of Jerome’s 4^th c. rendering: See Charles A. Briggs and Emilie Grace Briggs, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Book of Psalms, International Critical Commentary (New York: C. Scribner’s Sons, 1906–1907), 99: אַתָּה] [Thou] emph.—תִּשְׁמְרֵם] [“shalt keep them”]…J, Aq., Θ [that is, the Latin Version of Jerome, the Greek Version of Aquila, and the Greek Version of Theodotian] agree with H [the Hebrew Masoretic text] and refer [the suffix] of the first [verb] [that is, “them”] to the divine words.

            But Luther did also argue for “people” based on the gender, which is true, but please note that none of these scholars, like Dr. Ward, have forcefully argued that the antecedent of “them” cannot be the “words.” “Words” are just as valid as “people” in the exegetical tradition, and it is this nuanced understanding that Dr. Ward has missed and this post hopes to illuminate. A common familiarity with Luther, but unfamiliarity with Luther’s comment on this passage may be sensed as stretching Luther’s interpretation of Psalm 12:7 further than he would. To ameliorate such fears, the following hymn penned by Luther on Psalm 12 :7 is offered. Note the first line of the second stanza.

Psalm 12

Title: The Word of God, and the Church

The Silver seven times tried is pure

From all adulteration;

So, through God’s Word, shall men endure

Each trial and temptation:

Its worth gleams brighter through the cross,

And, purified from human dross,

It shines through every nation.

Thy truth thou wilt preserve, O Lord,

From this vile generation,

Make us to lean upon thy Word,

With calm anticipation.

The wicked walk on every side

When, ‘mid thy flock, the vile abide

In power and exaltation.

James Franklin Lambert, Luther’s Hymns (Philadelphia: General Council Publication House, 1917), 52.

Luther’s hymn assures the reader that he accepted as valid the “words” to be the antecedent to “keep them.”

Moving into the 17^th c Matthew Poole’s 1685 commentary on this Psalm is quite helpful^. Matthew Poole, A Commentary on the Holy Bible (London: Banner of Truth Trust, 1979). Poole’s 1685 commentary reflects the language of the King James Bible which united the historically divided rendering of the verbs between the words and people. Poole acknowledges the two renderings but responds with an unambiguous, united interpretation of the pronouns. Rather than the verse referring to words and people, Poole unites the two commenting that both verbs either apply to the people, or both verbs apply to the words. Poole concludes that the keeping of the words or the promises of God is primary, the basis upon which David’s life and posterity would be preserved. He writes: “Thou shalt keep them, either, 1. The poor and needy, Psalm 12:5, from the crafts and malice of this crooked and perverse generation of men, and for ever. Or, 2. Thy words or promises last mentioned, Psalm 12:6. These thou wilt observe and keep (as these two verbs commonly signify) both now, and from this generation for ever, i.e. Thou wilt not only keep thy promise to me in preserving me, and advancing me to the throne, but also to my posterity from generation to generation.” It is interesting to note that the united rendering in v. 7 referring to the antecedent words in 12:6 is, at the time of his commentary what “these two verbs commonly signify.” It is the v. 6 antecedent that governs both v. 7 pronouns while continuing with the larger theme of the care of Israel. The words or promises will be kept not only for David but for the generations of Israel forever. We see then a further refinement within the English translation tradition in the King James Bible at Psalm 12:7 accepted by Poole, in keeping with the historic effort to maintain a unified rendering and confirmed to be so by the ecclesiastical community of saints.

            Poole’s unified rendering is also taken up in John Wesley’s 18^th c. Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament where he comments, “Thou shalt keep them—Thy words or promises: these thou wilt observe and keep, both now, and from this generation for ever.” For Wesley, the single rendering of both pronouns in v 7 refer to the words. John Wesley, Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament, vol. 2 (Bristol: William Pine, 1765), 1642

            It is understandable how Dr. Ward overemphasized the significance of irregularities in the Hebrew language that limited his understanding of Psalm 12:7. It is also understandable that without a concentrated study of this passage an elementary assessment and application would be made. For everyone reading this post, Dr. Ward’s bold claim that Psalm 12:7 does not teach the preservation of God’s words is completely without merit. Considering the wide scope of the churchly exegetical tradition that speaks to the preservation of words and against Dr. Ward’s assessment of this passage, one can only assume, considering Dr. Ward’s earned Ph.D., that he was just caught up in the moment, overstated the issue, and will, as every conscientious scholar, make the necessary course corrections for the sake of his ecclesiastical listeners. Blessings!

[For an expanded comment on Psalm 12:6-7 and nine other passages teaching Scripture’s providential preservation see Dr. Peter Van Kleeck, Sr., An Exegetical Grounding For A Standard Sacred Text: Toward the Formulation of a Systematic Theology of Providential Preservation (Manassas, VA: Amazon, 2021)]

Himself an advocate of the historical critical approach, A. T. Robertson acknowledges the difficulty of reconciling “anti-supernatural scholarship” with “reverence for the Bible as God’s only revelation” in an 1892 article entitled “The Inerrancy of Scriptures.” Robertson observed,

“In Germany, Rationalism has so long held sway that no man has to apologize for any theory he advances, however anti-supernatural. But you cannot transplant those naturalistic tendencies to English and American soil without provoking conflict. And the conflict has come. The strange thing about it all is that here it is men considered evangelical who accept the results of anti-supernatural scholarship. It is certainly a grace question how long one can reconcile such results with his reverence for the Bible as God’s only revelation of grace to men.” A. T. Robertson, “The Inerrancy of Scriptures,” Western Recorder, June 30, 1892,

Something was very wrong in the hearts of those considered “evangelical” to accept the results of “anti-supernatural scholarship.” I doubt if these evangelicals said, “I believe in the resurrection and I don’t believe in the resurrection” or “I believe in the deity of Christ and I don’t believe in the deity of Christ.” But what they did say was “I believe the Bible is the word of God” and “I don’t believe the Bible is the word of God.” What transpired in the hearts of men over 100 years ago that they would reject the formal principium of the Christian faith? What Robertson calls a “strange thing” has now for long been accepted as normative, the reconciliation of anti-supernaturalism and reverence for the Bible now accomplished. What Robertson did not know in 1892 was that the historical critical path he and his fellow travelers decided to take would do away with reverence for the Bible altogether leaving only the contradiction of an anti-supernatural Christianity. While the impossibility of reconstructing the autographa is obvious to some members of the Academy, much of the Church seems to be unaware that the scholarship has reversed itself, the same scholarship the Church trusted to exchange the Authorized Version for a novel version.

What then, is the Church to do, coming to the realization that its faith in scholarship was sorely misplaced? 1. It can ignore the findings for an “initial text” and follow other mainstream critical scholars still hoping for the impossible. 2. It can accept the certain conclusion that a change of course is necessary, but apathetically coast along, waiting for something even more novel from which to derive its authority. 3. The Church can accept that the historical critical method is irreparably broken and have the heart and mind to return to a supernatural Christianity founded on a supernatural text no longer seeking reconciliation with the anti-supernatural. For the English-speaking Church the breaking of this contradictory reconciliation would be demonstrated in a return to the Reformation Bible, the Authorized Version.

            The Church is experiencing a spiritual weariness born out of generations of trying to assimilate what the Academy has passed down to them through malleable pastors and what the Bible says. Facing the social issues of today, the Church deserves a sure foundation. The Christian intuitively knows that reconciliation of the supernatural with the anti-supernatural is impossible, this contradiction like a persistent drip boring a hole through their conscience. Sheep need shepherds. The Church needs pastors and teachers to lead to green pastures and still waters, not to advocate failed academic methods, asking the congregants to trust in notes about “oldest and best manuscripts.” The words “oldest and best manuscripts” have done nothing to fortify the spiritual strength of the believer being at best distracting and at worst contributing to doubt rather than faith. As our academic backgrounds indicate, the Academy is a powerful tool and extremely useful, but not at the expense of the spiritual well-being of the people of God, or saints, as Paul calls them.

Accenting the accuracy of the scientific method, relying wholly on the assiduity of the rational subject, and with the omission of God from the scenario, it is argued with relative ease that Ludwig Feuerbach was in fact correct in his philosophical formulation. In 1843 Feuerbach wrote, The Essence of Christianity, an enchiridion for future theological thought if the Scriptures are not recovered by the Church from the historical critical advocating Academy. Following this methodology, what the Bible is does not come from God’s description and naming of Himself but from an idea generated in the mind of man. Feuerbach contends,

“Thus, between the divine revelation and the so-called human reason or nature, there is no other than an illusory distinction; — the contents of the divine revelation are of human origin, for they have proceeded not from God as God, but from God as determined by human reason, human wants, that is, directly from human reason and human wants. And so in revelation man goes out of himself, in order, by a circuitous path, to return to himself!” Ludwig Feuerbach, The Essence of Christianity, 207.

Scientific method confirms the object predicated by the subject. If science is the method and God is the object, then the scientist will locate the god he has been looking for — a “God determined by human reason” and human desires. If there is to be a credible and compelling response to Feuerbach’s serious and long-standing rebuttal to the fundamental nature of Christianity, the minimal answer must be: 1) divine revelation is of divine origin and divine superintendence, given by inspiration from God; 2) that the content of divine revelation is determined by the witness of the Holy Spirit to the reason through the impelling Word according to the “good pleasure” of God; and 3) in this manner, revelation goes forth from God to do what man cannot do himself — redeem mankind through Christ.

Rather than admitting the logical error of depending on science or reason to determine divine things and reinforcing the authoritas of Scripture, the academy continues to fall further into the theological and philosophical void created by rejecting formal principium, Scripture. Post-critical ideology has been allowed to gain the high ground in the current theological apologia of the faith once delivered unto the saints and has sought to make any discussion, which does not readily accept post-critical presuppositions as normative, irrelevant to a meaningful exchange of ideas. While claiming that dogmatics is all that remains to express man’s concepts of God, either evangelical, Eastern, feminist, etc., the Christian community has, with the highest scholarly research and the erudite insight, defined the Bible as the property of a scientific enterprise. The Bible is conceived of as if owned as would be a house; to be bought and sold, enlarged or reduced, renovated or razed at the deed holder’s discretion, because there is essentially no difference between the Bible and a house in their mutual limitations to the historic and mundane. The post-critical “this-worldly” bible is best defined as man’s reflection of himself, or mankind’s discourse of his own self-evaluation in religious terms. Ronald B. Mayers notes and exposes the unnoticed effects of post-critical thought observing that, “

“The current zeitgeist is not so much a philosophy as it is the cultural milieu, the background for all philosophies and perspectives in existence. Life is no longer understood as dependent on a transcendent ruler of time and history. There is no infinite reference point…. Personal destiny is seen is beginning at birth and ending at death. In such a totally naturalistic world, theology herself adopts an ontological foundation that is so thoroughly secular that it too finds meaningless and undiscoverable any category of the transcendent.” Mayer, Religious Ministry in a Transcendentless Culture, 1980, 13-14.

If the historicists’ venture of trying to recover the autographa scientifically is the principal point of convergence for evangelical confidence in the Bible, then a doubtful present and a nihilistic future awaits the Church. Every science, by its nature, is unable to address unique antecedent phenomena. Such phenomena cannot be observed, reproduced, or tested. Indeed, if it were not for God’s own providential oversight, Scripture would be irrevocably lost.

Given the scientific approach to Scripture, if confined exclusively to empirical data, e.g.,  manuscript evidence, the Church, as Calvin puts it, “will be beset by the instability of doubt.” Indeed, even if the original words of God were stumbled upon through scientific means, because of the evolutionary nature of science, neither the critic nor the Church could ever be certain of the value of the discovery. The contemporary problem is the seeming disregard for the both the churchly exegetical and theological tradition in the formulation of publications, which, from a traditional perspective, are only pretentiously called, Bibles.

By omitting God from the paradigm, man is left to his own devices for distinguishing a Book of transcendent origin, which testifies that it is the very words of God and therefore the expression of God’s authority over any and all other self-imposed criteria. In other words, if the parameters for what is and is not God’s word are academically codified based on scientific rules as a casual perusal of current literature will support, the scholar and his ideas become the relative and provincial standard for knowing who and what God is. Post-critical scholarship, by imposing their wills and reconstructing the Bible, are through their perceived scientific successes, making God in their own image. To this academic trajectory Feuerbach would undoubtedly give a hearty, Amen.

If, as has been shown in the earlier part of this discussion, Scripture is divine in its origin, character and authority, it must bear the marks of divinity.  If the heavens declare the glory of God and therefore bear witness to their divine Creator, the Scripture as God’s handiwork must also bear the imprints of his authorship.  This is just saying that Scripture evidences itself to be the Word of God; its divinity is self-evidencing and self-authenticating.  The ground of faith in Scripture as the Word of God is therefore the evidence it inherently contains of its divine authorship and quality. 

John Murray, “The Attestation of Scripture,” The Infallible Word (Phillipsburg: Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Co., 1946), 46. (italics mine)

We deny not the ministry of the Church as an external means to move us to embrace the word of God, but we deny the authority of the Church to be the principal means. When we call the Scriptures Canonical, we call them not so passively, because they are received into the Canon by men, and accepted of; but actively, because they prescribe a Canon and rule to us.

Edward Leigh, A Treatise of Divinity (London: Printed by E. Griffin for William Leigh, and are to be sold at his shop at the Turkes-head in Fleetstreet, near Ram-alley, 1647), 28.

With the collapse of Evangelical textual criticism, (See Dr. Peter Van Kleeck, Jr.’s post on “The Initial Text is a Unique Defeater for Modern Evangelical Text-Criticism”) taking inventory of the last 140 years (1881 to the present) of theological formulation is inevitable. One might ask, “How early in the textual critical process did scholars realize the course they had taken to reconstruct the autographs was unsustainable? or did they only come to this conclusion in the late 20^th c? It seems highly untenable that scholars realized that the idea of recovering the autographa was a dead end in only recent days. After how many editions of Nestles text, or how many editions of the UBS text, or how many critical commentaries did they write before scholars began to think to themselves that the academic course they were on would always be evolving and for them, finally inconclusive? Facing the conspicuous impending inevitability of disappointment, having failed to recover the original reading at every iteration of the process, why would scholars risk their academic credibility on a certain scholarly catastrophe?

One should not understate the power of suberbia (pride)and avarice (greed) to control the lives of men, but the intensity of the work of reconstruction seems to point beyond these two of the seven deadly sins. Nonetheless, the textual critical idea developed a transgenerational, multimillion-dollar industry from teaching salaries, lectures, book contracts, and publishing of textbooks and bibles, a business that would rival Tetzel’s indulgences racket. This may be or be part of the reason for the persistence of textual critics getting what they can while they can.  

Touching superbia, or pride, textual critical work is labor intensive, and in its specificity, is the path for scholars so inclined to assert their academic standing over others. Never has something so bankrupt been lorded over other scholars and sold to the public with such rigor. Technical jargon and complex symbols in the textual apparatus all contributed to building the mystery of the textual critical façade. But rigor is a two-edged sword: the more detailed the work, the more certain the scholar was that no end of the work was in sight. Each novel edition of the Greek text was a testimony against the credibility of preceding editions which means the last edition, though the “best” so far, was already perceived to be inherently flawed.

A better place to look for the answer of how early the critic understood that the reconstruction of the autographa was an impossibility is within the milieu of modern textual criticism’s origin. The Enlightenment axiom homo mensura created a cultural milieu that bred the philosophies of Charles Darwin (1809-1882) and the elimination of God in the biological disciplines in the Origin of the Species (1859); Karl Marx (1818-1883) and the relegation of sin to failed social and political systems beginning with the Thesis on Feuerbach (1845) and moving on to Critique of Political Economics (1859) and Das Kapital (1867); and Sigmund Freud’s (1856-1939) anti-Christian impact in the field of psychology. It should, therefore, be no surprise that Introduction to the New Testament in the Original Greek written in 1882 by the Anglican scholars Brook Foss Westcott and Fenton John Anthony Hort, contemporary with he previously cited scholars, should not have escaped the mid to late 19^th century secular omission of God from that era’s textual criticism. Hort wrote, “Little is gained by speculating as to the precise point at which such corruptions came in. They may have been due to the original writer, or to his amanuensis if he wrote from dictation, or they may be due to one of the earliest transcribers.” Westcott and Hort, Introduction to the New Testament in the Original Greek, 208.

The answer to the question was given by Hort in 1881. The critic never expected to recover the autographa because they did not believe the autographa existed as Scripture itself and Reformation Orthodoxy informed the Church. If the purpose was never to reconstruct a text of the apographs in the first place, what other purpose could there be for the textual critical process, (if not pride and greed). This post suggests that the sole reason for textual criticism, by not searching for the inspired sacred text, was to challenge and then displace the Reformation Bible, not with a credible replacement for the Church but ultimately, as the “initial text” shows, to leave the Church with nothing connected to the Originals, with no Bible, thus leaving the Church and American culture with a void where once God’s Authority was found. The purpose of textual criticism never intended to reconstruct the autographa, always knowing it was impossible, but in an attempt put an end to the final Authority in the Western world, the Received Text, and Authorized Version.

            Now that scholars have concede the textual critical attempts to reconstruct the autographs have failed, how long will it take for local church pastors and college professors to make the necessary course correction for their institutions? Now is not the time to ignore the findings, double down on the error, or worry about a bruised ego, allowing this façade to persist into the next generation. 140 years should be enough time for a reasonable person to conclude that modern textual criticism and the plethora of modern versions it has produced has not been good for the Church. Anecdotal stories on readability are no substitute for the authoritative foundation for faith, practice, and “all things that pertain to life and godliness” that is the Bible, the Authorized Version.