Last Month’s Challenge Explained and Reiterated - Glenn Conjurske
Last Month’s Challenge Explained and Reiterated
Together With Several Statements from Prominent Men & Societies of Old Times, who Deny the Inerrancy of the King James Version
Introduction
In our review of David Cloud’s For Love of the Bible, we offered a challenge to the whole King James Only movement, to produce a single explicit statement, prior to Fuller and Ruckman, ascribing inerrancy to the King James Translation. If anyone, anywhere, can produce such a statement, I will be glad to publish it—for I hope my readers know that my aim is the truth, and not merely to gain a victory for my own position. Not that one such statement, or a hundred of them, would in any way affect my position, for I do not stand upon the testimony of man. Nevertheless, I aim to establish historical fact as well as doctrinal truth, and to that end I would consider it my obligation to publish any explicit statement, before Fuller and Ruckman, which ascribes inerrancy to the King James Translation. It is worthy of notice that David Cloud has failed to produce any such statement, though he has ransacked history in search of testimony in support of the King James Version. It is certainly legitimate to suppose that if Cloud had found any such explicit statement, he would certainly have included it in his book. The absence of any such statement from his pages no doubt argues strongly against its existence. Nevertheless, Cloud does not know everything, any more than I do, and if any such statement anywhere exists, I would be glad to know it, for my own information, and glad to publish it, for the sake of historical truth.
Clarification of the Challenge
But let it be understood, I am not looking for the statements of those who were entirely ignorant of all the issues. I suppose there have been some folks who assumed that the English Bible came just as it is directly from God, without any knowledge of the fact that it was first written in Greek and Hebrew, passed down to us through a train of thousands of hand-written manuscripts, then translated into English, and then revised numerous times. Such folks might well believe that the English Bible as it stands is inerrant (and who could fault them if they did?), yet I am confident that David Cloud would disallow such testimony as surely as I would—and it is certain that such testimony could have little bearing on the question of preservation. I would be glad to see such testimony, but I would deny that it has any bearing on the issue at hand.
Historical Statements Denying the Inerrancy of the King James Version
Meanwhile, I offer to my readers a few statements from prominent men of God which deny the inerrancy of the King James Version, either explicitly or implicitly. I grant at the outset that it is not easy to find such statements prior to the nineteenth century, but this is not because men believed anything otherwise before that date. I believe two things account for the rarity of such statements in earlier works. First, the Christianity of earlier times was more practical and spiritual, and simply did not occupy itself with such matters. James H. Brookes affirms, “The Roman Catholic, the Greek, and the Protestant communion and the various parties and factions in each of these, may have little or nothing to do with one another, but they all unite with one voice in proclaiming that the sacred Scriptures are the word and work of God.
“It is worthy of notice that they advance no theory about the mode of inspiration, nor is any theory held and maintained, so far as is known, for perhaps seventeen hundred years after the death of Christ. They content themselves with asserting in the strongest terms that we are indebted for the writings called the sacred Scriptures to the Holy Ghost, that the words we there read are the words of God, and hence that in the perusal of them we may be assured of entire exemption from the ignorance, the folly and the mistakes of men.” The older generations were occupied more with practical matters than with intellectual distinctions. Their province was to use the book, rather than to exactly define it.
The Rise of Intellectual Theology
As theology became more intellectual, such distinctions became more prominent. Not that they were not held before, only that they were not explicitly stated, for there was no occasion for it. This I suppose to be the second reason for the rarity of such statements in earlier times. It was common doctrine that inerrancy and infallibility belonged to the originals, and not to any translation whatsoever, but what occasion was there to state what all believed, and none denied? Modern ignorance, or prejudice, is likely to assume that such statements as that which I have quoted above from James H. Brookes are to be applied to the English version, but it is certain that Brookes would not have so applied it, as the quotation from him which I give below will prove. It was generally unnecessary to state what was assumed and believed by all—for no Protestant held any translation to be without error.
Statements from Prominent Men Denying Inerrancy of Translations
Yet in the providence of God, there were some who imputed inerrancy to a translation, and this called forth some early statements denying that claim. Those who imputed inerrancy to a translation were of course the Papists, who imputed infallibility to the Latin translation. In the early controversies between the Papists and the Protestants, therefore, the Protestant doctrine was clearly stated.
William Chillingworth, 1602-1644, Church of England
“Ninthly, your Rhemish and Doway translations are delivered to your proselytes (such, I mean, that are dispensed with, for the reading of them) for the direction of their faith and lives. And the same may be said of your translation of the bible into other national languages, in respect of those that are licensed to read them. This, I presume, you will confess. And, moreover, that these translations came not by inspiration, but were the productions of human industry; and that not angels, but men, were the authors of them. Men, I say, mere men, subject to the same passions, and to the same possibility of erring with our translators.”
The doctrine of this is clear and unmistakable. He insists that the Romanist translations “came not by inspiration,” but were the productions of “men, … mere men,” and so “subject to the same possibility of erring with our translators.” He thus puts the Romanist translations upon exactly the same ground with the Protestant translations, including of course the King James Version, for this was published in 1637. He thus states the common Protestant doctrine that no human translation is directly inspired of God, or without error. This was the doctrine of the Reformation, and most of the early English Protestant versions, including the King James Version, explicitly disclaimed inerrancy or infallibility. This was the common doctrine of all Protestants prior to Fuller and Ruckman, though in the two centuries following Chillingworth it was generally rather assumed than explicitly stated. There was little occasion to state it. Men were not so occupied then as they are now with precise intellectual distinctions. The English version was (very rightly) assumed to be an excellent representation of the original, and adequate for all ordinary purposes, and there was little occasion to affirm (what all believed) that it was not inerrant.
Further Statements on the Inerrancy of Translations
I add, by the way, another pertinent observation from good Mr. Chillingworth, which, if understood, might serve to dispel a little of the mental fog which David Otis Fuller introduced into the ranks of Fundamentalism. Chillingworth says, “For Dr. Covel’s commending your translation [the Latin Vulgate], what is it to the business in hand? Or how proves it the perfection, of which it is here contested, any more than St. Augustine’s commending the Italian translation argues the perfection of that, or that there was no necessity, that St. Jerome should correct it? Dr. Covel commends your translation, and so does the bishop of Chichester, and so does Dr. James, and so do I; but I commend it for a good translation, not for a perfect.”
Andrew Fuller, 1754-1815, Baptist
“Allowing all due honour to the English translation of the Bible, it must be granted to be a human performance, and, as such, subject to imperfection. Where any passage appears to be mistranslated, it is doubtless proper for those who are well acquainted with the original languages to point it out, and to offer, according to the best of their judgment, the true meaning of the Holy Spirit. Criticisms of this kind, made with modesty and judgment, and not in consequence of a preconceived system, are worthy of encouragement.”
English Baptist Union, 1839
In response to the requirement of the British and Foreign Bible Society, that the King James Version should be made the standard for the foreign translations which it was to print, the Baptist Union says, “Still further, they would ask wherein the virtue consists of introducing the faults of the English Version into new translations. Admitting, that under the circumstances of its production, it is an admirable work, and even better executed in the main than might have been apprehended, no admirers of it have yet been so enthusiastic as to pronounce it immaculate. On all hands it is confessed to betray the marks of human imperfection. The Committee [of the British & Foreign Bible Society] themselves say of it, ‘Errors are to be found in it which the humblest scholar could not only point out but correct. Errors too there are which obscure the sense in some important instances.’ Why should these errors be propagated? If there be thought to be a necessity for leaving them uncorrected, at least, let them remain where they are. If we must have them at home, let us not send them abroad. What benevolence is there in afflicting the heathen with our calamities? Every Christian would surely say, give them the unadulterated word, whatever you choose in regard to yourselves.”
Conclusion
The reader should note that “enthusiastic” is here used in its old sense of “fanatical.” Observe also that this testimony does not refer merely to the position of the Baptist Union, but to that of the whole church of God, throughout the whole time in which the Authorized Version had existed. It was confessed on all hands to be a human and imperfect work, which none of its admirers had yet been so fanatical as to suppose immaculate. This statement was made in 1839. L. W. Munhall affirmed the same in 1896, as quoted in our last number. The memorial from which the above quotation is taken was unanimously adopted “At a Special Meeting of the Committee of the Baptist Union, held December 17, 1839.”
Further Historical Testimony
I do not repeat those here. However, these various statements provide a comprehensive record from men of the past affirming that the King James Version, while valuable, was not considered by them to be infallible or inerrant. This consistent thread of historical acknowledgment underscores the idea that no human translation can be perfectly free from error.