Testing the "Seven Times Purified Theory"

Good. I'm glad to know this.

Still, wherever you got your views, Peter Ruckman started the whole nonsense about the KJV being a perfect translation, and "advanced revelation." No one in evangelicalism believed in a perfect translation until Ruckman started teaching it, though many Catholics believed the Latin Vulgate was perfect. There is no way to believe the KJV is perfect without believing there are errors in the original texts that God directly gave.

This is a copout. It's just an excuse by KJVO people who don't want to do the work needed to access the Greek and Hebrew. The Christian world is not "dependent on Hebrew and Greek scholars." There are 1000s of Baptist pastors who learned Greek and Hebrew in seminary, or just Greek in Bible college, and regularly use it in their ministry.

I teach Greek and my son teaches both Greek and Hebrew. (Now tell me I am bragging and not giving glory to God because I have told you what I do professionally. ) Languages are not that hard to learn, but do take a lot of memorization. In my many years of teaching in the US, I have only had two students fail my Greek 101 class, and none has ever failed Greek 102. Of the two who failed, one took it over and got straight A's. The other is about to take it over, and I believe he will do better. And both the men and women in our college are required to take Greek. The women typically do quite well, thank you.

I am not "enraged" at most modern Bible translators because they are not "practitioners of deceit." I know several modern translators. The OT editor of the NKJV and HCSB was my seminary Hebrew teacher, and he is a good man, and still a friend. It is slander to say that such men are "practitioners of deceit." That is a vicious thing to say. You can disagree with their Bible translation work, but don't insult them.

Where I do disagree with the modern versions is that there are still over 3,000 languages in the world with not a verse of the Bible translated. That is where our effort and funds should go, not in another modern translation. But that does not mean that such translators are "practitioners of deceit." Get a grip, man.

It is simply not true that Ruckman's school has produced 1000s of missionaries. I doubt if it has even produced 100s of missionaries--dozens at the very most. I was a missionary to Japan for 33 years, but I only knew one Ruckman grad in Japan, and never met another Ruckman grad who was a missionary. (Now tell me I am not glorifying God because I said what I did for the Lord without explicitly mentioning Him. ) And in all of the dozens of missionary conferences in the US I've been in, and the hundreds of churches I have been to in five different countries, I have never one single time met a grad of his school, Pensacola Bible Institute, either pastor or missionary.

Ruckman's school was only a small one, even calling itself an "institute" rather than a college. So it wasn't even a Bible college. Check out the website for Ruckman's books: Bible Baptist Bookstore, a Ministry of Bible Baptist Church. There is not a single mention of Ruckman's school, nor of the church he pastored, for that matter.

I'm glad you wrote this. It is the perfect example of misunderstanding the KJV because of a translation issue connected with the Christian culture of the translators.

When I talked about "divisions," I was writing about the Greek word hairetikos (αἱρετικός), which the KJV transliterates as "heretick" in Titus 3:10. Since the KJV translators were Church of England, they simply held to the Catholic meaning of heretic, which was basically, "Someone who doesn't agree with the Catholic Church." So to the KJV translators, it meant "Someone who doesn't agree with our church." However, what the Greek word actually means is "someone who causes divisions." God hates divisions in the local church, the body of Christ. So anyone who seeks to cause division in a local church is a heretic and should be disciplined out of the church. And those who believe in a perfect translation do cause such divisions.

But in your answer, I certainly hope you did not mean that someone who causes divisions in the local church of Jesus Christ is an okay guy. You didn't say that in so many words, so I'll just hope you didn't mean that.

I'll be waiting.

 

Just in case anyone reading this wonders at my characterization of Peter Ruckman, see this link: The deterioration of Ruckman’s language demonstrated in his changing treatment of John R. Rice | Ruckmanism.org. This viciousness negates anything Ruckman taught about the Bible, IMO. He is not to be trusted in anything he wrote.

These are just some of the things Ruckman said about my Grandfather, John R. Rice, as documented on the website. (And I never knew a more godly, dedicated, soul-winning, Bible-loving preacher than John R. Rice, and I lived with him and worked for him.

"…Dr. Rice, and any other Bible-rejecting 'Fundamentalist.'" (Ruckman, Satan's Masterpiece! The New ASV, p. 69.)

…the deep, dark-stained, murderous, hatred that these Fundamentalists have for the Authority of the Authorized Text. From Origen to John R. Rice they have the same set of horns; (Ruckman, Peter. The Book of Acts. 1974, 1984 reprint, p. 84)

…leading fundamentalists in this century …John R. Rice… were used of Satan to help set up the One World “New Order.” (Ruckman, Peter. 22 Years of the Bible Believer’s Bulletin Vol. 1 “The AV Holy Bible” 1999, p. 454)

…the Lord showed Rice that he did not have the brains or the intellect to be a teacher… (Ruckman, Peter. History of the New Testament Church Vol. 2. 1984, p. 187)

…Bible blockheads like John R. Rice and Curtis Hutson to presume that OT salvation was the same as NT salvation. It is if you are deaf, dumb, and blind. (Ruckman, Peter. Ruckman’s Bible References: Personal Notes on Salient Verses in the Bible. 1997, p. 89)

…Abraham is a type of the Christian’s salvation by “faith” apart from “the works of the law.” This led naïve and shallow Bible students like John R. Rice and Curtis Hutson to assume that salvation under the law was identical to salvation under grace. Where this mad type of irresponsible nonsense came from no one knows… (Ruckman, Peter. The Book of Psalms Vol. 1. 1997 reprint, p. 247)

When poor, old, “godly,” kindly, stupid John R. Rice hit Revelation 22:14, he came apart at the seams just like Curtis Hutson, Westcott, and Hort. He couldn’t understand WORKS in connection with eternal life. (Ruckman, Peter. The Book of Psalms. Vol. 2. 2002 reprint, p. 1479)

…heretics like Curtis Hutson and John R. Rice… (Ruckman, Peter. Ruckman’s Bible References: Personal Notes on Salient Verses in the Bible. 1997, p. 28)

John Rice was stripping you of your spiritual billfold, your spiritual checkbook, your spiritual bank account, your spiritual savings and loan deposits, and your spiritual INTEGRITY. He was converting you into an unsaved German philosopher, and some of you bought the “gaffed act.” You were the “sucker.”…When Rice got to the WORDS (see the small “w” on “word”? By God, you had better see it!), he threw “THE BIBLE” (OUR PERFECT BIBLE) out the window because he was about to say “verbal inspiration” (p. 23). Did you catch the ole’ liar when he switched the TENSE on you? C’mon, did you? Why not? (Bible Believers' Bulletin. Dec. 2003, p. 11)

 

Well, we could go on and on, couldn't we?

 

Nope. I plan to keep whining! Come on, do your job. Criticize my profession: Missionarying, Bible translating, teaching Bible college and seminary....

I have dealt thoroughly with my own OP, and we are now on the last page of the thread. I wish you would quit criticizing. Or at least, quit answering my posts which you consider to be off topic. Don't you get it yet? The thread was tongue in cheek.

This is off topic, since the thread is about the "Seven Times Purified Theory."

Good.

Again off topic.

Very glad to know this. I have friends who are KJVO Bible translators, and I honor them.

You're not paying attention. My topic was a tongue in cheek examination of the theory that the KJV is "purified" and therefore perfect. I used the history of the Japanese to show that the theory is unbiblical. If the theory were correct, then I could use Ps. 12:6 to prove that the Japanese Bible is pure rather than the KJV.

 

I appreciate your good words about my grandfather. But Ruckman said such things about many good men of God. The website I linked to (run by a KJVO missionary) only used Rice as an example.

 

I'm afraid you are misunderstanding Hills. I have that book, and on that page he says, "For all these modern versions are founded on a naturalistic New Testament textual criticism which ignores or denies the special, providential preservation of the holy Scriptures" (Hills, p. 87). So in the context of the statement you quoted, he was talking about textual criticism, and thus about the preservation of the Hebrew OT (Masoretic) and Greek NT (TR), not the perfect translation theory.

Now you say, "many before him [Ruckman] held to the KJVO position." I would like you to give me quotes on that. I have read extensively on bibliology ("No brag, just fact"), and have never run across a "perfect KJV" theory before Ruckman.

David Otis Fuller did not hold to that (Which Bible? in 1970), John R. Rice did not hold to that though he believed in preservation (Our God-Breathed Book, the Bible, 1969), even J. J. Ray did not hold to a perfect translation position (God Wrote Only One Bible, 1955, 1970). Francis Turretin (Reformation scholar) spoke against the Catholic doctrine that the Vulgate was inspired and inerrant (The Doctrine of Scripture, 1688). Fundamentalist scholars such as Warfield did not believe in a perfect translation. French evangelical theologian Louis Gaussen (Divine Inspiration of the Bible, 1841) and Swiss theologian Rene Pache (The Inspiration and Authority of Scripture, 1969) did not hold to any perfect translation theory. Even "Dean" John Burgon didn't believe in a perfect KJV.

I could go on and on. (I guess I already have. ) So please give me quotes from anyone, even just one evangelical before Ruckman who believed the KJV was a perfect translation.

 

I preached in TX a couple of weeks ago for a beloved KJVO pastor. Had an awesome time. He took Patty and me to the Institute of Creation Research museum and bought me a hat! Made some great visits, including to an aged opera singer, who sang a hymn for us and gave us 5 of her CD's.

The Ruckman school grad I knew in Japan (the only one out of 100 or so IFB missionaries) was a gentle, quiet type, and didn't imitate Ruckman on that--thank the Lord. He did call me one time to talk about our translation effort. I think he was trying to figure out how close it would be to the KJV.

 

Very good. That's one. But I asked for "quotes" plural. If you got this from David Cloud (Old Time Fundamentalists Who Defended the King James Bible), the others on the page did not teach a perfect KJV doctrine.

At any rate, Ruckman is the one who started the modern KJVO movement in 1970 with his book The Christian's Handbook of Manuscript Evidence. There was no movement per se before Ruckman. I do note that Which Bible? ed. by David Otis Fuller also came out in 1970, so it contributed.