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John R. Rice, Jack Hyles, and the KJV

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Yeshua1

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Jack Hyles declared: “I must find this perfect Bible that is without error with every word of God preserved” (Need for an Every-word Bible, p. 21). After quoting Matthew 4:4, Jack Hyles claimed: “You cannot live if you don’t have ‘every word’ (p. 17). Jack Hyles asserted: “We must have every word, so there has to be a perfect English Bible or we cannot live” (p. 45). Jack Hyles declared: “I must have every word to live. I must have every word to get my prayers answered. I must have every word to receive Christ” (p. 152).
Non would ever get saved then, as only the originals would qualify, and they were not in English!
 

Yeshua1

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This shows that by that time Hyles had taken the position of Ruckman, that the KJV is inspired and inerrant. However, to my knowledge, Hyles never said that you should correct the Greek and Hebrew from the KJV, as Ruckman taught. That is the logical conclusion of Ruckman's position, but Hyles did not appear to articulate it in his book that you have quoted, The Need for an Every-Word Bible (2003), though I admit I have not read the whole book through.
So per the KJVO, you and me should just throw away our Hebrew and Greek texts and use the Kjv then!
 

Yeshua1

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Rice would have been disappointed in several of the positions Hyles took on the KJV. First of all, he would have been very disappointed at the position of Hyles that the KJV is perfect. Rice wrote, "A perfect translation of the Bible is humanly impossible. The words in one language do not have exactly the same color and meaning as opposite words in another language, and human frailty and imperfection enter in. So, let us say, there are no perfect translations. God does not inspire particular translations, although He may illuminate and give spiritual wisdom to the translator" (Our God-Breathed Book, the Bible, 1969, p. 376).

Secondly, the position that Hyles took as Logos has quoted in post #34, that no one can get saved through a different version than the KJV, is directly in opposition to the position of John R. Rice. Rice printed a pamphlet in 1947, Sermon from a Catholic Bible, and through it many Catholics were saved. He would have been shocked and very disappointed at Hyles saying no one could get saved through any other version. I know what he would have said: What about versions in other languages?
That view makes the Kjv the saving power, and not the Holy Spirit Himself!
 

Yeshua1

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Just to be clear here, John R. Rice did not approve of most modern versions. Here is what he wrote on several of them in his book, Dr. Rice, Here Is my Question (Murfreesboro: Sword of the Lord, 1962).

"I constantly use the King James Version. Practically all of my memory work is done in it. Because of its beautiful, stately language and because it is loved by common people everywhere, I find it best to preach and quote from this version, unless some passage is more clear in another version" (p. 59).

"I prefer the more literal and exact translations. All expanded and amplified translations tend to be somewhat an interpretation. And that is more true generally of the modern translations which take liberties with the text, for example, doing away with a Hebrew or Greek idiom, to fit modern speech. For example, Phillips Translation is a sorry paraphrase, inaccurate, irreverent. Phillips is openly an unbeliever in the authority and infallible inspiration of the Bible. He feels perfectly free to put in words or even whole sentences to make the meaning appear as he wants it to appear" (p. 59).

"The American Standard Version, translated in 1901, is perhaps the most accurate of all versions. it does not take the place of the King James Version, but in many places it has genuine help. Of course there are some mistakes, but many of the scholars who prepared it were devout Christians and believers" (p. 59).

"Phillips Translation is a sorry paraphrase, inaccurate, irreverent. Phillips is openly an unbeliever in the authority and infallible inspiration of the Bible. He feels perfectly free to put in words or even whole sentences to make the meaning appear as he wants it to appear (p. 59).

"I think the Williams Translation of the New Testament is generally accurate and good, better perhaps than other one-man translations of the New Testament. It gives very careful attention to the tenses of the Greek verbs and is especially helpful on some difficult passages" (p. 60).

"I do not advise the Christian to use Moffatt's Translation or Weymouth's or Goodspeed's. They are all right for scholars to have at hand, perhaps, but they are prepared by modernists, and sometimes the notes and even the translation will be wrong" (p. 60).

"The Amplified New Testament is a reverent translation which many lay people find interesting. It has the great limitation that it is partly a translation and partly a commentary, and that always leaves room for mistakes by the translator. For that reason I do not especially like it. But those who translated it intended for it to be true to the original text and to exalt Christ, and I do not think it will lead anybody especially wrong in doctrine" (p. 60).

"The New English Bible is scholarly and in colorful modern speech. But it is a free translation, sometimes a paraphrase, translated partly by unbelieving modern scholars, and I believe it is not reliable" (p. 60).

"On the whole, the Berkeley Version of the Bible is a good version compared to others in modern speech. However, I do not think the language is as beautiful as the King James Version, and I do not think it is as accurate as the King James Version and the American Standard Version" (p. 60).
So he would have probably liked and used the Nkjv and nasb if still alive?
 

Yeshua1

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Jack Hyles asserted: “Do you mean if there is just one word wrong in the Bible, you have to throw everything else away?’ That’s exactly what I mean” (Need for an Every-Word Bible, p. 39).
Every bible made would have gotten trashed!
 

John of Japan

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Hyles did not only abandon the positions of John R. Rice regarding the Bible, he mocked them. In a Wednesday night Bible study at First Baptist in 1998 (“Keep your Stinkin’ Feet Out of My Drinking Water”), Hyles said, “Don't come to me with your stinking ‘only the original is inspired’! You’re not intellectual, you’re retarded!” So then, according to Hyles, his mentor and father-figure, John R. Rice, was “retarded.”

This is from an MP3 file of the sermon at “Keep Your Stinking Feet Out of My Drinking Water” by Jack Hyles – Jack Hyles Podcast, accessed on 1/8/21. The offending statement is at 32 minutes. This sermon series was eventually printed as a book, already quoted by Logos, The Need for an Every-Word Bible (Hammond: Hyles Publications, 2003), 154-155. This particular sermon was heavily edited in the book, and the statement using the term “retarded” was edited, taking out the derogatory attack.
 

Yeshua1

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Hyles did not only abandon the positions of John R. Rice regarding the Bible, he mocked them. In a Wednesday night Bible study at First Baptist in 1998 (“Keep your Stinkin’ Feet Out of My Drinking Water”), Hyles said, “Don't come to me with your stinking ‘only the original is inspired’! You’re not intellectual, you’re retarded!” So then, according to Hyles, his mentor and father-figure, John R. Rice, was “retarded.”

This is from an MP3 file of the sermon at “Keep Your Stinking Feet Out of My Drinking Water” by Jack Hyles – Jack Hyles Podcast, accessed on 1/8/21. The offending statement is at 32 minutes. This sermon series was eventually printed as a book, already quoted by Logos, The Need for an Every-Word Bible (Hammond: Hyles Publications, 2003), 154-155. This particular sermon was heavily edited in the book, and the statement using the term “retarded” was edited, taking out the derogatory attack.
The mentality of those holding to KJVO would be childish and also very anger and bitter towards their critics, not Christ Like at all!
 

John of Japan

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I cannot read the mind of Hyles. Couldn't do so even when he was alive! I can only look at the public record. The public record says that he turned his back on his mentor and father figure. So, did Hyles actually turn against Rice in his heart?

Hyles may have deliberately turned against Rice. In his book, Enemies of Soul Winning (copyright 1993, 13 years after Rice’s death), Hyles only mention Rice twice. At one point he says that Rice and Walter Wilson were planned to be speakers in the First Baptist of Hammond missionary conference soon after Hyles took over the pastorate there (p. 52). On another page he has a quote from Rice, “Everybody wants to be in the army of the Lord, but everybody wants to be in the quarter-master corps; nobody wants to be in the infantry" (p. 147).

In other places in the book, Hyles should have mentioned Rice but didn't. In listing fundamentalist preachers who had left the SBC to become independent, he lists J. Frank Norris, Lee Roberson, Bob Gray, and himself, but not John R. Rice (p. 119).

Again, in describing a church near him when he grew up in Texas, Galilean Baptist Church, he wrote, “I will never forget the soul winning that church did. They preached on street corners; they passed out tracts in shopping areas. I can remember that on Sunday afternoon the pastor would go down to the zoo and stand by the monkey cages where the crowds gathered and preach to the people. This church reached thousands for the Lord, but it never became a giant church. It was average-sized at best and was only a fraction of the size of a church just a block away" (p. 109).

What he did not say in this narrative was that this was the church being planted at the time by Rice. However, his biographer wrote, “Their home was just three blocks away from the Galilean Baptist Church, the church that Dr. John R. Rice started and pastored at the time.” (Cindy Hyles Schaap, Fundamental man, p. 37). Thus, as one element of the legacy of Hyles, he gave little or no praise to his mentor in his post-Rice period.
 

John of Japan

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The mentality of those holding to KJVO would be childish and also very anger and bitter towards their critics, not Christ Like at all!
I disagree. There are many good and gracious people who believe the KJV is the only version for the English language. These people love the Lord Jesus Christ and serve Him faithfully. Many are my personal friends, and I have benefited from the ministry of others. It is those who follow Ruckman who are the angry and bitter ones, the "railers" as the KJV terms it.
 

Yeshua1

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I disagree. There are many good and gracious people who believe the KJV is the only version for the English language. These people love the Lord Jesus Christ and serve Him faithfully. Many are my personal friends, and I have benefited from the ministry of others. It is those who follow Ruckman who are the angry and bitter ones, the "railers" as the KJV terms it.
Those would be to me more KJVP, as many of the KJVO seem to like to attack and get critical towards any and all who do not see the Kjv as being neither perfect nor only translation!
 

John of Japan

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Those would be to me more KJVP, as many of the KJVO seem to like to attack and get critical towards any and all who do not see the Kjv as being neither perfect nor only translation!
Nope. Again I'll say, many who believe the KJV is the only preserved version for the English language are gracious, good Christians. How many such people do you know personally? I know many of them, and admire some of them greatly.

I know a ministry (several in fact) that print Bibles in other languages for people groups around the world. These ministries hold to the KJV as the only Word of God in English, but love the Lord Jesus Christ and seek to obey the Great Commission. They have gotten literally millions of Scriptures out around the world in hundreds of languages. I don't criticize good folks like that. This thread is about how Jack Hyles became a Ruckmanite, thus abandoning the bibliology of his mentor and father figure. It is not designed to be an attack on all KJVO people.
 

Yeshua1

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Nope. Again I'll say, many who believe the KJV is the only preserved version for the English language are gracious, good Christians. How many such people do you know personally? I know many of them, and admire some of them greatly.

I know a ministry (several in fact) that print Bibles in other languages for people groups around the world. These ministries hold to the KJV as the only Word of God in English, but love the Lord Jesus Christ and seek to obey the Great Commission. They have gotten literally millions of Scriptures out around the world in hundreds of languages. I don't criticize good folks like that. This thread is about how Jack Hyles became a Ruckmanite, thus abandoning the bibliology of his mentor and father figure. It is not designed to be an attack on all KJVO people.
You mean the Trinitarian bible society?
 

Jerome

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Hyles' autobiography relates how he told a NKJV committee to their faces that what they were doing was wrong. Says Rice was present and ended up resigning from the oversight committee himself.
 

John of Japan

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Hyles' autobiography relates how he told a NKJV committee to their faces that what they were doing was wrong. Says Rice was present and ended up resigning from the oversight committee himself.
Yeah, to be honest I'm skeptical of that story, or at least how Hyles told it to his daughter. Hyles was known for being inaccurate, shall we say. Rice rebuked him for doing this is a private letter after Rice's 83rd birthday celebration, when Hyles went overboard with is stories. Hyles wrote Rice:

"When I was asked to speak at your 83rd birthday celebration, I was honored beyond measure. I cancelled an engagement in the East that I had had for many months, for I wanted to do my part to make your celebration a successful one. I prayed earnestly for God to help me to be fitting and to pay you the tribute that you deserve. If anything was said in my message that caused disappointment to you, it was done because of my carelessness and poor judgment, for I wanted with all my heart to pay you the tribute that you deserve. Please forgive me for any unwise statements that I may have made or experiences that I may have related.
Jack Hyles to John R. Rice, January 19, 1979, John R. Rice Papers.

Rice wrote back,
“Thank you for your lovely letter of January 19. You are gracious and kind to write. I count you one of the most faithful friends I have ever had.... Of your sincere love and friendship I have no doubt.” Then Rice wrote, “For some time I have had a burden about what seemed to me to be a tendency to exaggerate and perhaps to be not as rigorously careful as I like about facts, particularly little details.” Rice wrote further, “It seemed to me that I have observed that the illustrations, as you tell them from time to time, grow and after a year or two they don’t come out like they did at first but more details are added, not always believable.”
(These quotes are from John R. Rice to Jack Hyles, February 7, 1979, John R. Rice Papers.)

I didn't find a Hyles response to this letter in the Rice Papers.
 
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Yeshua1

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Hyles' autobiography relates how he told a NKJV committee to their faces that what they were doing was wrong. Says Rice was present and ended up resigning from the oversight committee himself.
I always thought that the translators of the Nkjv used same Greek and hebrew texts as the Kjv team did!
 
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