KJV - Edward Hills

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TESTIMONIES OF KING JAMES BIBLE DEFENDERS

DR. EDWARD HILLS

"In regard to Bible versions many contemporary Christians are behaving like spoiled and rebellious children. They want a Bible version that pleases them no matter whether it pleases God or not. We want a Bible version in our own idiom, they clamor. We want a Bible that talks to us in the same way in which we talk to our friends over the telephone. We want an informal God, no better educated then ourselves, with a limited vocabulary and a taste for modern slang. And having thus registered their preference, they go their several ways. Some of them unite with the modernists in using the R.S.V. or the N.E.B. Others deem the N.A.S.V. or the N.I.V. more evangelical. Still others opt for the T.E.V. or the Living Bible. "But God is bigger than you are, dear friend, and THE BIBLE VERSION WHICH YOU MUST USE IS NOT A MATTER FOR YOU TO DECIDE ACCORDING TO YOUR WHIMS AND PREJUDICES. IT HAS ALREADY BEEN DECIDED FOR YOU BY THE WORKINGS OF GODS SPECIAL PROVIDENCE. ... Put on the spiritual mind that leads to life and peace! Receive by faith the True Text of Gods holy Word, which has been preserved down through the ages by His special providence and now is found in the Masoretic Hebrew text, the Greek Textus Receptus, and the King James Version and other faithful translations!" (E.F. Hills, The King James Version Defended, pp. 242,43). "Has the text of the New Testament, like those of other ancient books, been damaged during its voyage over the seas of time? Ought the same methods of textual criticism to be applied to it that are applied to the texts of other ancient books? These are questions which the following pages will endeavor to answer. An earnest effort will be made to convince the Christian reader that this is a matter to which he must attend. FOR IN THE REALM OF NEW TESTAMENT TEXTUAL CRITICISM AS WELL AS IN OTHER FIELDS THE PRESUPPOSITIONS OF MODERN THOUGHT ARE HOSTILE TO THE HISTORIC CHRISTIAN FAITH AND WILL DESTROY IT IF THEIR FATAL OPERATION IS NOT CHECKED. If faithful Christians, therefore, would defend their sacred religion against this danger, they must forsake the foundations of unbelieving thought and build upon their faith, faith that rests entirely on the solid rock of a holy Scripture. And when they do this in the sphere of New Testament textual criticism, they will find themselves led back step by step (perhaps,at first, against their wills) to the text of the Protestant Reformation, namely, that form of New Testament text which underlies the King James Version and the other early Protestant translations" (The King James Version Defended, "Introduction," p. 1). "Of all the English Bibles now in print only the King James Version is founded on the logic of faith. Therefore only the King James Version can be preached authoritatively and studied believingly. Many conservative Christian scholars deny this. THEY TRY TO USE THEIR MODERN ENGLISH VERSIONS IN THE

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SAME WAY THAT BELIEVING BIBLE STUDENTS USE THE KING JAMES VERSION. BUT THE LOGIC OF THE SITUATION SOON ASSERTS ITSELF AND MAKES THIS IMPOSSIBLE. 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. Hence if you use these modern versions, you never can be sure that you have the true New Testament text. Even worse, you cannot be sure that the original New Testament Scriptures were infallibly inspired. For if God has not preserved these Scriptures down through the ages by His special providence, why would He have infallibly inspired them in the first place? "... the Bible is Gods infallibly inspired Word which has been preserved by Gods special providence down through the ages. ... And the providential preservation of the Scriptures did not cease with the invention of printing. For why would God watch over the New Testament text at one time and not at another time, before the invention of printing but not afterward? Hence the formation of the Textus Receptus was God-guided. THE TEXTUS RECEPTUS, THEREFORE, A TRUSTWORTHY IS REPRODUCTION OF THE INFALLIBLY INSPIRED ORIGINAL NEW TESTAMENT TEXT AND IS AUTHORITATIVE. AND SO IS THE KING JAMES VERSION AND ALL OTHER FAITHFUL TRANSLATIONS OF THE TEXTUS RECEPTUS" (Hills, Believing Bible Study, p. 87). "It was this common faith which guided Erasmus providentially in his task of editing the first printed Greek New Testament (1516). Although he was not himself outstanding as a man of faith, yet in his editing of the New Testament text he was guided by the faith of others. He was desirous of publishing an edition of the New Testament which would be well received and offend no one. Hence in his labors on the New Testament text Erasmus was probably expressing not so much his own views as the views of his contemporaries, views with which he would have become very well acquainted through his correspondence and his travels. In short, editor of the first printed Greek New Testament, as Erasmus was providentially controlled by the common faith in the providential preservation of the Scriptures. Luther, Melanchton, Stephanus,Calvin, Beza, and the other scholars of the Reformation Period who labored on the New Testament text were similarly guided by Gods special providence. These scholars had received humanistic training in their youth, and in their notes and comments they sometimes reveal traces of this early education. But in their actual dealings with the biblical text these humanistic tendencies were restrained by the common faith in the providential preservation of Scripture, a faith which they themselves professed along with their followers. Hence in the Reformation Period the textual criticism of the New Testament was different from the textual criticism of any other book. The humanistic methods used on other books were not applied to the New Testament. In their editions of the New Testament Erasmus and his successors were providentially guided by the common faith to adopt the current text, primarily the current Greek text and secondarily the current Latin text. ... THUS THE LOGIC OF FAITH LED TRUE BELIEVERS OF THAT DAY,JUST AS IT LEADS TRUE BELIEVERS TODAY, THE TEXTUS RECEPTUS AS TO THE GOD-GUIDED NEW TESTAMENT TEXT" (Hills, Believing

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Bible Study, p. 63). "It is customary for naturalistic critics to make the most of human imperfections in the Textus Receptus and to sneer at it as a mean and almost sordid thing. ... But THOSE WHO CONCENTRATE IN THIS WAY ON THE HUMAN FACTORS INVOLVED IN THE PRODUCTION OF THE TEXTUS RECEPTUS ARE UTTERLY UNMINDFUL OF THE PROVIDENCE OF GOD. For in the very next year, in the plan of God, the Reformation was to break out in Wittenberg, and it was important that the Greek New Testament should be published first in one of the future strongholds of Protestantism by a book seller who was eager to place it in the hands of the people and not in Spain, the land of the Inquisition, by the Roman Church, which was intent on keeping the Bible from the people" (Hills, The King James Version Defended, p. 203). "... THE KING JAMES VERSION OUGHT TO BE REGARDED NOT MERELY AS A TRANSLATION OF THE TEXTUS RECEPTUS BUT ALSO AS AN INDEPENDENT VARIETY OF THE TEXTUS RECEPTUS. ... But what do we do in these few places in which the several editions of the Textus Receptus disagree with one another? Which text do we follow? The answer to this question is easy. We are guided by the common faith. HENCE WE FAVOR THAT FORM OF THE TEXTUS RECEPTUS UPON WHICH MORE THAN ANY OTHER GOD, WORKING PROVIDENTIALLY, HAS PLACED THE STAMP OF HIS APPROVAL, NAMELY, THE KING JAMES VERSION, or, more precisely, the Greek text underlying the King James Version" (Hills, The King James Version Defended, pp. 220,223). "Ed Hills was treated shamefully. He was ridiculed, blacklisted among fellow scholars (many of whom were unworthy to unlatch the thongs of his sandals). He counted some of his old professors as friends, but William Hendriksen wrote him a sharp letter taking him to task for defending 1 John 5:7, calling it the nadir, the lowest point in textual criticism" (Letter from Jay Green, March 15, 1995).

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