[Steven Avery]

Isaiah 13:15 - modern version integrity attack against KJB

Hi Folks,

One of the most insidious and wicked attempts to attack the pure Bible is to misrepresent a verse and try to pretend that a fundamental attack against the Bible is due to a good-natured yet bumbling error in the Holy Bible, the King James Bible. The supposed error could be painted as only a "little oversight" by the translators or a "printer's error". They strain for a little fox to spoil the vine.

We saw one of these attempts in the thread:

http://av1611.com/forums/showthread.php?t=379
Straining at or straining out gnats.

Where the idea was to say that "strain at a gnat" was simply a little printer's error. Thus the accuser can pretend it is only a minor error (not so important after all, why make a big issue .. if the truth is pressed) almost innocuous, yet clearly it is meant to be a dagger right at the heart of the purity and perfection and authority of the King James Bible. After all, if a verse got into our Bible improperly, against all sense and translator expertise and just by a printer faux pas, it would be difficult to claim that the Bible was nonetheless perfect.

Note the crafitness of this type of accusation, how much mileage they try to give such an issue. On an integrity level it totally foundational. Yet since it is on a minor verse, the accusers can feign innocence for their deceptions - after all, "the verse is not a major issue", "no fundamental doctrines are changed". They can say "why are you making a big issue .. it is only a minor, innocent error". When men are given over to depravity in regard to the pure word of God they can became very slick indeed.

Now when this gnat accusation was young, propagated by men like Adam Clarke, there probably was not a conscious, intentional understanding of the significance of the accusation. More like a whimsical observation, false, yet sans conscious maliciousness. By the time this accusation came to Daniel Wallace and became a centerpiece of the anti-KJB presentations, truth was stood on its head. Wickedness was the motivator and flat-out deceptions and lies and were now being propagated. All for the attempt to defend the alexandrian cult against the purity and authority of the word of God.

And by that time the silly gnat canard had been so busted (see the thread above for details, make sure you have a few minutes) that you had to be a mental midget to take it seriously. Or buffeted by spiritual principalities, wickedness in high places. Thus the weird accusation appealed to the drones of the alexandrian cult.

A second such example recently arose. This one was given by two fierce opponents of the purity of the King James Bible, James Price and William Combs. The verse is Isaiah 13:15, not known for being a battleground verse.

Isaiah 13:15
Every one that is found shall be thrust through;
and every one that is joined unto them shall fall by the sword.

Interestingly Price and Combs made this a "best case" battleground. Price listed this as #1 under his supposed Masoretic text emendations and claimed that for sure the King James Bible translators had read the wrong Hebrew word ! Combs, following the Price lead, took this verse as his one "indisputable error" ! They chose the battleground, ok .. we accept.

In fact, these accusations were as absurd as the gnat. (Wait and see the actual evidences.) They are so bad you have to wonder about the mental acuity and stability of the accusers. They are even worse than the gnat ! If that be possible.

With the gnat not only was the accusation silly to begin with, there was tons of evidence that the idiom was in common usage even before the King James Bible. So the "misprint" canard was simply insipid.

However in the gnat case some of the refutation took time to come forth. In the 1940s Constantin Hopf wrote the basic refutation, much more was available, and that has been presented more recently. The accusation never made any sense, it never had even a scintilla of real evidence. However a type of ignorance could be used as an excuse. With the new integrity accusation, Isaiah 13:15 "joined/captured" there is no such excuse. The refutation evidence is ... everywhere.

For Isaiah 13:15, the evidence thread I will likely set up separate from this introduction. I want to keep it relatively short and sweet -- the accusations, then the mountain of refutation evidence.

This may lead to a number of questions - as to the nature of today's seminary "scholarship", the lack of integrity in those straining to accuse the King James Bible, and more. Why folks will not acknowledge the simple truth on such an accusation even when presented with an Everest-mountain of evidence of the falsity? How did they come up with this to begin with ? What does this say about the rest of their laundry-lists ? (when their best case example is totally false) Why did they make such a litany of misrepresentations and blunders -- simply to accuse the King James Bible ?

So ... consider the accusations and evidences and, by the grace of the Lord Jesus, we will discuss it more. The plan is .. both threads will be open, taking two different angles about the same discussion. The second thread I will plan to begin tonight, simply the accusation, and then the truth and the evidences.

Shalom,
Steven