Alpha & Omega Ministries Apologetics Blog
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On the King James Only Issue and Dr. Hills
05/21/2005 - James White
Dr. Hills' honesty is a breath of fresh air. If he had not begun with the assumption of the superiority of the TR, he would undoubtedly have been led to a conclusion in favor, at the very least, of the "Majority Text" rather than the modern critical texts. But another argument precluded his coming to any conclusions other than the ones he presented, and that was the "argument for certainty" as I call it. This argument is the "glue" that holds the KJV Only position together. It is the common thread that ties Dr. Hills to someone as completely different in approach and mannerism as Dr. Ruckman. Since it is central to the KJV Only position, we will take the opportunity to review the argument as presented in its best form by Dr. Hills. We can see how it functions in this quotation by Dr. Hills:In short, unless we follow the logic of faith, we can be certain of nothing concerning the Bible and its text. For example, if we make the Bodmer and Chester Beatty Papyri our chief reliance, how do we know that even older New Testament papyri of an entirely different character have not been destroyed by the recent damming of the Nile and the consequent flooding of the Egyptian sands?The desire for absolute certainty in all matters plainly lies behind statements such as this, and the much less polished (and much more emotional) versions of the same argument that are encountered in less scholarly KJV Only materials. It is argued that unless we embrace the KJV as our "final authority," we have no final authority at all, and hence all is subjectivity and uncertainty. People do not want subjectivity, but desire certainty and clarity, and so we must hold to the "traditional" text. ...
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02:00:00 - Category: King James Onlyism - Link to this article -
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