THE COMMON MAN’S DEFENSE OF KJV ONLYISM – Chapter 6 – The Arrogance of Many Scholars!

“The King James men surpassed us in these respects, that they were scholars, and that they had Elizabethan command over language.”1
-Gustavus S. Paine

“We do not have today any Greek and Hebrew scholars to measure up to their knowledge in languages.”2
-Chester A. Murray

“No private criticism, however respectable, has a right to alter the Standard English Bible (i.e. the KJV).”3
-A Coxe (1857)

Modern KJV critics love to quote “great scholars” to justify themselves. They will often stand amazed at a KJV Onlyist for “daring” to exercise his own priesthood against such high authorities. A. Coxe, knew how to deal with this situation. In 1857 he wrote:

“If my review should, by any, be construed as reflecting upon two of the most worthiest scholars, I hope it may be remembered, that it is rather a defense of forty great scholars of the old time, whose reputation and labours have received homage of men of learning for more than two centuries complete…While, then for myself, I should feel profoundly unworthy to advance a critical opinion, contrary to those eminent linguists engaged in the production of this new standard, I cannot blush for my presumption, in defending, even against their amendments, the work of these great men, concerning whom their contemporary, Fuller, says, so eloquently, ‘Wheresoever the Bible shall be preached or read, in the whole world, there shall also this that they have done be told in memorial of them.’” 4
One doubts that Coxe would have been so soft had he been dealing with the heretics behind the RV of 1881. The men who were correcting the KJV in his day were not open infidels like Wescott and Hort. Nevertheless, Coxe shows one way that every Bible believer can deal with the KJV critic who justifies his view based upon the education of some “great scholar.” The King James Bible believer can simply present the KJV critic with the outstanding education, skill and piety of the King James translators themselves!

The KJV critic places his faith in the ancient languages. He ridicules the KJV Onlyist for trusting in an English translation. When debating the KJV issue, the KJV critic will assault the KJV Onlyist with a barrage of “translation mistakes” that the KJV translators supposedly made, which he himself has been able, through his education, to correct.
This is quite amazing! It is amazing that a modern scholar would have the arrogance to dogmatically claim to be able to know Greek, Hebrew or English better than the entire body of KJV translators! The KJV critics are always exalting scholarship over the KJV. They will often resort to quoting men with high degrees as a proof that their assumptions are correct. Yet, this is a game that KJV Onlyists can play as well. And it is a fact that the qualifications of the KJV translators will surpass the qualifications of the men constantly quoted by KJV critics.
Alexander McClure writes:

“But were those ancient scholars competent to make their translation correct, as well as plain?…As to the capability of those men, we may say again, that, by the good providence of God, their work was undertaken in a fortunate time. Not only had the English language, that singular compound, then ripened to its full perfection, but the study of Greek, and of the oriental tongues, and rabbinical lore, had then been carried to a greater extent in England than ever before since…To evince this fact, so far as necessary limits will admit, it will be requisite to sketch the characters and scholarship of those men, who have made all coming ages their debtors. When this pleasing task is done, it is confidently expected that the reader of these pages will yield to the conviction, that all the colleges of Great Britain and America, even in this proud day of boastings, could not bring together the same number of divines equally qualified by learning and piety for the great undertaking…there has never yet been a time when a better qualified company could have been collected for the purpose…it is safe to assume the impossibility of gathering a more competent body of translators…”5

McClure tells us that nearly all of the fifty-four translators originally commissioned by King James in 1603 attained to the highest literary honors of their respective universities. Notice the qualifications of just a few of these translators.

Lancelot Andrews was appointed to one of the first Greek Scholarships of Pembroke Hall, in Cambridge. He learned most of the modern languages of Europe. At Cambridge, he gave himself chiefly to the Oriental tongues and divinity. McClure writes:

“He ever bore the character of a ‘right and godly man,’…One competent judge speaks of him as ‘that great gulf of learning!’ It was also said, that ‘the world wanted learning to know how learned this man was.’”6

William Bedwell was spoken of in his epitaph, as being “for the Eastern tongues, as learned a man as most lived in these modern times.” He was esteemed as “an eminent oriental scholar.”

Edward Lively was called “one of the best linguists in the world.”

John Richardson was noted as “a most excellent linguist.”

Richard Kilby was considered so accurate in Hebrew studies, that he was appointed the King’s Professor in that branch of literature. McClure writes:

“When we hear young licentiates, green from the seminary, displaying their smatterings of Hebrew and Greek by cavilling in their sermons at the common version, and pompously telling how it ought to have been rendered, we cannot but wish that the apparition of Dr. Kilby’s frowning ghost might haunt them.”7

Miles Smith was so much an expert in the Chaldee, Syriac,
and Arabic, that they were almost as familiar as his native tongue. “Hebrew he had at his fingers’ ends.”
Henry Savile was a tutor in Greek and mathematics to Queen Elizabeth.

John Peryn was the King’s Professor of Greek in the University of Oxford.

John Spencer was elected Greek lecturer for Corpus Christi College, Oxford when he was only nineteen years old.

John Bois was held to be “second to none in solid attainments in the Greek tongue.” He read the Bible in Hebrew when he was only five years old! At six years of age, he wrote Hebrew in “a fair and elegant character.” For ten years he was Greek lecturer at St. John’s College, Cambridge. He possessed one of the most costly and complete collections of Greek literature ever made. Gustavus S. Paine notes:

“A most exact grammarian, Bois had read sixty grammars.”8
Francis Dillingham was styled the “great Grecian.” McClure states that he was a “Fellow of Christ’s College, Cambridge” and was noted as an “excellent linguist and a subtle disputant…” He was also noted in 1672 as “famous for Hebrew learning.”9

Based on this simple summary, one can immediately get an idea of the caliber of the rest of the men who translated the KJV! There will never again (in this world) be found such a qualified body of men. We now live in days of great deception where carnal amusement is rampant. The KJV translators were not tempted by the lies of evolution, psychology or higher criticism. They did not grow up with TV’s blaring in their homes all day.

As an objection, KJV critics will claim that the KJV translators lacked certain, important manuscripts that are now available to modern scholars. Even if this could be proved to be true, based on the moral state of things since these “new” manuscripts have been discovered and embraced, we would know that God, in His providence, purposely kept them from the KJV translators in order to protect the purity of their translation. Philip Mauro, in 1924 wrote:

“Those who favor the modern Version will point to the fact that, during the three hundred years that have elapsed since the A.V. was translated, much material has been discovered whereby additional light is thrown upon the Text. How comes it then that the King James Version has not only maintained its place of supremacy, but of late years has forged further and further ahead of its rival? This surely is a matter worthy of our thoughtful consideration…in view also of the leading part the English speaking peoples were to play in shaping the destinies of mankind during the eventful centuries following the appearance of the Version of 1611, we are justified in believing that it was through a providential ordering that the preparation of that Version was not in anywise affected by higher critical theories in general, or specifically by the two ancient Codices we have been discussing. For when we consider what the A.V. was to be to the world, the incomparable influence it was to exert in shaping the course of events, and in accomplishing those eternal purposes of God for which Christ died and rose again and the Holy Spirit came down from heaven – when we consider that this Version was to be, more than all others combined, ‘the Sword of the Spirit,’ and that all this was fully known to God beforehand, we are fully warranted in the belief that it was not through chance, but by providential control of the circumstances, that the translators had access to just those Mss. which were available at that time, and to none others.”10

Although there is great evidence that God has providentially blessed the KJV translators to perfection, this argument is not even necessary to refute the KJV critics. It could be easily argued that any mistake that they claim to find in the KJV is simply due to the fact that they do not know the English or original languages as well as the KJV translators. If they could sit in the presence of those men, and voice their objections to their work, they would be immediately put in their place by the superior knowledge of the translators. Suffice it to say, the work of the KJV translators is “over their heads.”

If a man does not hold the KJV to be perfect, basic common sense would tell him that it might as well be since a more qualified body of men cannot ever be gathered in one place to improve upon it!

It is true that the majority of Greek and Hebrew scholars today do not think twice about “correcting” the KJV. Yet, this is simply a direct fulfillment of Bible prophecy. The Bible predicted that in the last days men would be very arrogant:

2 Timothy 3:1 This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come.
2 For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy,
4 Traitors, heady, highminded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God;

These same Greek and Hebrew scholars (or the many KJV critics who pretend to be scholars) are not afraid to dictate how God must preserve His Word. They arrogantly claim that He would never have placed the Bible in English, in the hands of the “common people.” It is no wonder then, that they do not respect the qualifications of the KJV translators enough to refrain from attempting to “correct” their work. A. Coxe writes:

“Every generation has its fashions; and the Bible, set and set again, according to the prevailing whims, would become as untrustworthy as an old town-clock, continually corrected by private watches…That any man or set of men, however respectable in their spheres of private usefulness, should propose themselves as the competent emendators of such a standard, or dream of producing a Bible for common use…and supersede the time-honored Version in its integrity, would seem to prove that nothing is too holy for the hand of rash innovation, or too high for the adventure of presumptuous experiment…if possible, the very lights of heaven would be tinkered and repaired, by the wild conceit of the times…”11

From our perspective today, we can see the abundant fruit brought forth by the KJV; and we can also see what has happened since it has been replaced in many churches. The proof that the KJV is the perfect, preserved Word of God is therefore greater for us than in any previous generation in history. KJV advocates today claim that the KJV is a perfect work of God’s providence with absolutely no errors at all. If we are wrong (and we are not!) we lose nothing. We have trusted a Book that has been tried and proven for almost 400 years. However, if the KJV critic is wrong, he will be guilty of resisting and corrupting God’s perfect, preserved Word. If he is saved, he will therefore be in great danger in this world and at the Judgment Seat of Christ (Prov.30:6, Rev.22:18,19).