PUBLICATIONS

THE BURNING BUSH
 

Volume 13 Number 1, January 2007

CAN VERBAL PLENARY INSPIRATION DO WITHOUT VERBAL PLENARY PRESERVATION?:
THE ACHILLES’ HEEL OF PRINCETON BIBLIOLOGY

Jeffrey Khoo

The theology of Princeton was shaped by Archibald Alexander (1772-1851), the first professor of theology at Princeton, and by his successors, Charles Hodge and B B Warfield.¹ These men remain highly respected by reformed and evangelical scholars today. But before we decide to bow to their scholarship, we need to examine what they believed about the Scriptures.

Archibald Alexander promoted the Westminster Standards to be the orthodox expression of faith. He also upheld the power of human reason. What of the Bible in his hands? Well he believed that the Bible was indeed preserved "by God’s singular care and providence" as spelled out in the Westminster Confession of Faith quoting Matthew 5:18, but his human mind could not accept the idea that the apographs (ie, copies of the originals) could be infallible and inerrant. It ought to be noted that Alexander’s preserved text manifested no less than 60,000 scribal errors, but in his opinion, these did not affect doctrine in any way.² In his inaugural sermon at his installation as Princeton’s first professor of theology, he spoke positively of textual criticism, and posited the theory of conceptual preservation: "For though the serious mind is at first astonished and confounded, upon being informed of the multitude of various readings … yet it is relieved, when on careful examination, it appears that not more than one of a hundred of these, makes the slightest variation in the sense, and that the whole of them do not materially affect one important fact or doctrine."³

Alexander saw no contradiction between his opinion of scribal errors in the texts that he had in his hands and the Westminster Confession’s affirmation of the divine preservation of Scripture because he considered the perfection of the autographs and the purity of the apographs to concern merely doctrine and not words. In other words, these scribal errors do not affect any vital doctrine of the Christian faith, and there is no trouble even in seeing that God could have "inspired" these scribal errors in the lost autographs and that these same scribal errors could have been "preserved" in the apographs the church now has in her hands. It appears that Alexander had no qualms admitting that the autographs were not inerrant for he wrote, "it is even possible that some of the autographs, if we had them, might not be altogether free from such errors as arise from the slip of the pen, as the apostles [had] amanuens[es] who were not inspired."⁴

The case of Alexander shows that a rejection of verbal preservation in favour of conceptual preservation could lead ultimately to a denial of verbal inspiration and inerrancy of the Holy Scriptures. This was clearly what happened to Bart Ehrman (PhD, Princeton Theological Seminary) who had Bruce Metzger—Princeton’s George L Collord Professor of New Testament Language and Literature, Emeritus, but known also as "Bible Butcher"⁵—for his mentor. In his book Misquoting Jesus, Ehrman testified how a Bible filled with scribal errors today became a problem for him:

If one wants to insist that God inspired the very words of scripture, what would be the point if we don’t have the very words of scripture? … It’s a bit hard to know what the words of the Bible mean if we don’t even know what the words are!

This became a problem for my view of inspiration, for I came to realize that it would have been no more difficult for God to preserve the words of scripture than it would have been for him to inspire them in the first place. If he wanted his people to have his words, surely he would have given to them (and possibly even given them the words in a language they could understand, rather than Greek and Hebrew). The fact that we don’t have the words surely must show, I reasoned, that he did not preserve them for us. And if he didn’t perform that miracle, there seemed to be no reason to think that he performed the earlier miracle of inspiring those words.⁶

It is significant to note that Ehrman began as a fundamentalist in Moody Bible Institute, but eventually succumbed to the "dark side" when he went to Princeton where he came under the mentorship of textual-critical Vader—Bruce Metzger—whom he calls his "Doctor-Father."⁷

If you adopt one of these false views of the providential preservation of Scriptures, then you are logically on your way toward the denial of the infallible inspiration of the Scriptures. For if God has preserved the Scriptures so carelessly, why would he have infallibly inspired them in the first place? It is not sufficient therefore merely to say that you believe in the doctrine of the special, providential preservation of holy Scriptures. You must really believe this doctrine and allow it to guide your thinking. You must begin with Christ and the Gospel and proceed according to the logic of faith. This will lead you to the Traditional text, the Textus Receptus, and the King James Version, in other words, to the common faith.⁸

Charles Hodge was exposed to textual criticism when he studied in Germany from 1826 to 1828. Despite his studies in textual criticism and his knowledge of textual variants among the manuscripts, Hodge was careful not to engage in any form of conjectural emendation of the Biblical text which he considered to be wholly illegitimate. He urged rightly, "it would be exceedingly injurious as every critic would think himself authorized to make alterations and thus certainty and authority of S.S. [sacred Scripture] would be destroyed."⁹ Despite the textual critical theories he learned in Germany which sought to dethrone the Textus Receptus at that time, Hodge stuck to it and recognised its authenticity.¹⁰

Although Charles Hodge upheld the Textus Receptus, he did not defend it vigorously enough, and did not warn against the rationalistic textual critical views that were emerging out of Germany. He was contented with an essentially infallible but not totally inerrant Scripture for he admits that "the Scriptures do contain, in a few instances, discrepancies which with our present means of knowledge, we are unable satisfactorily to explain."¹¹

It was left to Hodge’s son, C W Hodge, to pave the way for German-style textual criticism in Princeton Seminary. C W Hodge found no point addressing the inspiration of Scripture if the extant manuscripts were full of textual variations and scribal errors. He asked, "What are we to say of verbal inspiration when the Church cannot agree as to the words of the text?" He had accumulated no less than 120,000 textual variants (double that of Alexander) and even dismissed the Trinitarian text of 1 John 5:7 to be unworthy of Scripture. His rejection of 1 John 5:7 was due to Griesbach’s dictum that "all readings favouring orthodoxy were to be immediately regarded as suspect."¹² (As noted above, this is also the textual critical mindset and method of Bart Ehrman.) Agreeing with Westcott and Hort, Hodge also rejected the authenticity of the last 12 verses of Mark (Mark 16:9-20) and the pericope de adultera (John 7:53-8:11).

The Reformation cry of Sola Scriptura as the supreme and final authority of the Christian faith and life has always been understood to mean the infallible and inerrant Scriptures believers had in their possession. The Scripture that the Reformers accepted as infallible and inerrant were not the autographs but the apographs, and the preserved apographs had all the very words and passages (last 12 verses of Mark, pericope de adultera, Johannine comma, etc) which textual critical scholars today, following Griesbach, Westcott and Hort, say are not Scripture at all.¹³

By original texts, we do not mean the autographs written by the hand of Moses, of the prophets and the apostles, which certainly do not now exist. We mean their apographs which are so called because they set forth to us the word of God in the very words of those who wrote under the immediate inspiration of the Holy Spirit.¹⁴

Now, B B Warfield came into the scene two centuries later and changed all that by introducing his new theory of Sola Autographa, that the inerrancy of the Scriptures resides only in the autographs, the very first scripts written by the original authors themselves.¹⁵ By so doing, he could straddle himself quite comfortably between the liberal and conservative camps. He would have had no qualms agreeing with the liberals who pounded on self-claimed "evidence" and "reason" that the Bible was indeed erroneous with many mistakes whether intentional or unintentional, divine or human. At the same time, he would have had no problems affirming with the conservatives that the Bible was truly inerrant because he thought of the Bible’s inerrancy only in terms of its autographs which of course no longer exist, and thus the inerrancy of autographs was really a matter of Faith and not Reason, end of discussion!

Princeton’s less than perfect view of the verbal and plenary preservation of the Scriptures came full circle when Warfield accepted without question the textual critical theory and method of Westcott and Hort. Warfield promoted the critical text of Westcott and Hort soon after it appeared in 1881.¹⁶ Princeton historian David Calhoun was correct to note that Warfield’s "positive attitude toward textual criticism influenced many to appreciate the science and to value the new translations of the Bible based upon its work."¹⁷

Letis observed that it was Warfield’s employment of German higher criticism and Westcott-Hort’s lower (textual) criticism that led him to reject the authenticity of age-old Bible passages like Mark 16:9-20.¹⁸ Like Westcott and Hort, Warfield accepted the "conjectural emendation" (ie, speculative correction) of the Scriptures.¹⁹ Warfield and all the higher and lower critics were thus advocating that the Bible the Church had been using throughout the centuries contained non-inspired and extra-scriptural material which God never gave and never intended His people to read! Did the Church Fathers and the Reformers all misquote Jesus, reading from the wrong Bible? God forbid!

Let it not be said that thus we found the whole Christian system upon the doctrine of plenary inspiration. … Inspiration is not the most fundamental of Christian doctrines, nor even the first thing we prove about the Scriptures. … ‘without any inspiration we could have had Christianity; yea, and men could still have heard the truth and through it been awakened, and justified, and sanctified, and glorified … even had we no Bible; …’²⁰

Warfield’s dichotomy of Faith and Reason became the philosophical noose that slowly but surely strangled and finally shook and scandalised the very foundations of Christianity which are Christ’s full deity and the Bible’s absolute authority.²¹ Such a naturalistic and compromised approach to the Holy Scriptures and the Christian Faith introduced by Warfield has left believers utterly vulnerable and practically defenceless to 20th and 21st century assaults on their Lord and His Word by the Modern Versions, The DaVinci Code and the Gnostic Gospels.²²

These differences call for precision in stating the biblical doctrine. Formerly all that was necessary to affirm one’s belief in full inspiration was the statement, "I believe in the inspiration of the Bible." But when some did not extend inspiration to the words of the text it became necessary to say, "I believe in the verbal inspiration of the Bible." To counter the teaching that not all parts of the Bible were inspired, one had to say, "I believe in the verbal, plenary inspiration of the Bible." Then because some did not want to ascribe total accuracy to the Bible, it was necessary to say, "I believe in the verbal, plenary, infallible, inerrant inspiration of the Bible." But then "infallible" and "inerrant" began to be limited to matters of faith only rather than also embracing all that the Bible records (including historical facts, genealogies, accounts of Creation, etc.), so it became necessary to add the concept of "unlimited inerrancy." Each addition to the basic statement arose because of an erroneous teaching.²³

… All these, and similar modes of expression with which the Scriptures abound, imply that the words uttered were the words of God. …The words of the prophet were the words of God, or he could not be God’s spokesman and mouth. It has also been shown that in the most formally didactic passage in the whole Bible on this subject (1 Cor. ii. 10-13), the Apostle expressly asserts that the truths revealed by the Spirit, he communicated in words taught by the Spirit.²⁴

Following the old but inadequate Princeton tradition, Presbyterian denominations and organisations have by and large affirmed merely the Scripture’s "plenary inspiration" but not its "verbal and plenary inspiration." This is not to deny that some do indeed believe in verbal inspiration even without affirming the same. Nevertheless, the modernist/neo-evangelical versus fundamentalist battle for the Bible has so well developed the doctrine of the Bible that "verbal inspiration" has become an indispensable term for Biblical inerrancy in 20^th century conservative evangelical and fundamental theology.²⁵ As such the doctrinal constitution or statements of faith of certain Bible-believing and Bible-defending churches or councils might require a much needed updating for the sake of clarity and precision in stating this Biblical truth.

Pastors Charles Seet and Colin Wong, and others, in their paper, "Preserving Our Godly Path," opposed the Verbal Plenary Preservation of the Holy Scriptures by quoting Rowland Ward, a minister of the Presbyterian Church of Eastern Australia, who argued against verbal preservation and denounced the Textus Receptus as the best exemplar of the preserved text.²⁶ Ward believes that the Bible is infallible and inerrant to the "jot and tittle" only in the autographs, but denies that it is so infallible and inerrant in the apographs. Despite the Westminster Confession’s quotation of Matthew 5:18, Ward simplistically and illogically dismisses the special providential—"jot and tittle"—preservation of the Holy Scriptures supposing that

Matthew 5:18 (the jot and tittle passage) is not referring to the transmission of the text of Scripture but to the authority of God’s claims upon us. The transmission of Scripture is not such that the sources have been preserved with exactness in any particular manuscript but, as Owen noted, in all the manuscripts. And we cannot say that providence has preserved only some manuscripts since providence extends to all events and thus to the preservation of all the manuscripts. Nor can we say that providence tells us which manuscripts are the best ones: only manuscript comparison and analysis can do that. In short, "pure" does not mean "without any transcriptional errors" but it means something like "without loss of doctrines and with the text preserved in the variety of manuscripts."²⁷

Several fallacious claims have been posited by Ward in his statement above. First, Ward claims that Matthew 5:18 concerns the authority and not the transmission of Scripture. This is a logical fallacy. The authority of Scripture is inextricably bound to its transmission and preservation by providentia extraordinaria or supernatural providence. The promise of the divine preservation of the inspired words of God to its last jot and tittle is true (unless one cares to spiritualise or explain away the Biblical text which is often the convenient route of escape by many who do not wish to face the truths of God’s Word plainly and literally due to certain preconceived ideas or views). Equally significant is the Westminster Confession’s employment of Matthew 5:18 as proof text for its statement on the special providential preservation of the Scriptures, highlighting in particular the Bible’s authenticity and not merely its authority: "The Old Testament in Hebrew … and the New Testament in Greek … being immediately inspired by God, and, by His singular care and providence, kept pure in all ages, are therefore authentical."²⁸ On the meaning of the word "authentical," J S Candlish rightly commented,

It is obvious that, as the question here is as to the text of Scripture, the word authentic is used, not in the modern sense in which it has been employed by many … as meaning historically true, but in its more literal sense, attested as a correct copy of the author’s work.²⁹

Now this affirms that the Hebrew text of the Old Testament and the Greek of the New which was known to the Westminster divines was immediately inspired by God because it was identical with the first text that God had kept pure in all ages. The idea that there are mistakes in the Hebrew Masoretic texts or in the Textus Receptus of the New Testament was unknown to the authors of the Confession of Faith.³⁰

Second, Ward errs when he says that preservation must be in "all the manuscripts" without distinction or discrimination. The fact is not all manuscripts are pure or uncorrupted. There exist manuscripts that show a corrupt hand. Dean J W Burgon had proven without doubt the corruptions that abound in the Alexandrian manuscripts of Westcott and Hort which he summarily dismissed as the "most scandalously corrupt copies extant."³¹ Thankfully, by God’s special providence, these corruptions or corrupted manuscripts are in the minority. The majority of Greek manuscripts belonging to the Byzantine Text and the Textus Receptus display essentially the same readings.

Third, Ward holds to a rather uncertain or agnostic view of divine providence which allows for the preservation of only the doctrines of the Christian Faith but not the very words of Holy Scripture that God had originally breathed out (theopneustos, 2 Tim 3:16). In other words, he denies verbal preservation in favour of conceptual preservation. But this is again not only biblically but also logically untenable, for how can there be doctrines or concepts without the words to explain or express them. Ward cited Owen, but for sure the distinguished puritan theologian did not advocate conceptual preservation over against verbal preservation as Ward would have us believe. Owen clearly believed in the preservation of the words of Scripture (ie, verbal preservation), not just the doctrines (ie, conceptual preservation), for he wrote, "Nor is it enough to satisfy us, that the doctrines mentioned are preserved entire; every tittle and iota in the Word of God must come under our care and consideration, as being, as such, from God."³²

In the 21^st century Reformation movement, the Lord has raised a number of Christ-honouring institutions to take a declared position on the Biblical doctrine of the Verbal Plenary Preservation of Scriptures and to promote the Hebrew Masoretic Text and the Greek Textus Receptus underlying the Authorised or King James Bible.

We the International Council of Christian Churches meeting in Jerusalem, 8-14 November 2000 strongly urge the churches in their pulpits and people at large, to continue to use the time honoured and faithful longer translations and not the new shorter versions that follow in too many places the short eclectic texts. These are very similar to the shorter Westcott and Hort texts that remove or cast doubt on so many passages and words. Furthermore we are not against new versions as such but believe all true and faithful versions must be based on the traditional longer texts that the Holy Spirit preserved through the early century versions, the early church fathers and the faithful Textus Receptus.³³

"The Trinitarian Bible Society Statement of Doctrine of the Holy Scripture" approved by the General Committee at its meeting held on 17^th January 2005, and revised 25^th February 2005 declares:

The Greek Received Text is the name given to a group of printed texts, the first of which was published by Desiderius Erasmus in 1516. The Society believes that the latest and best edition is the text reconstructed by F.H.A. Scrivener in 1894. This text was reconstructed from the Greek underlying the New Testament of the Authorised Version.³⁴

We believe that all the verses in the King James Version belong in the Old and the New Testaments because they represent words we believe were in the original texts, although there might be other renderings from the original languages which could also be acceptable to us today. For an exhaustive study of any of the words or verses in the Bible, we urge the student to return directly to the Traditional Masoretic Hebrew Text and the Traditional Received Greek Text rather than to any other translation for help.³⁵

We uphold the Authorised (King James) Version to be the Word of God — the best, most faithful, most accurate, most beautiful translation of the Bible in the English language, and do employ it alone as our primary scriptural text in the public reading, preaching, and teaching of the English Bible.³⁶

¹ Evangelical Dictionary of Theology, sv "Alexander, Archibald," "Hodge, Charles," "Warfield, Benjamin Breckinridge," by M A Noll.

² Theodore Letis, The Ecclesiastical Text, 2^nd ed (Philadelphia: Institute for Renaissance and Reformation Biblical Studies, 2000), 6.

³ Quoted by David Cloud, Faith Versus the Modern Bible Versions (Port Huron: Way of Life, 2005), 309.

⁴ Letis, The Ecclesiastical Text, 6, quoting Lefferts A Loetscher, Facing the Enlightenment and Pietism (Westport: Greenwood Press, 1983), 228.

⁵ A title he earned for being the General Editor of the Reader’s Digest Bible.

⁶ Bart D Ehrman, Misquoting Jesus (New York: HarperCollins, 2005), 11.

⁷ Ibid, "Acknowledgments." Ehrman dedicated his book to Metzger.

⁸ E F Hills, Believing Bible Study (Des Moines: Christian Research Press, 1977), 216-20.

⁹ Quoted by Letis, The Ecclesiastical Text, 8.

¹⁰ Charles Hodge, "Law of Criticism of the New Testament," as cited by Letis, The Ecclesiatical Text, 9.

¹¹ Charles Hodge, Systematic Theology (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1986 reprint), 1:170.

¹² Letis, The Ecclesiastical Text, 11.

¹³ See Bruce Metzger, The Text of the New Testament: Its Transmission, Corruption, and Restoration, 3^rd enlarged ed (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992), 119-146; Kurt Aland and Barbara Aland, The Text of the New Testament: An Introduction to the Critical Editions and to the Theory and Practice of Modern Textual Criticism (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1987), 3-35; J Harold Greenlee, Introduction to New Testament Textual Criticism (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1964), 78-95; Daniel Wallace, "Inspiration, Preservation, and New Testament," in New Testament Essays: In Honor of Homer A Kent Jr, ed Gary Meadors (Winona Lake: BMH, 1991), 69-102.

¹⁴ Francis Turretin, Institutes of Elenctic Theology (Phillipsburg: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1992 reprint), 1:106, emphasis mine. See also Robert Barnett, "Francis Turretin on the Holy Scriptures," a paper presented at the annual meeting of the Dean Burgon Society held at Calvary Baptist Church, Ontario, Canada, in 1995 (http://www.deanburgonsociety.org/Preservation/barnett95.htm, accessed on June 4, 2006).

¹⁵ See Theodore Letis, "B B Warfield, Common-Sense Philosophy and Biblical Criticism," in Edward Freer Hills’s Contribution to the Revival of the Ecclesiastical Text (Philadelphia: Institute for Renaissance and Reformation Biblical Studies, 1987), 62-89; Jeffrey Khoo, "Sola Autographa or Sola Apographa: A Case for the Present Perfection and Authority of the Holy Scriptures," The Burning Bush 11 (2005): 3-19; American Presbyterian Church, "B B Warfield and the Doctrine of Inspiration," in http://www.americanpresbyterianchurch.org/inspiration.htm; and "B B Warfield and the Reformation Doctrine of the Providential Preservation of the Biblical Text," in http://www.americanpresbyterianchurch.org/preservation.htm, accessed on June 1, 2006.

¹⁶ Warfield, in his review of the textual critical theory and text of Westcott and Hort, wrote, "We cannot doubt but that the leading principles of method which they have laid down will meet with speedy universal acceptance. They furnish us for the first time with a really scientific method." Presbyterian Review 3 (1882): 355. Letis has rightly judged that Warfield’s glowing review of the Westcott-Hort Critical theory and text "would forever endear it to conservatives in the United States." The Ecclesiastical Text, 17.

¹⁷ David B Calhoun, Princeton Seminary: The Majestic Testimony 1869-1929 (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1996), 113-4.

¹⁸ Letis, The Ecclesiastical Text, 19. For a most excellent defence of the authenticity of Mark 16:9-20, read J W Burgon, The Last Twelve Verses of the Gospel According to S Mark Vindicated against Recent Critical Objectors and Established (Oxford: James Parker and Co, 1871), which has been reprinted by the Dean Burgon Society (www.deanburgonsociety.org).

¹⁹ Warfield wrote, "It may be said here, again, that thus a wide door is opened for the entrance of deceitful dealing with the Word of Life. The danger is apparent and imminent. But we cannot arbitrarily close the door lest we incur the same charge." Presbyterian Review 3 (1882): 347-8, as cited in Letis, The Ecclesiastical Text, 19.

²⁰ Benjamin Breckinridge Warfield, The Inspiration and Authority of the Bible (Phillipsburg: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1948), 210-1.

²¹ The inconsistency of B B Warfield in separating Faith and Reason in his theological method was ably exposed by E F Hills, "A History of My Defence of the King James Bible," The Burning Bush 4 (1998): 99-105. For an excellent synopsis and analysis of modernism, rationalism, and naturalistic textual criticism, read Hills’s, The King James Version Defended (Des Moines: Christian Research Press, 1984), 62-86. This book is now available online without charge: go to http://www.john3-16.connectfree.co.uk/efhills/efhills index.html.

²² For a Bible-based and faith-based defence of the Christian Faith and Scripture against Dan Brown’s attack on the Canon of Scripture through The DaVinci Code, and Princeton’s assault on the traditional text and the Textus Receptus through the Critical Text of Bruce Metzger et al, and the promotion of the Gnostic Gospels by Elaine Pagels, see my papers, "The Blasphemy and Deception of The DaVinci Code" (co-authored with Suan-Yew Quek), The Burning Bush 12 (2006): 14-24; "The Judas Gospel: Bad News of Betrayal," Faith and Freedom (May 2006): 2, 11, 12. Both articles are available online at www.febc.edu.sg.

²³ Charles C Ryrie, Basic Theology (Wheaton: Victor Books, 1986), 67.

²⁴ Charles Hodge, Systematic Theology (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1986 reprint), 1:164-5.

²⁵ See Quek Suan Yew, "Biblical Polemics: A Critical Analysis of Four Major Modern Religious Movements Which Contribute to the Ultimate Formation of the One World Church in the Light of Historic Fundamentalist Theology," unpublished ThD dissertation, Far Eastern Bible College, 2005.

²⁶ Charles Seet and Colin Wong, et al, "Preserving Our Godly Path," a paper presented to the Sunday School of Life Bible-Presbyterian Church on December 1, 2002. See amended version published in http://www.lifefebc.com/ourstand/godlypath.htm (accessed on June 1, 2006) against believers who seek to preserve godly paths by affirming the divine preservation of all the godly words in the original Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek language Scriptures underlying the Reformation Bibles best represented by the Authorised or King James Version, and denounce the corrupt Alexandrian or Westcott-Hort text underlying the modern Bible versions.

²⁷ Rowland S Ward, "Recent Criticisms of the Westminster Confession of Faith," in http://spindleworks.com/library/wcf/ward.htm#c, accessed on June 1, 2006.

²⁸ The Westminster Confession of Faith, 1:8.

²⁹ J S Candlish, "The Doctrine of the Westminster Confession on Scripture," as quoted in Theodore Letis, The Majority Text (Philadelphia: Institute for Renaissance and Reformation Biblical Studies, 1987), 174, emphasis mine.

³⁰ William F Orr, "The Authority of the Bible as Reflected in the Proposed Confession of 1967," as quoted in Letis, The Majority Text, 174, emphasis mine.

³¹ J W Burgon, The Revision Revised (Collingswood: Dean Burgon Society, 1883), 16.

³² Quoted in Jeffrey Khoo, "John Owen on the Perfect Bible," The Burning Bush 10 (2004): 77.

³³ "ICCC 16^th World Congress Statements," Far Eastern Beacon 32:7 (Christmas 2000):14, and cited by Jeffrey Khoo, Kept Pure in All Ages: Recapturing the Authorised Version and the Doctrine of Providential Preservation (Singapore: FEBC Press, 2001), 126-7. For a historical overview of Dr Carl McIntire’s significant contribution to the defence of the historic Christian Faith, the infallibility and inerrancy of the Scriptures, and the reliability of King James Bible in the Bible Presbyterian Church, read Mrs Frank Mood, "The Bible Presbyterian Church and Dr Carl McIntire," in The McIntire Memorial (Seoul: Truth & Freedom Publishing Co, 2005), 117-125.

³⁴ "Statement of Doctrine of Holy Scripture," 10-11. For the complete document, go to www.trinitarianbiblesociety.com/site/qr/qr571.pdf. See also the Society’s online articles at http://www.trinitarianbiblesociety.org/site/onlinearticles.asp.

³⁵ Dean Burgon Society, "Articles of Faith, Operation & Organization," as adopted at the Organisational Meeting at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, November 3-4, 1978 (http://www.deanburgonsociety.org/DBS_Society/articles.htm, accessed on June 27, 2006). See also D A Waite, "The Dean Burgon Society Deserves Its Name: Ten Reasons Why," at http://www.deanburgonsociety.org/DBS_Society/deserves.htm, accessed on June 27, 2006.

³⁶ "Statement of Faith," Far Eastern Bible College Prospectus (2005-2009): 11. For FEBC’s defence of the Verbal Plenary Preservation of the Holy Scriptures and the King James Bible, go to http://www.febc.edu.sg/Doctrine of Perfect Preservation.htm.

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