FEBC

Revisionism Ancient and Modern

S H Tow

God had spoken: His Word standeth sure, forever settled, inerrant, infallible, perfect. Who dare doubt or question it but the father of lies and enemy of truth. His master stroke “Yea, hath God said?” stumbled our first parents and plunged the race into sorrow and curse.

That was revisionism of the spoken word at the dawn of history.

In time God gave the Written Word: holy men of God wrote as they were moved by the Holy Ghost. That Word was denied to God’s people by unfaithful custodians, until God sent the Reformation and the Bible of the Reformation—the King James Version (KJV)—to lift the darkness of a thousand years.

Lovers and defenders of the KJV affirm with Dean Burgon of Oxford that

The Bible is none other than the voice of Him that sitteth upon the throne. Every book of it, every chapter of it, every verse of it, every syllable of it, every letter of it, is direct utterance of the Most High. The Bible is none other than the Word of God, not some part of it more, some part of it less, but all alike the utterance of Him that sitteth upon the throne, faultless, unerring, supreme.

Through three centuries, the KJV reigned supreme, the unchallenged and unrivalled Word of God. But the enemy of truth, with diabolical cunning and subtlety, schemed its overthrow through a “Committee of Revision” headed by Westcott and Hort, masterminds of subversion and champions of corrupted and doctored texts.

Their “Revised Version” of 1881, a masterpiece of intrigue, and “secret weapon” of the Counter-Reformation, breached the dike of Holy Scripture, and a hundred corrupt “Modern English Versions” poured through the floodgate of Revisionism. In the century following, corrupt versions had all but replaced the King James Bible.

Thank God, it was all but: He has yet a valiant remnant who stand against the tide of corrupt English Versions, like the faithful seven thousand in Israel (1 Kgs 19:18), their knees have not bowed before the Baal of Modern Revisionism.

This Twenty-first Century “Battle of the Versions” intensifies as the father of lies uses every wily stratagem to overthrow the citadel of Biblical fundamentalism, hurling false accusations against the beloved translation and the underlying texts.

But we affirm our unshakable faith in the KJV as the very Word of God—the best, most faithful, most accurate, most beautiful translation of the Bible in the English language that is based on God’s infallible, inerrant, inspired and preserved texts.

May all who love the Word of God affirm with the Scripture, that “the law of the LORD is perfect, converting the soul: the testimony of the LORD is sure, making wise the simple” (Ps 19:7), and that “All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: That the man of God may be perfect, throughly furnished unto all good works” (2 Tim 3:16, 17).

Let God be true but every man a liar. God’s Word is truth. Only the KJV and its underlying texts preserve that truth perfectly.


Dr S H Tow is senior pastor of Calvary Bible-Presbyterian Church, and author of Beyond Versions. The above is taken from the Preface of KJV Q&A: Answers to Frequently Asked Questions About the KJV and its Underlying Texts.

Published in The Burning Bush, Volume 9 Number 2, July 2003.