- I recently talked to Isaac Dagneau of Back to the Bible Canada’s InDoubt podcast about English Bible Translations. Give a listen!
- I’d like to ask something I never have: would some of you, blog audience, be willing to pray just once for me as I go on another podcast this week? I’ll be on John McWhorter’s Lexicon Valley Friday morning (release date is later) to talk about my new book, Authorized: The Use and Misuse of the King James Bible. John is a hero of mine, the best popularizer I know in any field, and a public intellectual in his spare time. He’s also not a believer in Christ, and I am praying for wisdom and discretion, because it is possible/likely that I will have to explain briefly why my book was necessary: namely because of disagreements among Christian brothers. I want to obey 1 Corinthians 6:1–8 and focus on the nerdy linguistics stuff; I don’t want to throw any fellow believers under any buses. I won’t do it.
Review: Comanche Empire
The Comanche Empire by Pekka Hämäläinen This excellent book does what modern history is supposed to do nowadays: it gives a voice to the voiceless and the marginalized; it gives agency to the victims. And yet you can’t always predict what will happen when you go...
Praying.
Ditto!
Thank you, friends.
I’m not sure I understand why 1 Corinthians 6:1-8 would enjoin you to not be critical of KJV-only folks on McWhorter’s show (unless you’re also squeezing in some kind of legal arbitration while you record). Could you explain?
I’m expanding on the principle a bit, making an inference (one Paul admittedly doesn’t make) that one of the reasons Paul forbids taking other Christians to court is that it will “cause the Gentiles to blaspheme” as it were. I feel pressed to defend Christian truth against other Christians in the public square only when the viewpoints of those Christians have reached the public square. I’m not sure how much KJV-Onlyism has. I’d like to keep the debate intramural as long as I can. In particular, I don’t want any secular listener concluding something like, “That crazy Religious Right doesn’t even understand their own Bible!” That may in some cases be true, but pretty much all of the misunderstandings the KJV causes for modern readers are minor and don’t affect doctrine—I don’t want to imply otherwise. Make sense?
My book talks about some fun and nerdy English-language stuff that is right up McWhorter’s alley.
Come Friday morning, I’ll be praying.
Praying for wisdom for you!
Hmmm. I don’t think the point of Romans 2:24 is to suggest that Christians should avoid exposing hypocrisy lest unbelievers find out about it and think badly of the faith. Rather, I read it as an injunction to not be hypocritical because even the ungodly despise hypocrites.
I do wish you the best on Friday. You might be right that KJV-Onlyism would be a bit too “inside baseball,” but I wouldn’t underestimate his audience.
You’re making more of my thinking come out of the warrens in which it has been hidden: I think we have to make careful distinctions among several KJV-Only groups: 1) there are *wolves* who are sinfully teaching false bibliological doctrine (Ruckman); 2) there are *sheep* who are teaching confused and/or false bibliology and yet ought to know better (I’d put R.B. Ouellette and his *A More Sure Word* in this category, for example); 3) there are sheep who are sinfully caught up in nastiness and divisiveness; 4) there are godly sheep who are manifesting the fruit of the Spirit and just following what their pastor told them in believing that the KJV is best. I prefer to believe, and I do believe, that most KJV-Only folks fall in category 4. I do believe that many of them are committing the little sin of sipping a drop of Kool-Aid: it’s wrong to let someone tell you, as R.B. Ouellette said in his book, that the KJV is easier to read than the modern versions. But it’s not a really bad sin until you land in category 3. If I went after category 4 harshly and publicly, that would make me a bully, and by outing both their sins and mine (that of being harsh) I’d cause the Gentiles to blaspheme. It’s like King Loon’s comment to Prince Corin in The Horse and His Boy, “Never taunt a man save when he is stronger than you: then, as you please.” These are not scholars who should know better; they’re sheep who are doing many other things right but have a blind spot. In my book I do not hit anyone hard; I appeal and entreat. I don’t want to change, or be tempted to change, that approach.
Now the whole world of people who ever find this on the Internet can see my secret strategy.
Now can I use 1 Cor 6? =)
I just got off the podcast, and it was super, super fun. I believe the Lord answered my prayers (and yours, dear readers, with a yes). Comes out Tuesday!